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NC lawmakers get update on Duke Energy coal ash spill
By John Murawskijmurawski@newsobserver.comFebruary 17, 2014 RALEIGH — North Carolina lawmakers heard conflicting and occasionally tense testimony Monday on Duke Energy’s accidental spill of coal ash sludge into the Dan River in a hastily scheduled public hearing to address the rapidly unfolding environmental accident in Rockingham County. The N.C. Environmental Commission, consisting of House and Senate legislators, heard three hours of statements on the spill near the Virginia border that has resulted in a public warning not to eat fish from the Dan River and prompted a federal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.
The hearings led to a testy exchange between North Carolina’s top environmental regulator and environmental activists hoping to shut down the coal ash ponds.
But the hearing shed little new information on the Feb. 2 spill that dumped up to 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash into the river.
The spill was caused by the collapse of a 48-inch drainage pipe that was built in the 1960s and ran under a 27-acre lagoon filled with a mixture of coal ash and water.
At the conclusion of the hearing, lawmakers said they lacked sufficient information to take action and expected it would take many months before clear solutions emerged.
North Carolina regulators assured lawmakers that the Dan River poses no immediate public health risk and or problems for downstream water treatment plants that serve Danville, Va., and other communities.
“We noted no fish kills as a result of this release,” said Tom Reeder, director of the N.C. Division of Water Resources, within the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
But Reeder said the ash is settling on river bottoms and potentially endangering species that dwell there. The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources will take fish tissue samples to assess longterm risk.
“If you’re a mollusk and covered with ash, then yeah, you’re gonna die,” Reeder said.
Environmental activists blamed the accident on years of flawed design and weak oversight. Critics of coal ash ponds have primarily focused on the structural integrity of the berms that contain the slurry and on the seepage of arsenic and other toxins from the lagoons.
“Each of the coal ash lagoons is a disaster waiting to happen,” said Frank Holleman, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Duke took responsibility for the spill and vowed to take steps to fix the problem. The company said the Dan River Steam Station is the only facility that had drainage pipes built under coal ash ponds.
“We are accountable,” said George Everett, Duke’s director of environmental and legislative affairs. “We apologize that this incident occurred.”
The accident is one of the largest of its type and is being monitored on site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Murawski: 919-829-8932
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