Comments: Pray this is true but how was the heavy metals removed?

Posted on: February 3, 2014

UPDATE: First test results confirm water meeting health standards

UPDATE POSTED 10 P.M. TUESDAY:
Danville Utilities said Tuesday night the first test results of treated water samples confirm that the water leaving the city’s treatment facility meets public health standards.
The test results came from two finished water samples collected by Duke Energy at the city’s two reservoirs, said Barry Dunkley, division director of water and wastewater treatment for Danville Utilities.
Danville Utilities also is collecting water samples. Those test results will be made public when they are received. Dunkley said those results could be available on Wednesday.
The samples of treated water are being analyzed for the presence of heavy metals.
Dunkley said the concentration of fly ash in the raw water drawn from the Dan River is decreasing, and the city continues to remove successfully the ash from the raw water.
A break Sunday afternoon in a storm water pipe beneath an ash basin at Duke Energy’s shuttered Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C., caused a release of ash basin water and ash into the Dan River. Danville Utilities was notified Sunday of the spill into the river, and it has been able to remove the ash from the raw water entering the city’s intake.
Danville Utilities provides natural gas, water, wastewater and telecommunications services in Danville and distributes electricity to approximately 42,000 customer locations in a 500-square-mile service territory covering Danville, the southern third of Pittsylvania County, and small portions of Henry and Halifax counties.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A break Sunday afternoon in a stormwater pipe beneath an ash basin at the retired Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C., has caused a release of ash basin water and ash into the Dan River. Danville Utilities has been able to successfully treat the water.
“We were notified Sunday of the spill into the river, and we were able to treat it,” said Barry Dunkley, division director of water and wastewater treatment for Danville Utilities. “All water leaving our treatment facility has met public health standards. We do not anticipate any problems going forward in treating the water we draw from the Dan River.”
City of Danville Emergency Management staff have been monitoring the situation and have been in consultation with Duke Energy, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

http://www.danville-va.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=1508

And the river ran gray

Comments: I wonder about the ducks and geese...are they oily yet?

By DENICE THIBODEAU dthibodeau@registerbee.com (434) 791-7985 | Posted: Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:12 pm

EDEN, N.C. — Duke Energy’s Dan River Steam Station was a hub of activity Tuesday — flatbeds hauling heavy construction equipment and dump trucks full of gravel were arriving, bulldozers and other equipment were in use just about anywhere you looked and teams of people were climbing in and out of pickup trucks everywhere, working to stem the coal ash flow into the Dan River from a water pipe that broke Sunday.

Some of the teams of people were Duke Energy employees, but others were from various state agencies, there to inspect the site, monitor the spill and make recommendations.

Erin Culbert, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said the broken water pipe runs under the primary ash basin used to collect ashes from a now-closed coal-fired electric power plant. The ash accumulated during the plant’s active lifetime, which began in 1949 and ended in 2012.

The ashes were carried out of the plant by water, which went to the ash basin. Over time, ash would settle to the bottom of the basin and the water would move on to a second basin, where it was “polished” before being returned to the Dan River, Culbert said.

But when the water pipe broke Sunday, there were no extra cleansing stops; the company estimates that between 24 to 27 million gallons of water from the basin has reached the Dan River, bringing between 50,000 to 82,000 tons of ash with it — enough ash to fill up to 32 Olympic-sized swimming pools, Culbert said.

The Dan River turned grayer and grayer downriver as the ash traveled, and by Tuesday the familiar brown of the river running through Danville had changed to a depressing gray; even some of the vegetation along its banks was covered in gray ash.

Matt Wasson, director of programs for the non-profit environmental organization Appalachian Voices, said the group responded to the spill immediately, taking their own samples from canoes and banks from Eden to Danville.

Wasson calls the spill “a massive disaster … an enormous quantity of ash has gotten into the river.”
On Tuesday evening, Wasson said, there was a noticeable increase in the amount of ash visible in river at Danville, and samples taken near the water intake at the water treatment plant visibly had more ash content and “everything on shore was covered in that ash.”

Culbert said coal is mostly made up of harmless elements like silica and calcium, but it does have traces of harmful elements, like arsenic, selenium and mercury.

Those harmful elements can be a concern in high doses, Culbert said, adding that Duke Energy handles those trace elements carefully so they don’t exceed environmental limits allowed in water being returned to the river.

Wasson said it is exactly those trace elements that concern him.

“Someone could be eating fish months from now that have those built up in their tissue,” Wasson said. “There’s a third of the periodic table in here; we’ll be seeing this for months, if not for years.”
Cale Jaffe, the director of the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, said this ash basin has been polluting the groundwater at the Dan River site for years, “exceeding standards for toxic substances including arsenic, boron and sulfate.”

