ROUGEMONT, N.C. (Sept. 8, 2025 — Person Region locals, with the help of Southern Union for Social Justice (SCSJ), proceed battling versus a controversial rezoning decision made for the proposed Moriah Energy Facility (MEC)– which stays an ecological problem.
SCSJ filed a short Monday with the North Carolina Court of Appeals requesting their claim versus the rezoning be heard. The legal action, filed in very early 2024, challenges Individual Region’s redesignation of land zoned country household and preservation to industrial, including hefty commercial, for Enbridge– previously Ascendancy Power– to construct and operate MEC, a liquified methane storage center.
The rezoning was passed by the Person Region Board of Commissioners in December 2023 despite overwhelming neighborhood resistance. By the end of in 2015, almost all cases were disregarded after Individual County and Enbridge attorneys argued the Plaintiffs did not have legal standing. SCSJ appealed the termination earlier this year.
“Must this not be treated in an interlocutory appeal, the Plaintiffs run the risk of never having the ability to be heard in a meaningful manner,” the brief states. “Already, the facility is being built. If Complainants are compelled to wait up until the final thought of process to seek their civil liberties, it might well be too late. A significant hearing after the gas is on the ground and the discharges impend is no meaningful hearing in any way.”
Click on this link to review the appellate short.
The claim and allure represent Individual Area residents’ decision to have their voices heard on a rezoning choice that currently has and will continue to have a substantial impact on their homes, health and wellness, and every day lives. The quick information why complainants legally have the right to be listened to on this problem in spite of initiatives from the Region and Enbridge to silence them.
“When next-door neighbors stand up to test a drastic zoning change that changes the whole personality of their neighborhood, exposes them to air and water contamination risks, and intimidates their way of living, they have a right to be heard, and the Region and Enbridge need to not have actually attempted to obstruct that right,” said Anna Byers, Senior Advice for Environmental Justice at SCSJ “This charm is about making certain neighborhoods have a voice in rezoning choices– and remedying the procedure when that voice is ignored.”
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Southern Union for Social Justice , founded in 2007, partners with neighborhoods of shade and financially deprived neighborhoods in the South to defend and progress their political, social, and economic legal rights via the combination of lawful campaigning for, study, organizing, and interactions. Learn more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Facebook , Instagram, and LinkedIn