[ad_1]
Broken emails
Receive alerts and special reports. News and stories that matter, delivered in the morning on weekdays.
Heavy rains in Florence caused a slope collapse in a coal ash dump in a closed power plant near the North Carolina coast, says Duke Energy.
Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said Saturday night that about 2,000 cubic meters of ash had been moved to the LV Sutton power plant near Wilmington, and that the contaminated runoff was likely spilling into the town. cooling basin of the plant.
The company has not yet determined whether the weir draining the lake was open or whether contamination could have spilled into the Cape Fear River. That's about enough ash to fill 180 dump trucks.
Florence hit the coast of North Carolina like a big hurricane Friday, spilling nearly 3 feet of rain and swelling the rivers of the region. The resulting floods forced the rescue of the living waters and caused several deaths.
Sheehan said the company had reported the incident to state and federal regulatory authorities "by caution".
The Sutton, coal-fired plant, was withdrawn in 2013 and the company extracted millions of tons of ash from old garbage pits and removed them to safer and coated dumps built on the site. property. Gray ash left by burning coal contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and mercury.
Duke has been scrutinized for handling his coal ash since a drain pipe collapsed under a pit in a former Eden plant in 2014, causing a massive 70-mile spill Dan River in gray mud.
In a subsequent deal with federal regulators, Duke agreed to plead guilty to nine violations of the Clean Water Act and to pay $ 102 million in fines and compensation for unlawfully discharging coal ash into five North Carolina power plants . The company is in the process of closing all its coal ash dumps by 2029.
Spokesperson Megan S. Thorpe, State Environmental Quality Department, said the state regulators would conduct a thorough inspection of the site as soon as possible and safely.
"DEQ has been closely monitoring all the coal ash reservoirs that could be vulnerable in this record rain event," Thorpe said. She added that the Ministry, after evaluating the damage, "will hold the public service responsible for implementing the solution guaranteeing the protection of public health and the environment".
There are at least two other Duke coal plants in North Carolina that are likely to be affected by the storm.
The HF Lee Generating Station, located near Goldsboro, has three inactive ash ponds that were flooded during Hurricane Matthew in 2016, exposing a small amount of coal ash that could have poured into the nearby Neuse River. . Old garbage pits are covered with soil and vegetation to prevent the erosion of toxic ash.
The Neuse is expected to be more than 9 feet above flood level on Monday and Sheehan said the company is expecting the same ash ponds to be flooded again.
At W.H. Weatherspoon's power plant near Lumberton, Sheehan said it had already rained more than 30 inches Saturday night, spilling over a nearby swamp into the mill's cooling pond. The Lumber River is expected to peak at more than 11 feet above the flood level on Sunday, which would put floodwater near the top of the earthen dyke containing the factory's coal ash dump.
Environmentalists have been warning for decades that Duke coal ash ponds are vulnerable to severe storms and pose a threat to drinking water supply and public safety.
"The removal of coal ash near watercourses is dangerous, and Duke Energy is making the problem worse by leaving most of its ashes in unpaved primitive pits filled with water," he said. said Frank Holleman, a lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Center. in class.
"In this case, it seems that Duke Energy has not sufficiently ensured that its new Wilmington landfill safely stores coal ash.After this storm, we hope that Duke Energy will commit to removing its ashes If he refuses, the state of North Carolina will require that he remove the ashes from these unlined pits. "
Source link
