I’m a Tar Heel born and bred, but right now I’m a Tar Heel disappointed. As a Chapel Hill resident and Carolina alumna, I am concerned by the University’s proposal to add engineered (synthetic) pellets to the list of approved fuel sources used at the UNC Cogeneration Facility on Cameron Ave.
It seems that few are aware that coal is burned in our neighborhood. The stacks have become too familiar, like an unquestioned part of town on an Elaine O’Neil print. Living within a block of the facility, even I have become accustomed to the facility’s constant hum. I see and hear the coal train on my morning dog walks. But as I reflect on the physician-advocate I want to be and the type of community in which I hope to live, I cannot turn a blind eye to this proposal.
For background, the University and medical center rely on the cogeneration facility’s electricity and steam production. In 2010, the then-Chancellor Holden Thorp declared UNC would stop burning coal at the facility by 2020. However, by my second year at UNC in 2016, the objective changed. Then-Chancellor Carol Folt launched the Three Zeros Initiative, targeting net zero water usage, zero waste to landfills and net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, the University proposes a yearlong trial of burning synthetic pellets that will introduce PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” to our community in order to reduce coal burning and divert waste from the landfill. The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality will host a public hearing at the Chapel Hill Town Hall at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 16, to discuss this proposal.
I am no environmental scientist, university administrator or energy expert. I do not claim to know what is fiscally and practically possible for the University. But I warn that this smells like a preventable public health experiment in my own neighborhood.
In medical school, we are taught to ask, “What are the possible harms and unintended consequences that could result from this research?” As UNC proposes to release up to 1.2 lbs of PFAS per year into our community, has the University considered its complicity in injuring the community’s health? How does the University put a price on the life of its community when there are known, safer options in clean energies? Possibly reducing coal while poisoning the air, water, land and creatures is a pitiful solution. The Chapel Hill community ought to keep the University accountable by showing up on Jan. 16 and everyday thereafter.
As a student and alumna, I also believe this is a matter of the University’s integrity, commitment to justice and leadership in innovation. I hope UNC might live up to its motto Lux Libertas as it considers who this university and medical center serves and whom they harm. I hope the public university is a partner and advocate for its community. And I hope UNC will lead the pack in climate action.
— Hope Gehle, UNC School of Medicine ‘25
