The North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled that Judge Douglas Parsons will retain jurisdiction over the Blounts Creek case if it finds its way back to Superior Court.

The ruling is the latest in the ongoing case pitting a local environmental advocacy organization against the state and the company that has proposed discharging wastewater from a 649-acre limestone pit mine in southern Beaufort County into the headwaters of Blounts Creek, a tributary to the Pamlico River.

“(The decision) cemented what we believed: that the petition didn’t have any merit,” said Pamlico-Tar riverkeeper Heather Deck, in reaction to the recent decision.

In December of 2015, attorneys representing Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. filed a petition asking the court to deny Parsons’ jurisdiction, after Parsons ruled that Sound Rivers (formerly Pamlico-Tar River Foundation) and the North Carolina Coastal Federation did have the right to challenge a Division of Water Resources permit that would allow the mining company to potentially discharge up to 12 million gallons of fresh water per day into the creek — a ruling directly opposed to Administrative Court Judge Phil Berger Jr.’s March 2015 decision that the groups had no legal standing to question the state permit. Parsons, at the time of his ruling, sent the case back to the Administrative Court for a full evidentiary hearing and ordered that he would retain jurisdiction over the case pending a further Administrative Court decision.

At the time the jurisdiction petition was filed, Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Geoff Gisler, who represents Sound Rivers, asked the court to deny the petition, simply because it wasn’t based on events that had occurred, only what might occur sometime in the future.

“I think at this point, we’re all just looking forward to the hearings,” Deck said.

The evidentiary hearing ordered by Parsons is expected to occur at the end of May or in June, Deck said. As opposed to the one-day Administrative Court hearing held in January of 2015, this hearing will allow for expert and witness testimony.

“This is hearing that could go on for several days,” Deck said. “There will be more opportunity for both sides to make their case. … From the community perspective, we’re all anxious to get the process moving forward and see some resolution on the issue.”

Beaufort County Government is also moving forward in support of the “rights of the citizens of Beaufort County to protect their recreational, aesthetic and economic interests in Blounts Creek,” as stated in the resolution approved by the county Board of Commissioners in September of 2015. The resolution tasked the Board chairman and county manager to explore alternative solutions to discharging wastewater into Blounts Creek, which had already been done by the state.

County Manager Brian Alligood said the county will be encouraging the mining company to take another look at those options.