BY SAM PERKINS, CATAWBA RIVERKEEPER
On the Catawba River, upstream of Charlotte, coal ash and drinking water go hand-in-hand. Tens of millions of tons of this toxic industrial waste are stored in leaking, unlined pits held back only by leaking earthen dams along the banks of the lakes that supply the city’s water.
Duke Energy has 14 coal ash sites in North Carolina, and for years, monitoring wells at all 14 have revealed violations of state groundwater standards for metals associated with coal ash. For years, state regulators took no action. With Duke refusing to clean up its mess, Riverkeepers brought litigation to force clean up two years prior to the February 2014 Dan River coal ash spill.
The densely populated region around Charlotte – headquarters for Duke Energy – could be called the national capital for the coal ash threat. More than one-third of all coal ash in North Carolina lies at three sites along 29 miles of the Catawba River around Charlotte. Drinking water intakes, serving more than one million people, withdraw from the river immediately downstream of these coal ash pits piled as much as 80 feet high above the waterfront to a flood-prone river. These sites threaten not only drinking water supplies but thousands of downstream lakefront properties.
Catawba Riverkeeper began sampling around the perimeters of coal ash sites in 2012. We found unpermitted discharges with high levels of metals and reported them to state and federal authorities. That evidence became a part of the record $102 million fine issued by the Federal government in 2015 for violations of the Clean Water Act across the state.
The coal ash problem is not confined to North Carolina. The Catawba Riverkeeper first engaged in coal ash litigation in May 2012, when it filed a lawsuit against South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G). By August 2012, SCE&G agreed to clean up its coal ash, moving it away from water to a lined, monitored site and to reuse some of the ash in concrete. Soon after, another South Carolina utility, Santee Cooper, agreed to a similar settlement at a site near Myrtle Beach. Since then, other South Carolina utilities have now agreed to clean up their coal ash.
Meanwhile, Duke Energy in North Carolina has fought coal ash cleanup at every turn. In 2015, well testing at Duke Energy sites revealed hundreds of nearby residential wells contaminated with metals associated with coal ash. In 2016, North Carolina ordered Duke to run water to neighbors. Still, the company continues to fight against cleaning up of some of its sites. Instead, they want to bury ash in unlined pits next to rivers and leave it there permanently.
As of the summer of 2016, Duke is under court order to clean up seven of its sites. The other seven, including sites on the Catawba, remain in limbo. Riverkeepers continue to litigate to protect rivers and drinking water reservoirs across the state.