For about a year, the group has been working to force Duke Energy to clean up coal ash sites at 14 locations in North Carolina, including the one in Eden, Erin Malec, of the SELC, said.

Malec said the group’s legal actions against Duke Energy have “spurred the state to take action,” and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has filed a series of enforcement actions against Duke Energy.

Culbert said Duke Energy has been studying the best way to clean up the ash basins on a site-to-site basis, and cleaning out the one in Eden was slated as part of the demolition of the old plant, which is underway.

Right now, though, ash is carefully being moved to expose the broken pipe so a camera can be inserted to locate the break and help engineers assess the best way to fix it, Culbert said.
Asked why it took a full day to notify the public about the spill, Culbert pointed out that local emergency services departments and state regulatory agencies were notified immediately, but the company wanted to better “understand the conditions” before notifying the public.

“We wanted it to be timely, but we wanted it to be right,” Culbert said.

The spill has been slowed — plugs were tried and most of the water in the basin has already been discharged — but until the broken pipe is unearthed, the company cannot estimate when the leak with stop permanently, Culbert said. And even then, it will be a while before the Dan River returns to its natural brown.

“We will see visible gray water for some time,” Culbert said.

http://www.godanriver.com/news/danville/and-the-river-ran-gray/article_a3a5cd1e-8e02-11e3-8b63-001a4bcf6878.html

Duke Energy pond still leaking toxic coal ash into NC’s Dan River after 48 hours

Media release - February 4, 2014

CHARLOTTE, NC, Feb. 3 2014 -- Duke Energy’s coal ash pond is still leaking hazardous chemicals into the Dan River in North Carolina, a drinking water source for downstream communities, after over 48 hours.

Duke said on Monday night that 50,000 to 82,000 tons of ash has spilled from the unlined pond, or enough to fill 20 – 32 Olympic swimming pools. It’s unclear how much has spilled as of Tuesday night. [1]

The spill is the second in the past month in which hazardous chemicals related to burning coal have threatened local drinking water. Freedom Industries spilled a chemical used to “clean” coal into the Elk River in West Virginia on Jan. 8, tainting the drinking water for 300,000 people there. [2] The coal ash that Duke Energy spilled is a waste product from coal combustion.

The Dan River spill raises serious questions about whether people’s drinking water is safe, whether Duke Energy knew about the risk posed at this and other coal ash ponds, and whether company executives acted quickly enough in alerting the public after the spill.

“Our rivers should not be at risk of turning grey or black from coal ash leaks, and our drinking water should not be at risk of turning toxic,” Greenpeace Charlotte Field Organizer Monica Embrey said. “Duke told us repeatedly its coal ash ponds are safe, but they were wrong.”

Greenpeace is calling on Duke to answer the following questions:

1. Is the drinking water for people living in the town of Dan River contaminated with metals? Danville city officials have said that their water, post-treatment, “met public health standards” but it’s unclear whether the city has tested for toxic heavy metals like selenium and mercury. [3]

2. Why did it take Duke Energy up to 24 hours to report the spill? Duke notified the public via press release at 4:03 pm on Monday, but said a security guard first noticed the low pond levels on Sunday afternoon. Given the potential for contamination of drinking water with heavy metals, why weren’t local residents told immediately?

3. What did Duke know about potential problems at the Dan River coal ash site? A September 2009 report by the EPA to Duke noted multiple problems with the dam, including: “Two stormwater pipes pass under the original pond and discharge into the Dan River. Notes on historic drawings indicate that these pipes were installed with three feet of cover minimum.

4. Duke says on its web site that “We are confident that each of our ash ponds has the structural integrity necessary to protect the public and the environment.” Does it still feel confident in that assessment of each of its ash ponds? [5] Duke Energy operates 23 coal ash ponds in North Carolina, including two that threaten Charlotte’s water supply at the now-retired Riverbend coal plant. “Once Duke Energy fully remediates the leak in Dan River, it should immediately move to clean up its remaining coal ash ponds, including those at the Riverbend coal plant which threaten Charlotte’s drinking water supply,” Embrey said.
--30--

NOTES: [1] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/03/4661193/duke-energy-plant-reports-coal.html#.UvFecfldW7w
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-04/scary-utility-lessons-from-the-west-virginia-chemical-spill
[3] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/03/4661193/duke-energy-plant-reports-coal.html#.UvFecfldW7w
[4] http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys2/dan-river-final.pdf
[5] http://www.duke-energy.com/environment/land-quality/wet-ash-handling.asp
Contact: Monica Embrey, 773-419-0963, membrey@greenpeace.org

Thanks to Appalachian Voices for the great pictures, Danville is my home town and my family still lives there......Is the water safe to drink? I would not drink from the tap.