- [Kelly] Locals begin weighing in on possible casinos in their counties and are new nuclear power plants coming to North Carolina?

This is "State Lines".

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[triumphant orchestral music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines".

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, Cardinal & Pine Managing Editor Billy Ball, Representative Matthew Winslow of Franklin and Granville Counties, Guilford County Representative Ashton Clemmons, and Wilmington's morning news host, Nick Craig of "The WAAV", W-A-A-V. - There we go.

- There's my radio training.

Well, fast show.

We gotta get moving to the top story.

Let's talk about casinos.

A state budget deal is expected to be announced in September.

Right, Matthew?

- [Matthew] That's right.

- There you go.

That includes a likely legalization of some casinos in our state.

Right, Matthew?

[Matthew chuckling] Nevermind.

Rockingham County could be authorized to host one of four sites.

The commissioners there approved rezoning of 200 acres of land Monday night, a five-zero vote.

It's not so rumored, I should say, that state lawmakers will approve potential casinos, not only for Rockingham, but for Anson and Nash counties as well.

And the Lumbee tribe there along I-95 would receive an option as well, Billy Ball.

Games to be played, but first political games to be played.

What's happening out there in the grassroots with these casinos in these rural areas?

- I know that this is a statewide conversation happening, but what I see when I see this story is a local conversation.

And I came up for years covering local city councils, county commissions, and stuff like this.

Those folks are gonna be hearing directly from their constituents, quite directly after the meeting, about whether they love this or they don't.

Now, I get the sense they're already getting an earful about it from people who are eager about it.

I know they got concerns from their local law enforcement leaders.

I believe it was in Rockingham County that had those concerns.

But I think that, y'know, I think if the local community is behind it, okay.

I think you probably shouldn't promote this as something that's gonna rescue your economy, if that's how you look at it.

There are pitfalls to everything.

And so, like I said, I think that this is something that local county commissions are gonna be having some good public comments about.

- Representative Winslow, your counties are not, I don't think, subject, maybe one of them maybe?

I don't know, I don't know.

It's gotta be one of 40 and there's a lot of rules to who qualifies for a casino.

But let's talk about these four.

Your take on it.

What are you hearing in Raleigh?

- Well, I'll tell you.

So I used to represent Nash County with the redistricting.

Now, that was removed, but I'm in Franklin and Granville.

So there'll be a conversation about how it impacts my area also, right?

And so I'm in communication with local leaders and I think the biggest thing we should be talking about is what is the expectation?

Because you have Danville, Virginia, literally there are tents, you know, with slot machines and gambling tables.

And so no one really wants to see that in their backyard and so the expectation is what is actually gonna happen?

Is it gonna be a 20,000 square foot casino with hotels and then, y'know, a million square feet of commercial, you know, Sacks Fifth Avenue and that kind of stuff?

And so we need to have a better understanding, and that's what most of 'em are asking, is "what are we gonna get from this?"

Is it just slot machines or is it actually a true economic development indicator?

- Representative Clemmons, is it an economic engine for counties that could use jobs?

And no matter what, if a casino comes, it has to be millions of dollars in local impact, has to be!

- Certainly, you know, I think there will be local impact but I'm in Guilford, which is right below Rockingham County, and there were about 700 speakers against the casino coming to Rockingham County.

So as both Billy and Matthew have said, it's a local question on whether that's what they want.

But I really think a bigger question is when we have so many needs of our state budget that, y'know a quarter of our prisons, staff are open, our schools we have not able to open across the state, and this is the topic of the budget that we're spending this much time in energy on and whether we should put casinos across North Carolina?

So there's a lot of work to be done on the budget.

I worked on the sports betting bill and I can say after those conversations, I'm shocked that we would be discussing having casinos because there was such adamant resistance to even sports betting, which is so much smaller and more regulated.

So I guess we'll see what ends up happening, but there's a lot we still have to talk about in the budget besides casinos.

- Alright, Nick, down your way in Wilmington, looks like the Lumbee could open a casino at one or two sites there on I-95.

Short drive for folks at the beach.

- [Nick] Yeah, five minutes or so.

- What are you hearing down southeast?

- So there was a John Locke poll out this week.

It showed that 54% of North Carolinians would be interested in the general assembly passing law to go forward with legalized casinos.

But the more shocking number was that 75% of those same folks wanted it as a referendum item.

So the public is definitely... Now, they want it on referendum.

That doesn't mean they support it.

It means that they would like the ability to vote for it.

So it seems like there's some appetite for casinos in North Carolina.

