Sustainable WNC

Avram is the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Canary Coalition, a Clean Air advocacy organization originated in western North Carolina in the year 2000. The Canary Coalition now has more than eleven-hundred-fifty organizational, business and individual members in 23 states in the Greater Appalachian region.

Since the mid-nineteen sixties Avram has been a community and political activist for social and environmental causes.

He helped form the anti-nuclear movement in Oregon. While living in Oregon he coordinated the petition drive in Portland to place a referendum on the ballot that prohibited the further construction of nuclear plants in that state. This ballot measure became the first anti-nuclear measure to pass in the country.

In 1986, after moving to Western North Carolina, Avram founded Citizens for a Choice on Nuclear Waste that initiated a petition drive for a referendum on a DOE proposed high-level nuclear waste dump in western North Carolina. Through the lobbying efforts of this organization the referendum was placed on the ballot statewide and 93% voted against the location of the nuclear waste facility in North Carolina.

The Canary Coalition was one of the grassroots organizations responsible for introducing and promoting the NC Clean Smokestacks Act that was passed by the NC General Assembly in 2003. It is currently taking the lead in advocating for The Energy Futures Resolution in the N.C Legislature.