Duke Energy’s coal ash conundrum and the need for a long-term solution

Duke Energy’s proposed solution to its coal ash conundrum met with continued opposition this week as the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) released a report of its own dubbed “Coal Ash Disposition: The Alternative for North Carolina.” The report argues against the use of ‘landfilling’ coal ash while recommending “proven saltstone technology for the coal ash at Duke Energy's fourteen power plants.”

At present, Duke Energy plans to move coal ash from its retired electricity plants into lined and off-site landfills, a prospect that the BREDL says has a number of negative environmental downsides. According to the BREDL report, “Impartial experts agree that liner failure is inevitable, regardless of the liner type. That all liners will eventually fail is not in dispute. The only question is: How long will it take?”

Meanwhile, officials with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have responded that technologies for coal ash disposal and storage locations are being reviewed. DENR’s public information officer, Jamie Kritzer, stated “The [department], the EPA and Duke Energy are looking closely at all of the available technologies for coal ash disposal and the location of where the ash will be stored in the future.” Given the cozy relationship that has existed between Duke Energy and the DENR as well as the typical public interest impotence manifested by the Environmental Protection Agency, I shudder to think what ‘solution’ these organizations will come up with.

What should be clear to decision-makers and private citizens alike is that any solution that will be reached should not pass the problem on to future generations while current technologies allow for long-term coal ash containment solutions.

But clarity is in the eye of the beholder. While saltstone technology may seem like an obvious and well-studied solution to the problem of coal-ash containment, it doesn’t appear to be as obvious to Duke Energy or its government lackeys, which is why private citizen participation and oversight in this process is so important.

So if you have the time, research this issue and come to a conclusion for yourself. And while you’re at it, do what any good citizen of a well-established republic would do, give your elected representatives your respectful opinion on the subject!

Dan River Groups Seek Cleanup of Duke’s Coal Ash Pollution - Southern Environmental Law Center

Contacts:

Kathleen Sullivan, SELC, 919-945-7106 or ksullivan@selcnc.org

Frank Holleman, SELC, 864- 979-9431 or fholleman@selcnc.org

Representing:

Tiffany Haworth, Dan River Basin Association, 336-627-6270 or thaworth@danriver.org

Michael Ward, Roanoke River Basin Association, 276-634-2540 or mward@co.henry.va.us

Ulla Reeves, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, 828-254-6776 x2 or ulla@cleanenergy.org

Pete Harrison, Waterkeeper Alliance, 828-582-0422 or pharrison@waterkeeper.org

Dan River Groups Seek Cleanup of Duke’s Coal Ash Pollution

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—The Southern Environmental Law Center today filed motions to allow four conservation groups working on the Dan River to participate in the state court enforcement action against Duke Energy for its illegal coal ash pollution of the Dan River and groundwater drinking supplies.  SELC filed the motion on behalf of groups that monitor and protect the Dan River– the Dan River Basin Association, the Roanoke River Basin Association, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Waterkeeper Alliance.  They identified numerous illegal discharges ignored by the state in the aftermath of Duke’s disastrous coal ash spill last month. 

“The tragic Dan River spill and the revelations of uncomfortably close ties between Duke Energy and DENR make it all the more important that citizens and local conservation groups have a seat at the table,” said Frank Holleman, the senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center who represents the groups in court.  “We will work to make sure that the Dan River is protected and that Duke Energy cleans up the Dan River site.”

The groups seek to stop and clean up unpermitted streams of contaminated surface water that have been discharging from the dikes of the Dan River coal ash lagoons since before the spill and are continuing today, as well as persistent groundwater pollution leaching from these unlined impoundments that documentation shows Duke Energy and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources have known about since the early 1990s.  The illegal discharges at Dan River include high levels of coal ash pollutants such as arsenic and lead.

“It is important that local citizens in the Dan River Basin have a voice in the cleanup of Duke Energy's coal ash pollution and DRBA can represent that voice,” said Allison Szuba, president of the Dan River Basin Association (DRBA) Board of Directors. “DRBA has been serving the North Carolina and Virginia communities in the basin for over a decade and we will continue to do so by doing what is necessary to prevent this from happening again.”

“This spill demonstrates the dire need to remove coal ash from impoundments adjacent to our lakes and rivers and into dry, lined storage,” said Gene Addesso, president of the Roanoke River Basin Association.  “We cannot allow these same negligent actions to continue polluting our water and putting at risk the citizens and businesses within the Roanoke River Basin that depend on this precious natural resource.”

