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In this letter, Environmental Protection Agency officials demand information from David Bradley, a Chapel Hill Church Road resident who lives near the contaminated former CTS of Asheville site, about his small home insulation business as a possible source of contamination, as CTS’ lawyers have pointed the finger at a number of surrounding sites, instead of the company’s abandoned electroplating plant.
For years, some national-security experts have warned of the potentially catastrophic results of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States. The scenario is the plot anchor for Black Mountain author Bill Forstchen’s 2009 novel One Second After. (See the July 8, 2009, Xpress article “Apolalypse WNC” for a profile of that book and its author.)
Here are two key congressional reports on the EMP threat:
• High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and High Power Microwave (HPM) Devices: Threat Assessments.
This July 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service, Congress’ investigative arm, offers a succinct overview of the EMP threat and the response of national leaders thus far. Click here to download a PDF of the document.
• Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, Vol. 1, 2004. Click here to download a PDF of the document
In this nonclassified portion of the report, the bipartisan commission formed to analyze EMP threats lists and detailed its main conclusions, which included:
“Several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication.
EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of US society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power.
The common element that can produce such an impact from EMP is primarily electronics, so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures. Our vulnerability is increasing daily as our use of and dependence on electronics continues to grow.
The impact of EMP is asymmetric in relation to potential protagonists who are not as dependent on modern electronics. The current vulnerability of our critical infrastructures can both invite and reward attack if not corrected.
Correction is feasible and well within the Nation’s means and resources to accomplish.”
Click here to download the commission’s updated 2008 report.
In this indictment, Asheville resident William Kevin Innes, the regional head of the Liberty Dollar private currency operation is charged with counts of fraud and a conspiracy to circulate coins resembling official U.S. currency. Innes is charged along with Liberty Dollar creator Bernard Von NotHaus and two Liberty Dollar employees.
Download a PDF of the deed of the indictment.
New lead testing rules set to take effect Feb. 10 have local book sellers, toy retailers, crafters and even libraries scrambling to understand how the rules apply to them.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act imposes stringent new lead testing rules on all products made for children 12 and under. The regulations affect businesses that sell items and covers libraries, which lend out books to children. The impact of the new law, especially in terms of children’s books, is vague, leaving local booksellers, libraries and even schools trying to interpret its meaning and figure out how to comply, and at what cost.
The lead testing regulations were signed into law in August 2008 as a response to the massive recalls involving mostly Chinese-made toys containing lead in 2007. The new rules require all books, toys and handmade crafts be tested for lead, regardless of where they’re manufactured.
Click here to read the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
• Click here to read the Etsy CPSIA “action kit.”
A federal judge is scheduled to announce the prison sentence of former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford on Oct. 6, despite a last-minute request from Medford’s attorney that the sentencing be delayed.
The sentencing will close another chapter in the Medford case, which began last December with his arrest on federal charges related to his role in an illegal gambling operation. A jury found Medford and a former deputy guilty after an 11-day trial that laid out their involvement in a multi-million dollar gambling operation in Western North Carolina that stands as one of Buncombe County’s biggest public corruption cases.
Click here to read the motion filed by Medford’s attorneys requesting a delay in sentencing due to Medford’s deteriorating health.
Click here to read the federal judge’s order declaring that Medford would be sentenced Oct. 6.
This June 26, 2008 document is the government’s draft supplemental final environmental impact statement on the proposed relocation of U.S. 74 in Graham County. The proposed road, known as “Corridor K,” would be built from U.S. 129 in Robbinsville to N.C. 28 in Stecoah. The road would cut through a portion of the Nantahala National Forest, according to the document.
The project is part of a road network planned by the Appalachian Regional Commission in the 1960s to improve the economies of the Appalachian states.
Click here to download a PDF of the executive summary of the environmental impact statement.
Duke Energy Corp. is building an 800-megawatt coal-burning power plant in Rutherford County. Environmentalists have opposed the plant, and on July 16, 2008, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in federal court in Asheville aiming to halt construction at the Cliffside Steam Station.
