Environmentalists: coal ash bill badly flawed

ASHEVILLE – While proposed legislation would require Duke Energy to close ash ponds at its Asheville plant and three other facilities within five years, environmentalists contend the bill has serious flaws.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and other groups outlined their concerns with the legislation pending in a conference committee in a letter to Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tom Tillis.

The letter states that following the Feb. 2 spill from a Duke ash pond that coated 70 miles of the Dan River with toxic sludge, lawmakers promised a “robust solution” to coal ash pollution.

“Instead, the current legislation inexplicably attempts to weaken our state’s existing groundwater protection laws in favor of Duke Energy while allowing Duke to continue polluting state waters and putting our communities at risk,” according to the letter.

Chief among the concerns is that the bill would allow toxic ash to remain in unlined pits and contaminate groundwater at 10 sites not specifically listed for cleanup.

“As a result, (the legislation) leaves most citizens and communities living near and downstream of coal ash pits with no assurance that the coal ash threatening their drinking water and waterways will be removed or safely stored,” the letter states.

The conference committee is trying to work out a compromise between House and Senate versions of the bill.

The bill would require Duke to remove ash from dumps at the Asheville, Dan River, Sutton and Riverbend plants and put it in lined landfills or sell it for use by the construction industry within five years.

But Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper with the environmental group Western North Carolina Alliance, said lawmakers only included language requiring cleanups at the four plants because of lawsuits filed by environmental groups over contamination at the facilities.

The bill would eliminate wet storage of coal ash, which Carson called a step forward.

“But that was likely to be required by the EPA when they finalize their coal ash rules at the end of 2014,” he said. “Passage of the bill could be any day now, and despite what the General Assembly is claiming, this is not a step forward for North Carolina.”