Previously, the North Carolina court allowed other groups to intervene with respect to Duke’s coal ash sites on Mountain Island Lake, north of Charlotte; on Lakes Wylie and Norman along the Catawba River; Duke’s Asheville site; and its Sutton site near Wilmington on the Cape Fear River..  Seven conservation groups around the state have additional motions to intervene currently pending before the court.

“The Dan River site is an ongoing disaster, with illegal discharges pouring out of the coal ash lagoons everywhere you look,” said Waterkeeper Alliance’s Pete Harrison.  “Our rivers should be protected from the scourge of coal ash, and we should make sure that the Dan River is never again subjected to coal ash pollution and a catastrophic spill.”

The Southern Environmental Law Center represented conservation groups in South Carolina in several recent legal challenges, leading to South Carolina utilities SCE&G and Santee Cooper committing to remove 13.4 million tons of coal ash from unlined lagoons at four sites throughout the state.  All the South Carolina coal ash will be moved to dry storage in lined landfills or recycled. 

“The Dan River spill shows all the things that are wrong with the primitive storage of coal ash in unlined, polluting pits next to our waterways,” said Ulla Reeves of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.  “It is long past time that the Dan River site was cleaned up, and moving all the Dan River coal ash away from the river to dry, lined storage should become the model for safe disposal of coal ash.” 

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About the Southern Environmental Law Center

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of nearly 60 legal and policy experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use. www.SouthernEnvironment.org

About the Dan River Basin Association

The Dan River Basin Association was created by residents to protect and promote the natural and cultural assets of the 3,300 square mile Dan River basin in Virginia and North Carolina through education, recreation and stewardship. www.danriver.org

About the Roanoke River Basin Association

The Roanoke River Basin Association is a non-profit organization based in Danville, Virginia, whose mission is to establish and carry out a strategy for the development, use, preservation and enhancement of the resources of the Roanoke River system of lakes and streams in the best interest of present and future generations.  RRBA consists of hundreds of members, primarily located within the 410-mile-long Roanoke River basin in Virginia and North Carolina, including local governments; non-profit, civic and community organizations; regional government entities; businesses and individuals.    http://prod.rrba.org/.

About the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices that create global warming solutions and ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast.

www.cleanenergy.org

About Waterkeeper Alliance

Founded in 1999 by environmental attorney and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and several veteran Waterkeeper Organizations, Waterkeeper Alliance is a global movement of on-the-water advocates who patrol and protect over 100,000 miles of rivers, streams and coastlines in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa.

The case for active government regulation in the environmental sphere

Duke Energy’s most recent discharge of coal ash into the Dan River – “enough coal ash to coat 70 miles of the Dan River with toxic sludge” – provides another example of why active government regulation is necessary to protect environmental and human health. With the recent rise of radical free market ideas into mainstream politics and the Republican Party consolidation of political power in a number of states across the United States, active government regulation in the environmental sphere was deemphasized in favor of “pro-business” policies. Such pro-business policies place a much greater stress on reducing government ‘red-tape’ and relying on private businesses to police themselves in areas of environmental regulation, in particular.

As my political beliefs have changed with time, I’ve come to believe that government involvement in a number of social and economic spheres may cause more harm than good. But this is not the case when it comes to environmental regulation.

Classical liberals typically argue, implicitly or explicitly, that self-interest is the natural basis upon which private individuals cooperate with one another in society. As part of this argument, classical liberals also argue that economic incentives drive self-interested individuals to act in one way or another. And given the ability to act freely in undisturbed markets (i.e., markets without government interference), individuals will conduct efficient economic transactions that benefit the individual and society as a whole.  

But the classical liberal argument is an intellectual pipedream which disregards the possibility that private individuals (or companies) may have an economic incentive to pollute, for example, as in the case of Duke Energy. The Huffington Post states the following: “Records show that Progress Energy, which was acquired by Duke in a 2012 mega-merger, bought five acres adjacent to its coal-fired power plant near Asheville for about $1.1 million — a price tag far below what it would have cost to clean out its leaking coal ash pits.”

I would like nothing more than to agree with the classical liberal argument that government involvement and active regulation specifically regarding environmental pollution is an unnecessary policy solution. However, there are no free market solutions for issues of environmental pollution because the economic incentives to pollute are too great.

Maybe in a more perfect time and place, companies like Duke Energy would behave according to the high-minded ideals of deep ecology and intergenerational justice, as well as practical concerns such as human and environmental health. We’re not living in such a time and place, though. In our own context, businesses respond to calculated cost versus benefit analyses that favor short-term monetary gain. If the ‘free hand’ of the market were left to itself, the rest of the body would soon die of some environmentally related illness.