The State of North Carolina sued the TVA for damages caused by air pollution drifting into the state from Tennessee. The courts ruled in NC’s favor, requiring the TVA to green-up its smokestacks and purchase $11.2 million in projects intended to clean the air in North Carolina. To date, $4.5 million has been paid, and it, logically, is going to assist those victimized in the eastern end of the state.

The budget specified that $2.24 million would go to N.C. Biofuels in Oxford and the other $2.24 million to the N.C. Department of Agriculture for to-be-determined projects. [The remainder probably evaporated.]

The settlement stipulated that funds only be spent in the seventeen counties of Western North Carolina; but far be it from a legislator to know his cardinal directions, or even how to count to that scary number.