Coal ash, which contains many of the world’s worst carcinogens, is what’s left over when coal is burnt for electricity. An estimated 113 million tons of coal ash are produced annually in the US, and stored in almost every state — some of it literally in people’s backyards. With very little government oversight and few safeguards in place, toxic chemicals have been known to leak from these storage sites and into nearby communities, contaminating drinking water and making residents sick. In the upcoming series, VICE News travels across the US to meet the people and visit the areas most affected by this toxic waste stream. Since coal production is predicted to remain steady for the next few decades, coal ash will be a problem that will affect the US for years to come.
N.C. Beyond Coal organizer Emma Greenbaum shows some of the thousands of petition signatures from community members asking Duke Energy to retire its coal-fired plant in Asheville. (2013)
Sierra Club, MountainTrue and Green Drinks will present “Asheville Beyond Coal: Update on Efforts to Phase Out Asheville’s Coal Powered Electric Plant” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 1 Edwin Place (corner of Charlotte Street and Edwin Place) in Asheville.
Emma Greenbaum, organizing representative, with N.C. Beyond Coal at Sierra Club, will give an update on the campaign to retire the Asheville coal-fired power plant, the largest single source of carbon emissions in Western North Carolina and the largest source of toxic air pollution from the industrial sector.
Greenbaum will discuss recent events and successes, as well as ways to get involved in the movement against climate disruption.
Join us to learn how you can be a critical part in the movement for a clean energy future for Asheville. Learn more at www.ashevillebeyondcoal.org.
For more information about this meeting, email judymattox@sbcglobal.net or call (828) 683-2176.
This bash celebrates both local music and Asheville Beyond Coal’s efforts to fight climate disruption and to stop the poisoning of our rivers from toxic coal ash.
Line-up includes:
Alex Krug of Alex Krug music CaroMia Chelsea LaBate of Ten Cent Poetry Daniel Shearin of Daniel Shearin Music Dulci Ellenberger of Sweet Claudette Eleanor Underhill and Molly Rose of Underhill Rose Eric Janoski of Mother Explosives Franklin Keel, Ryan Kijanka, and Gabrielle Tee of The Scenic Routes Jon Stickley of the Jon Stickley Trio Mary Ellen Davis Pancho Romero Bond, Xavier Ferdon, and Franklin Keel of Sirius.B Ryan Furstenburg & Melissa Hyman of The Moon and You Stephanie Morgan of stephaniesid
Doors open at 7 p.m..
Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door, plus $5 student tickets with ID at the door.
All proceeds will benefit Asheville Beyond Coal’s efforts to protect our mountains and planet!
Washington, D.C.— State representatives from the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators this week submitted a sign-on letter calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) to swiftly finalize strong coal ash and toxic water pollution standards for coal-burning power plants. The letter comes just eight weeks before the agency’s December 19deadline to finalize a rule on coal ash standards.
Delivered to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the letter signed by 155 state representatives notes that dangerous waste from burning leaches into drinking water and pollutes the air of communities near toxic dump sites because there are no federal safeguards for disposal. The letter also notes that EPA itself has determined that coal-fired power plants are responsible for at least 50 to 60 percent of the toxic water pollutants discharged into U.S. waters. Yet, at present, four out of five coal plants in the U.S. have no limits on the amount of toxics they are allowed to dump into our water. Many of these toxic pollutants pose serious health and environmental damage even in very low concentrations, which is why, the signatories argue, strong standards are essential to protect our communities, drinking water, and wildlife.
“We urge the EPA to protect our waterways from toxic coal pollution by adopting strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal and reuse under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and for water pollution discharges from coal plants under the Clean Water Act quickly,” stated the letter. “Without strong federal standards to safeguard our waterways, coal-burning power plants will keep sending toxic sludge into rivers and streams, which provide recreation, habitat to fish and wildlife, and drinking water sources.”
“Right now, the EPA has the opportunity to meet its responsibility to the American people and put into place actual, strong measures that will prevent coal ash disasters that have been plaguing American communities for far too long,” said Dalal Aboulhosn, Senior Washington Representative with the Sierra Club.
Signatories include many distinguished elected officials across the country, including several from North Carolina who have dealt with the lack of federal safeguards firsthand when a burst stormwater pipe underneath an unlined coal ash pit dumped 140,000 tons of coal ash and toxic wastewater into the Dan River earlier this year.
“Our experience in the Southeast, including the Dan River disaster, has shown that communities cannot count on state agencies and state law alone to protect their clean water nationwide. Our communities and our rivers need strong national safeguards to protect them from coal ash pollution and coal ash catastrophes,” said Frank Holleman, Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“Representatives are asking for strong regulations because they know these rules will protect the health and economic wellbeing of their constituents,” said Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel at Earthjustice. “Coal ash pollution places a heavy burden on local communities across the nation, but help is on the way.”
“EPA needs to end the “free pass to pollute” that power plants have gotten for the past thirty years. Power plants have gotten special treatment that allows them to dump billions of pounds of toxic chemicals into our nation’s waters, including rivers and streams that are sources of drinking water. This special treatment has come at a huge cost to our nation’s waters and to our health,” said Jennifer Peters, Clean Water’s National Water Campaigns Coordinator.
