Last week Duke Energy Carolinas met with the South Carolina Public Service Commission (PSC) to discuss its coal ash storage facilities, but faced opposition from an environmental group that also attended.
“Duke Energy requested the opportunity to give the commissioners the latest and best information not only on our ongoing activities in North Carolina, but specifically inform them about our coal ash facilities in South Carolina and answer any questions they might have on the topic,” said Duke spokesman Ryan Mosier.
The safety of Duke’s coal ash storage facilities has come under scrutiny since large amounts of coal ash spilled from a broken pipe at a retired power plant into North Carolina’s Dan River last month.
The environmental group, Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), asked to attend the meeting in order to point out gaps in Duke’s report, said Frank Holleman, an SELC attorney who lives in Greenville. Two days earlier SELC had released documents from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) that showed elevated levels of arsenic around the Lee Steam Station in Anderson County that exceeded federal safety levels, in addition to chromium pollution. Those show a more alarming scenario than reports from the federal Environmental Protection Agency that primarily looked at infrastructure, processes and water levels at the site.
Duke did not comment on the DHEC reports.
SELC has filed lawsuits that forced other utility companies operating in the state to begin cleaning up their coal ash storage facilities in 2012 and 2013. He said SELC has not yet decided whether it would file suit against Duke.
“What we hope is that Duke will follow the lead of the other South Carolina utilities and clean up the site in [Anderson County], which is the only remaining set of coal ash lagoons that [Duke] has nether cleaned up nor committed to clean up,” Holleman said.
The S.C. House of Representatives recently passed a bill intended to block such lawsuits.
Although Duke has said the facilities are safe, Holleman said the Anderson County impoundment is currently polluting soil and water around the ponds.
He said Duke’s indication to the PSC that it could take 30 years to clean up the facility was misleading, being based on estimates for a much larger facility in North Carolina. He noted that South Carolina Electric and Gas, which agreed to clean up 2.4 million tons of coal ash at its Wateree Facility, had already removed 25 percent in just two years.
The Charlotte Observer also reported earlier this month that Duke estimated four and a half years to clean out coal ash stored at the Riverbend Power Plant on the Catawba River in Charlotte, which is larger than the plant in Anderson, Holleman said. Duke did not respond to a query about the accuracy of that statement. Instead Mosier referred to an open letter from company president and CEO Lynn Good, which stated that “each ash basin site is unique and will require complex measures that will take time.”
