The League of Women Voters of Henderson County (LWVHC) will celebrate Earth Day with
a program on Wednesday, April 22, from 4:30-6:00 pm at the Hedrick-Rhodes VFW
building, 900 N Main St. in Hendersonville. The program– We Didn’t Vote for Dirty Air or
Dirty Water – will feature attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center, Alyson
Merlin and Patrick Hunter. They will focus their discussion on air and water pollution.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) is one of the nation’s most powerful
defenders of the environment. Rooted in the South, it has offices in Alabama, Georgia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. With its long track record, SELC takes on
the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to
protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and the people that live here.
The waterways that provide our drinking water face constant threats from pollution, with
harms often falling hardest on rural areas or communities of color. Industrial and
transportation emissions burden our region with harmful air pollution, so SELC is
advancing cleaner solutions and taking on the region’s biggest polluters to ensure the air
we breathe is healthy.
The seriousness of the threat was on display when the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) recently took a series of actions dismantling environmental protections which it
called “the greatest day of deregulation.” SELC is closely tracking the effect of federal
rollbacks throughout our region and working to ensure facilities comply with federal, state,
and local environmental requirements.
Presenting at the Earth Day event will be Alyson Merlin, a staff attorney