From the N.C . Department of Environment and Natural Resources
On Sept. 26, 2014, Duke Energy submitted draft plans for the assessment of groundwater at its 14 coal-fired power stations located in North Carolina. The plans include proposed site assessment activities and a schedule for implementation, completion and submission of a comprehensive site assessment report for each of the facilities. The reports are required to provide information concerning:
the source and cause of contamination; any imminent hazards to public health and safety and actions taken to mitigate them;
the location of drinking water wells and other significant receptors where people could be exposed to groundwater contamination;
the horizontal and vertical extent of soil and groundwater contamination and significant factors that affect how the pollution moves;
and geological and hydrogeological features that affect the movement, chemical and physical character of the contaminants.
The staff with the N.C. Division of Water Resources will review the plans and approve them or provide Duke Energy with a deadline to correct any deficiencies. For each approved plan, the utility will have 180 days to provide the state with a report describing all exceedances of groundwater quality standards associated with each coal ash storage pond including the information described above.
Draft Plans – include the groundwater assessment plan and any accompanying map figures
Legislature’s coal ash bill ensures cleanup only at Asheville and three other sites
While Asheville and three other sites across the state are winners in the coal ash bill adopted by the North Carolina legislature, overall the House and Senate have failed to deliver the comprehensive coal ash cleanup plan they promised at the outset of this legislative session.
The bill makes strides with regard to these four disposal sites and on the future production and reuse of coal ash, but the bill could allow existing coal ash to remain in place at 10 facilities across North Carolina, where it’s polluting rivers, streams and groundwater.
The bill also attempts to roll back existing law that imposes clean up obligations on Duke Energy, made clear in a judge’s ruling earlier this year that explicitly gave state environmental officials the authority to force Duke to take immediate action to eliminate sources of groundwater contamination.
“The French Broad River is one of the few real winners in this bill,” said Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper at the Western North Carolina Alliance. “The bill requires the coal ash lagoons at Duke Energy’s Asheville plant to be excavated and the ash moved to a lined facility that will stop it from contaminating ground water and the French Broad River. That’s great, but other communities in the state with coal ash ponds, including those around the Cliffsideplant in Rutherford County, aren’t assured of the same protections.”
The bill requires Duke Energy to move ash from the Dan River, Riverbend, Sutton and Asheville facilities into lined landfills away from waterways. Duke had already publically committed to move ash at these four sites, three of which are sites where environmental groups threatened to sue Duke Energy and the fourth, Dan River, was the site of a massive coal ash spill in February.
The Alliance, along with the Sierra Club and the Waterkeeper Alliance and represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, initiated legal action at the Asheville plant early in 2013 after years of water monitoring and urging that the state and the federal Environmental Protection Agency take action. The Alliance is also party to litigation on Duke Energy’s Cliffside plant.
“We took legal action because the state refused to step up. In the wake of the Dan River spill, we hoped the legislature would impose strong cleanup requirements. But this bill doesn’t require Duke Energy to do anything to clean up coal ash beyond what it has already pledged to do,” Carson said. “Given the opportunity the legislature had, that isn’t much progress.”
The bill leaves decisions about clean up at Duke Energy’s other 10 coal ash disposal sites to the discretion of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources and a newly created coal ash commission whose members are appointed by the legislature and the governor. These unlined coal ash pits are leaching arsenic, chromium, mercury, lead, cadmium and boron into rivers, streams and groundwater.
The final bill was amended to add language aimed at better protecting groundwater at these sites, but it is unclear how effective it will actually be when implemented.
“DENR has worked hand and hand with Duke Energy to prevent cleanup of coal ash pollution for years, despite full knowledge of the problems. Granting this level of discretion to an agency with a history of putting the interests of Duke Energy above the public is a prescription for failure,” said Julie Mayfield, co-director at the Alliance.
“And in allowing for the possibility that some coal ash sites will be left in place in unlined pits, the legislature is attempting to roll back existing clean up requirements,” Mayfield said. “Why would our elected leaders put fewer requirements on Duke and leave communities across the state at risk? Every community deserves to be protected like Asheville.”
Also of great concern, the bill gives Duke Energy amnesty for leaks from its coal ash dams that flow directly into streams and rivers. Rather than requiring Duke to fix its leaking dams, the bill mirrors the sweetheart deal Duke negotiated with DENR last year – a deal DENR later withdrew – that shields Duke by permitting these uncontrolled discharges of contaminated wastewater. “The legislature should require Duke Energy clean up its leaking coal ash dams, not allow DENR to paper over Duke’s pollution,” Carson said.
On the positive side, the bill requires Duke Energy to transition from wet coal ash disposal to dry ash disposal at all of its facilities by 2019. That should reduce the likelihood of future contamination and the likelihood of a catastrophic dam failure.
The bill also imposes requirements on the use of coal ash as structural fill, similar to those in place at the Asheville airport project that has been using ash from the Asheville coal plant for several years. These requirements only apply to large coal ash fill projects, however, not all fill projects. And there are other positive provisions around public notification of spills, providing drinking water to impacted families, and groundwater monitoring.
“These are important, positive steps forward that will help prevent future contamination and protect impacted communities,” Mayfield said. “The legislature would have done better to adopt a similarly strong approach to dealing with existing contamination.”
The final bill also tightens a provision that allows Duke Energy to obtain a variance to clean up deadlines in the bill. The version adopted by the House had no criteria for granting the variance, allowing for the possibility that Duke could obtain variances at all of their sites and never actually clean up anything. The final bill limits the number of times Duke can request variances and time limits the deadline extensions.