It sounds like the public's interested.

- Well, we'll talk about it in the weeks ahead when we see the budget in a couple of weeks.

Duke Energy's carbon reduction plan now includes construction of modular advanced nuclear reactors.

They would replace at least one partial coal plant at the Blues Creek Steam Station.

Duke Energy is retiring its coal power plants and it could recommend a second modular reactor at another site.

Duke Energy's goal is to eliminate all coal-generated energy by 2035.

The company says they've reduced emissions by 44% over 2005 levels.

Matthew, nuclear, you know, used to be all green, you thought solar, you thought wind.

Now, that's a real proposal.

- It is and what's nice about, when you're talking about nuclear, we're talking about these small modular nuclear, right?

And so we're using less land.

The ROI is taking up less land to create more energy.

And I think they said the small modulars created something like 300 megawatts of energy.

That's a lot of power in one location.

And what's great about Blues Creek is that in that location, all the infrastructure's already there, the power lines, everything that you need.

We're replacing jobs, we're not just shutting it down, and so for, I think for a, it's not a one-to-one ratio what you're getting, it's actually a two to one ratio by going back with nuclear.

- Ashton, I would think you would hear more from people that are driven to the ballot box by environmental issues and concerns.

These new nuclear reactors and getting rid of coal, is it considered a fair trade from what you're hearing?

- Well, I think most people are supportive of making that shift.

You know, where I live, the coal ash bill was a big deal in the Dan River and people are still organized in Guilford and Rockingham and Stokes counties around that issue.

And what nuclear is offering, as Matthew said, is a safe, efficient, cleaner way.

It's the second largest renewable energy production across the country at this point.

And so I think activists who want to save the environment as well as folks in North Carolina who want economical and safe energy need to be able to support this moving forward and I hear that everywhere that I go.

- All right, Nick, nuclear power, it's on the horizon.

And it looks like Republicans and Democrats are shaking their head yes on this idea, at least in theory - I'd rather see nuclear on the horizon than a bunch of windmills off of the southeast coast.

- [Kelly] Why's that?

- The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this past week or a couple weeks ago, denied a couple of permits up in the northern half of North Carolina near the Virginia border.

And there's been a lot of questions about wind.

In the last couple of months, you've seen a lot of the stuff out of New Jersey and Virginia area and it doesn't appear, at least from what we've seen right now, that it is very cost effective to put these massive wind farms, those costs are up nearly 58% to build those offshore wind energy farms.

They're not super reliable.

The amount of energy they produce is not all that amazing.

And if we're gonna talk about renewable energy, we should be talking about nuclear.

- Tell us how you really feel Nick- - Absolutely.

- Billy, wind does work, I've heard the argument Nick makes, it's a little unreliable.

Nuclear's been there, they have it in the triangle, is it considered clean?

Is it considered a viable alternative to fossil fuel?

- You know, I'm not an expert in whether it's, I'm not the scientist who's gonna answer that question- - [Kelly] Just play one on TV.

- But here's what I play when I talk about this issue and about Duke Energy changing the way that it creates energy for us.

And that is that, I think about this as a parent and not as a politico or a politician and that is that, the next generations really need to see serious change in the way that we are doing things with Duke Energy and the way that we are getting our energy.

And I see it as either we can be the generation that makes hard choices, hard choices that might be unpopularsome, I know there are concerns about it driving up the utility bills for folks and that's totally understandable.

You know, we gonna be the ones who make those hard choices and do what we have to do to make the world more livable for my kids, for your kids, for the grandkids.

Or are we gonna close our eyes and ears.

- Well, we'll have to see in 25 or 30 years, Billy.

Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson told a Charlotte crowd that he should not be that person standing up on that stage saying, quote, "You can't have an abortion."

WFAE Radio, Nick, reported on Lieutenant Governor's comments to the Charlotte Rotary Club.

Mr. Robinson's remarks were an answer to a citizen's question about his professed support for a total abortion ban.

Mr. Robinson said he didn't remember saying that but did say a recent visit to a pregnancy center changed his opinion.

He says, pregnant women are best supported through one-on-one conversation and then should be given all the healthcare support they need to carry a pregnancy to term, Nick.

Is it a true change in tone or is it just one report out of Charlotte to a small crowd, the Charlotte Rotary Club?

- Well, I find it interesting that we're discussing banning abortion again when I was told based on some media coverage in the last couple of months, that it's already banned in the state of North Carolina.

There's billboards still running in Wilmington that show Republican lawmakers banning abortion.

So I find the conversation quite interesting.

