Intensifying Hurricane Helene’s destructive force is the substitution of genuine infrastructure with anti-development, environmentalist policy, which masquerades as infrastructure, that left many North Carolinian—and other states’—towns and cities more defenseless against the flood.
In 2021, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, who has been Governor since 2017, included in the state budget, funding for “nature-based stormwater management and resilience planning programs.” This was supported by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and other environmentalist groups. The Pew Charitable Trust drew up a 28-page “Action Plan for Nature-Based Stormwater Strategies,” as a guide for legislation. Of the Plan’s “Six Guiding Principles,” the second one states, “Nature-based storm water strategies are a cost effective and sustainable way to reduce flooding and improve water quality when sited and designed correctly.” So, for example, the report shows a picture of a slight depression dug into a sidewalk, into which plants are placed. The idea: stormwater will run into this area, and the plants will absorb this water. There are larger arrangements of the same type, placed outside of towns and cities, all totally useless. This is to replace heavier infrastructure which actually works. The net effect: this environmentally sustainable arrangement diverts desperately needed money away from the workable infrastructure, which is left to wither.
At the same time, the eco-fascist American Rivers Foundation (ARF), led the tearing down of 80 essential dams across the United States in 2023, as part of a plan to tear down 30,000 dams in the United States over the next few decades. This is being implemented in North Carolina. In 2017, the Milburnie Dam on the Neuse River was removed from outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, to allow fish like the American Shad and Striped Bass to migrate up the river. Other North Carolina dams that were blown up to make way for fish or salamander, or to give rivers “more freedom,” are: the Quaker Neck Dam, the Sches Mill Dam, the Ela Dam, the Shulls Mill Dam. This strips away dams’ protective features, making flooding more lethal.