The organization contends that Duke Energy doesn’t have a valid air-quality permit to expand the coal-burning electric plant while Duke contends otherwise, although the company has agreed to conduct more analysis of its plans for controlling pollutants.
North Carolina regulators granted Duke an air quality permit in January, and the company has begun construction.
Click here to download a PDF of the lawsuit.
Click here and click here to read letters from the Southern Environmental Law Center that accompanied the lawsuit.
Miyoko Watanabe, a survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, planned to visit Asheville on July 9, 2008, as part of the arrival of a national traveling exhibition, “Hiroshima-Nagasaki: Images and Stories from Eyewitness Accounts.” A delegation from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum planned to attend the opening of the exhibition. The museum advocates for the peaceful disarmament of all nations possessing nuclear weapons by increasing citizen awareness of the effects of nuclear weapons.
In a written account of her remembrance of the bombing, Watanabe describes the horrible destruction she witnessed the day of the Aug. 6, 1945, Hiroshima bombing.
“As I left the shelter, I saw a boy about junior high age burned and without hair except on the top of his head where he had been wearing a combat cap. He staggered along like a ghost with both hands held out in front of him. The skin on his cheeks had burst open and was dangling down. He was horribly burned and walking barefoot saying, ‘Water please! I’m so hot! I’m burning!’”
This document is Watanabe’s written account. Click here to download a PDF of the document.
This document is the 1948 Agreement of Transfer between Tennessee Valley Authority and United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service relating to property in Swain County. The agreement was required by the 1943 Memorandum of Agreement.
The road issue dates to 1943, when Fontana Lake was created to generate hydroelectric power for the nation’s war effort. Residents of the area were forced to move, but through an agreement between Swain County, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Department of the Interior, were assured they would be given access to family cemeteries via a road along the lake’s northern shore. Their property later became part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The promised road was started but abandoned in the 1960s due to environmental and engineering concerns. The road became known as “the Road to Nowhere.” Right along, descendants of the displaced mountaineers have lobbied hard for the road, sometimes with support in Washington, sometimes without. In the fall of 2007, a missing piece in the controversy was set in place when the National Park Service issued a final environmental-impact statement, which recommended a cash settlement with Swain County over building the road.
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
This document includes just a few of the pertinent pages of the 638-page environmental impact statement that the National Park Service put together. The report weighs the impact of road building in the park.
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
This document is the “record of decision” regarding the National Park Service’s position on whether to finish building the road.
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
This Bent Creek trail map is produced by the U.S. Forest Service.
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
A little-known household survey distributed by the federal government as part of its Decennial Census Program has riled some Asheville residents with its probing questions.
The 27-page document, known as the American Community Survey, is sent to about three million people every year. About 1,400 people in Buncombe County received the survey in 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The survey asks for the name, age, race, date of birth and ethnicity of every person living in the home. It contains questions about the home (“Which FUEL is used MOST for heating this house, apartment, or mobile home?” “How much is the regular monthly mortgage payment on THIS property?”) There are also detailed personal questions about education, work, income and health (“Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?” “How many times has this person been married?”)
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
The late Charles Kuralt was one of North Carolina’s most beloved broadcasters. A native of the Charlotte area, his career took him to multiple news and feature programs on the CBS television network.
In an early assignment, Kuralt was CBS’ correspondent in Latin America — during the early 1960s, when U.S. officials were intent on countering the influence of revolutionary Cuban leader Fidel Castro. It was that concern, it appears, that caused the FBI to open a file on Kuralt. His file would eventually grow to 10 classified pages, and also include allegations regarding his reporting on the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965.
See the 2004 Xpress story, “Look Homeward, Big Brother,” for more details.
Click here to download a PDF of the documents.
Legendary moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, 61, of Haywood County was arrested and charged with making moonshine in March 2008. He faces three charges related to the manufacture and possession of selling untaxed whiskey and one charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison on the firearms count and up to 5 years in prison for each of the moonshining counts. He faces up to a $250,000 fine on each count, according to the news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
This government affidavit outlines how undercover government agents met with Sutton several times to buy liquor. Click here to download a PDF of the document.