Nikki Haley said something interesting during the GOP debate the other night.

She said, "Can't we all agree "that we're not gonna put a woman in jail "or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?"

And I thought that was a pretty interesting take from her.

It's a complicated issue, it's not something that anybody has the direct answer to, there's different opinions on every side.

It's a state issue now, Kelly, that's where it stands and it's gonna be the responsibility of the general assembly and whoever the next governor is to decide the policy in this state for how that happens.

- Billy, to Nick's point, at least Nikki Haley is on the national stage, we'll take this back home.

Mark Robinson has always spoken his mind and that does seem to be a little bit different.

I mean, we may hear from the campaign but what do you think?

- I would argue he hasn't always spoken his mind.

And I think on this, this is softening a position in order to become more electable as governor because it's a very unpopular position.

And to Nick's point, I think that when we talk about abortion bans, you know I'm not a person who can carry a child but to people who can carry a child, I think the types of laws that are being passed in North Carolina and across the country, they sure feel like a ban.

And they sure feel like they're gonna change the way that people who can carry children live and the choices that they make.

So as far as the Lieutenant Governor goes, I think we've seen all across the country and I think we'll see again in North Carolina that folks are not interested in these harsh abortion bans and there's been a backlash in multiple states.

We haven't seen it yet in North Carolina, I think 2024 is gonna be extraordinarily interesting to see what happens with Gen Z voters if we see the kind of things that we saw in other states.

- Representative Winslow, who's likely to be the top of the ticket for Republicans in the gubernatorial race changes in a fundamental way, what does it do, down-ballot, what does it do to the tone of the primary debate as an issue?

- Well, I think for the most part that as a representative and either a senator which represents bigger districts, we go back to our home districts and that's who we respond to.

Mark, he's looking at the state as a whole, you know I can't speak for him but when you're looking at the state as a whole, you have to be respectful of what the state looks like because it varies greatly from the east of the West.

And so when I go back to my home district, I know what they expect.

I know for me personally, what I'm asked to do when I go back home.

- You know this is a man who's called abortion murder multiple times in the public space.

He has insinuated that doctors should have dire consequences if they are performing this medical procedure.

He's even gone so far as to say women, once they're pregnant, it's no longer their body.

So him backtracking and trying to moderate, the voters in North Carolina are smarter than that.

People across this country in red states, purple states and blue states, it is clear people do not support the unpopular opinion of taking medical decisions away for women.

So now of course, he's trying to backtrack on these topics but there are years of quotes and evidence on where he stands in supporting a total ban of abortion.

- So, and I believe that voters in North Carolina will see that.

How it plays out in 2024, I don't know, of course, but I do, I mean, I'm around women who are able to have children, suburban women all day every day, they are angry about what's happening in North Carolina.

They will pay attention and they will be involved in 2024, I feel confident in that.

- Well I think in 2022, relatively recently, voters made their voices pretty clear with sending a super majority back to the Senate.

One vote shy in the House, and then with Tricia Cotham's switch, now a super majority in the House.

So I think in some regard, voters have voiced their opinions and concerns on it.

- Alright.

North Carolina law allows public schools to start classes this Monday, August 28th.

But that hasn't stopped several school districts from starting earlier this month.

A 2004 state law aimed at one time to preserve traditional public school summer vacations by mandating that all schools open in late August.

This year, at least six districts started school in early to mid-August.

The state superintendent says the law doesn't allow her or her team to enforce the law.

Republican leaders, Ashton, are even split on having the state come down on local school boards to tell them how to set their calendars.

You are a principal.

I have to hand this to you first.

Your thoughts.

- Yes.

Well this, I'm excited to say is a bipartisan supported issue that we believe, many of us believe, that local school boards and local school leaders should be making this decision.

We have passed in my five years in the General Assembly dozens of bipartisan bills through the House to give local control.

Matthew was just saying it was one of the first things he heard about when he was elected from his districts, rural districts, urban districts, local folks should be making their calendar decisions, and it's in the academic best interest of children that they're aligned.

- [Kelly] Alright, Matthew?

- Yeah, first thing I heard was we would like to have flexibility in our calendar.

And when you and we come in and they say, "Do this for us."

And I come in, I'm the new guy in my first session, I'm like, "Yeah, we're gonna make this happen."

"We're gonna get- Why not?

This is for my local district, and local bills are generally treated differently in the General Assembly.

You know, we don't mess with 'em, we don't change 'em.

We may ask somebody if we can make some amendments along with it, but generally it passes through both chambers, no questions asked.

