As Duke Energy Carolinas works on a cleanup plan for a massive coal ash spill in North Carolina, the company said a similar storage facility in Anderson County is safe.
Huge amounts of coal ash spilled from a broken pipe at a retired power plant into North Carolina’s Dan River last month, calling attention to the safety of the company’s coal ash storage facilities.
Duke’s next steps on this issue might indicate how the company could handle costs associated with dealing with its S.C. coal ash impoundments. CEO Lynn Good told the Charlotte Observer last week that the company would pay to clean up the recent spill, but additional pond disposal costs are considered part of the company’s cost structure. She pointed out that the ash was “was created over decades for the generation of electricity,” and it would be up to the state’s utility commission to decide whether that cost could be passed on to customers.
The issue of coal ash pond cleanup was debated in the S.C. Legislature, where the House recently passed a bill that could protect Duke and other companies from citizen group lawsuits under the S.C. Pollution Control Act.
Two coal ash ponds are located at The W.S. Lee Steam Station in Pelzer, a three-unit coal-fired power plant on the Saluda River. Lee operates as a cycling station to supplement supply when electricity demand is highest. It is one of two Duke Energy coal-fired generating facilities in the state.
According the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Lee Station averages about 63,000 tons of coal ash waste, which, like all coal ash, harbors pollutants including arsenic, cadmium and lead.
A 2010 assessment published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another EPA assessment letter issued to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control in August 2013 listed conditions at the Lee coal ash impoundments as “fair,” one notch below “satisfactory.”
The rating means acceptable performance is expected, but “minor deficiencies may exist that require remedial action and/or secondary studies or investigation.”
Duke spokesman Ryan Mosier said the dams and basins at the Lee Steam Station are safe.
“We agree that coal ash basins must be addressed and we are taking another look at the appropriate way to do that,” Mosier said.
The 2010 report suggested improvements including formal monitoring and analysis of the seepage area downstream of the secondary ash basin to see if it could compromise stability of the dam; updated stability analyses on both dams; finding the cause of elevated water levels and whether they could compromise the safety of the primary dam; and better monitoring of seepage.
Mosier said the company plans to install instrumentation that will aid in monitoring seepage as suggested, and the other issues had been addressed in 2012.
Soon, the Lee station will be retired, but the coal ash will remain. Two of its units will be retired and a third will be converted to use natural gas as its fuel source also by April 2015. Once these actions are complete, Duke Energy will no longer operate coal-fired power plants in South Carolina.