On April 3, 2008, Sutton signed a plea agreement with the government. The document explains how an undercover agent bought hundreds of gallons of illegal liquor from Sutton. Click here to download a PDF of the document.
On Aug. 15, 2008, the federal government filed a sentencing memo in Sutton’s case, asking the federal judge to impose a sentence that reflects the seriousness of his crime. Click here to download a PDF of the document.
Sutton, 61, faces jail time that could add up to a life sentence. His defense attorneys have been asking friends and supporters to sign a petition which states in part: “Considering his basic nature, age and significant medical problems, we ask the court to consider leniency in sentencing Popcorn.” People from all over the region, including a few from Asheville, have signed. Click here to download a PDF document showing part of the petition.
This is a page from Asheville author Thomas Wolfe’s FBI file, which was compiled after his death. The 42-page file was obtained by author Herbert Mitgang, who reviewed the file in his 1988 book, Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America’s Greatest Authors.
The case file for this 1957 document is marked “Espionage,” according to the book. The reason the FBI gave for censoring certain material was that it contained information exempt “in the interest of the national defense or foreign policy,” according to Mitgang. For more on the FBI and Wolfe, see the Xpress article “Look Homeward, Big Brother.”
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
This 17-page complaint to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Standards of Ethical Conduct was filed in 2006 by the non-profit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and outlines allegations of wrongdoing then-U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, of Western North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.
Click here to download a PDF of the document.
Early in 2008, a number of U.S. Senators wrote to Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne, urging him to revise his department’s regulations pertaining to firearm possession on national park and national wildlife refuge lands. Since the 1930s, federal regulations have banned the possession of loaded weapons on those public lands, but the proposed regulations would overturn that tradition.
The issue is of particular interest in Western North Carolina, in light of the fact that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the nation’s single most-visited national park, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic thoroughfare stretching from Virginia to the Smokies, is the park service’s most-visited.
Click here to read Kempthorne’s letter to U.S. Sen. Michael Crapo on the matter.
Click here to read a brief history of the National Park Service’s regulation of firearms.
Click here to see the proposed amendment to the park regulations.
In a Dec. 30, 1969, memo, President Richard Nixon instructed White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to “follow up with Billy Graham in his work with Negro ministers across the country. He feels this is our best chance to make inroads into the Negro community. I am inclined to agree with him.”
Click here to read a Mountain Xpress story from July 2007 regarding the release of the Nixon documents.
Click here to download a PDF file of the document.
In a letter to President Richard Nixon, declassified in 2007, the Rev. Billy Graham predicted the rise of the Christian right as a potent political force.
He enclosed a Los Angeles Times article reporting on a study that indicated “the presidential candidate whose values seem closest to that of the Rev. Billy Graham stands the best chance to win in November.” In the letter, Graham offered up some advice for Nixon’s reelection bid against Democrat George McGovern.
“I would seriously question the wisdom of your becoming personally involved in the campaign before early September,” Graham advised. “If the polls and the mood of the country continue as is you may be wise to do only a minimum of campaigning. I think Senator McGovern is perfectly capable of making further mistakes.”
Click here to read a Mountain Xpress story from July 2007 regarding the release of the Nixon documents.
Click here to download a PDF file of the document.
This declassified document from the administration of President Richard Nixon reveals that the Rev. Billy Graham called the White House from Montreat to discuss a potentially thorny matter—a request by a prominent Democrat for a public show of support from the evangelist. The memo shows how Nixon’s White House handled the matter.
Click here to read a Mountain Xpress story from July 2007 regarding the release of the Nixon documents.
Click here to download a PDF file of the document.
This is the affidavit for the Liberty Dollar raid that took place in Evansville, Ind. The warrant and the undercover investigation that led to the raid both originated in Asheville. This 38-page affidavit details the FBI’s allegations of money laundering and wire fraud against the makers and distributors of this private “barter currency.”
Click here to download a PDF file of the report.