That specific issue, it gets halted every time it goes from the House and into the Senate.

It goes into a box, and it never comes out, with no explanation other than the Senate does not wanna move the calendar.

You know, and so for us, my school board would like to make changes because it works better for my district.

'Cause remember, all districts are different.

- Billy, are we harming the processes of government when local school boards just flout state law, where they, you know, they don't like the law so you just don't follow it?

- I've never seen anything like what we're seeing with local school boards doing this.

I totally understand their decisions, but I've never seen anything like that.

That said, I agree with the folks who've already talked about this being a local issue, and I'll bring it back, I think, to the academic research as well.

And one thing that we see when we look at academic research is that for particularly children from low income homes, shorter summers tend to cut off learning loss during the summer.

So there are academic benefits to this as well.

And I know we're weighing it against tourism, but there are academic benefits for some folks to this.

So I can see why schools and education leaders would say we need to be thinking about that when we make our calendar choices.

- Yeah, Nick, the House as bipartisan wants in a bipartisan fashion, we'd like to give local school boards back their freedom, but the Senate's a different story and the leadership there has a different opinion.

Fair enough that the Senate would have a different opinion on this?

- Sure.

Yeah, and I think the question you asked earlier, you've got schools now just in defiance of state law whether how stupid you think the law is or not, that sets a pretty dangerous precedent.

But particularly the thing that I find interesting about this school board debate is it's specifically is dealing with the break in the semester near Christmas.

Many students are having to take those Christmas exams on the other side of their Christmas break, two, three, four weeks after they finish the class.

You're not retaining- I don't even know what I ate for breakfast this morning.

- Yeah.

- Let alone what I learned three or four weeks ago.

So in terms of that, I think it's clear that the General Assembly needs to get something on this done.

- It's also really limiting.

I agree with that, totally.

And it's also really limiting the ability to be in early colleges with our community college system, our local universities, because their calendars start differently.

And so our school systems aren't able to offer these really great programs that North Carolina has been known for because of the calendar law.

- Why can't school boards and state legislators fix that part of it?

I mean, how hard is it to do finals before the holidays?

Every university and college in this state does it.

- Well, you have to have equal hours of your course.

And so when you can't start until August 28th, which is what's happening now, then you can't get the hours in you need before the break, and have equal hours from the first semester to the second semester.

- But you two can change it.

- We have tried, right?

[panelists murmur affirmatively] - You can change it.

- Our solution is waiting in the Senate.

Right, Matthew?

- Absolutely - Yes.

- Well, I'll give you a good real world example.

My brother, he has four boys and they're all step stool in ages, right?

And one of them is the oldest, and he is going into the early college program.

He had to start school three weeks earlier than his other brothers.

So then they had to make arrangements on how they were gonna do childcare.

- Yeah, yep.

- So - Is daycare an issue with public schools?

Is it okay to think of a public school as a form of helping a working parent with their child?

- Daycare is always an- - Obviously - Of course.

[all laugh] Of course.

Any parent, you know, any working parent, the school schedule's a dramatic impact on their work schedule.

I mean, that's just the way it is for any working parent.

- And it's a significant impact on their budget.

It is expensive.

- Yeah.

- But Nick, we talk about funding using state resources to fund pre-K and daycare.

That's controversial, but open the schools up so the- [sighs] - Yeah, I mean it's- the school counter thing I don't think is very complicated.

I mean, obviously there's some roadblock in the Senate.

What that might be, we don't know.

But I think generally, I don't know that there's many parents that are actively rallying against I don't want my kids in school before August 26th.

I don't think that's a big, I don't think there's a big rally cry across the state.

- And you're representing Wilmington as well.

And that's summer vacation territory.

And I think back in the - Believe me, people down there don't want any more visitors.

They're like, ahh- [panelists laughing] You can shut down tourism, - We're good.

Put a wall on I-40.

They don't care down on the coast.

- Really been that busy?

Good for- - It's been a very busy summer.

- Good that the economy is there.

Let's go to our final topic.

We're talking about contaminated water in North Carolina.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is reporting that 20 additional North Carolina water systems are contaminated with PFAS.

This includes water systems, apparently in Lenoir and Pitt County, as well as Durham, Pittsburgh, and Fuquay-Varina in the triangle.

There's 20 of these water systems, so I'm missing over half of them.

PFAS are called forever chemicals because they never break down.

The chemical gained attention in North Carolina when they were detected in the Cape Fear River a few years ago.

A factory there had been apparently dumping them in that river for decades.

I'm told and we can read that Wilmington's water system is now virtually free of forever chemicals, Nick, after a $43 million water filtration project.

43 million, Nick, the clean chemicals up that we've been drinking for decades.

- And about 43 years of it being dumped out of a Fayetteville work site plant that was operated by DuPont and now Chemours, the company that now owns that facility.

And this is 20 additional systems, and it's interesting because now the head of the EPA at the federal level is Michael Regan who used to be the head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality back in 2017 when the story broke in Wilmington that, "Hey, your water is contaminated with PFAS, GenX, and other forever chemicals.

Unfortunately, Kelly, you talk about that plant, they haven't seen a penny from litigation.

So my water bills have skyrocketed, and so is everybody else's as these water utilities are in a miserable position.

You either raise rates on rate payers or keep giving them dirtier contaminated water.

It's a lose-lose situation for them as the slow wheels of the judicial system work out how do the water utilities get refunded for all of these costs.

- Billy, PFAS contamination's now in the big city, buddy.

- [chuckles] You know, you look at this story, and what strikes me is the extraordinary negligence for years that allowed this to happen, that allowed people to be put in this position where they are drinking things that all the research is telling us harm them or is harming them.

And so if you can't count on the water that you drink to be safe, there aren't a lotta things that you feel like you can count on.

So, you know, I think about the costs that are being passed along by utilities.

I am sympathetic as a person who pays bills too, but at the same time, I'm also a person who doesn't wanna get sick because of my water.

And so I think that this is an issue that Democrats and Republicans, I don't care where you align, you should probably be talking and figuring it out just to make sure that our families are safe.

- Matthew, at what point is an activity of dumping these chemicals in our waterways does that become a state issue versus a company being negligent and the state never doing anything for decades through Republican and Democratic administrations and leadership structures?

- Yeah, it's disappointing for sure.

It's one of the number one things that from our budgeting perspective, our local governments are asking in advance before even the EPA came out with their standards, I think they came out four parts per billion, per million was the standard they wanna put out, but even before that standard came out, they were asking for money to upgrade their water plants to make sure that we are having safe, clean drinking water.

And so I know in the budget, we've put a lotta money towards infrastructure for improving our water systems well in advance of any standards that are coming out.

- But those infrastructure improvements, is that new pipes or is that filtration systems to get these chemicals out of our water?

- It's filtration systems is the number one request, filtration and upgrades - Ashton, they're there.

They're all around up.

You know, here, that gets attention of more people than just around the Cape Fear River Basin, so.

- Absolutely.

We actually had a spill since I've been in the General Assembly a couple of years ago that was found in Pittsburgh, but it, like, went all the way back up to the Greensboro Watershed.

And once I started to learn how there are so many holes in this supposed "system" of monitoring the water across our state.

We have underfunded DEQ fairly significantly in the past several years.

So there is not a strong system to even regularly check the water that we're having, and then there will be a federal study or something will happen that creates a crisis when in reality, we need a strong system because rich, poor, rural, urban, every North Carolinian deserves safe drinking water.

I think we can all agree on that.

We have to build a system that is regularly monitoring it, and we have to invest in the infrastructure that keeps it safe.

We have had some federal help with the bipartisan act that was passed.

So there's a lot of federal money that's being invested here in North Carolina and across the country, but we have a lot more work to do.

- Your audience is fairly conservative and probably liberals quietly on the down-low like to listen out of rage, but hey, is there a conservative case for a Republican super majority to step in and say, "We need to clean the water up, clean the systems up.

Yes, it's state money, yes, it's state involvement in a local issue but this has to be done because it transcends local government"?

- Yeah, and I think what was just described, a lotta that's being done.

The biggest problem that I hear from people on the coast is the accountability side of it.

DEQ can go out and fine companies all day.

There's no enforcement mechanism, Kelly.

You can't shut them down.

You cite them.

You fine them.

You tell them to "Stop, bad, you can't do this," but there's nobody to hold them accountable on it.

And that's the big frustration for folks down on the coast.

We know our water's contaminated.

Now what do we do about it?

- Last word to you, Matthew, how does this play out now that it's affected so many other counties?

Will there be more support for Wilmington for those types of projects and to spread those up to the north, I guess northwest if you look at the map?

30 seconds.

- Yeah, our initial investigation we've gotten back from our local DEQ is that it's not just Wilmington, it's other water resources across the state.

And so we have to look at it statewide and not just central to Wilmington.

- That's our show.

Thanks a lot.

Email us, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thanks to the panel, and thanks to you.

See you next time.

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