In February 2014, an Eden, North Carolina facility owned by Duke Energy spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River. The company later pled guilty to criminal negligence in their handling of coal ash at Eden and elsewhere and paid fines of over $5 million. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has since been responsible for overseeing cleanup of the waste. EPA and Duke Energy signed an administrative order for the site cleanup.
On February 2, 2014 a drainage pipe burst at a coal ash containment pond owned by Duke Energy in Eden, North Carolina, sending 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River. In addition to the coal ash, 27 million gallons of wastewater from the plant was released into the river. [1] The broken pipe was left unsealed for almost a week before the draining coal ash was stopped. [2] The ash was deposited up to 70 miles (110 km) from the site of the spill and contained harmful metals and chemicals. [3] This catastrophe occurred at the site of the Dan River Steam Station, a retired coal power plant which had ceased operation in 2012. [4] Duke Energy apologized for the incident and announced detailed plans for removal of coal ash at the Dan River site. [5] Workers were only able to remove about ten percent of the coal ash that was spilled into the river, but cleanup is ongoing and Duke Energy plans to spend around 3 million dollars to continue the cleanup efforts. [3]
CNN reported that the river was turned into an oily sludge. The river is a drinking water source for communities in North Carolina and Virginia. [2] Immediate tests showed increased amounts of arsenic and selenium, [6] but the river was deemed by state officials to be a safe source for drinking water. However, further tests showed the ash to contain pollutants including but not limited to arsenic, copper, selenium, iron, zinc and lead. [1] The coal ash immediately endangered animals and fish species that lived in or around the river. Six days after the spill Duke Energy announced that the leakage had been stopped and they pledged to clean up the coal ash. [2]
The cause of the ash spill was described by EPA as a limited structural flaw. [7] A storm pipe nearby the deposits of a coal ash slurry containment area broke and allowed for the leakage. [8] Coal ash slurry is produced during the process of burning coal. It is the left over impurities that stick around after burning coal for electricity. [9] Coal companies have found that the cheapest way to store this waste is to mix it with water and store it in a pond. These ponds have been found to have leaks that can dispose hazardous material into surface water among other things. [9] EPA has identified at least 25 coal ash ponds in the southeast that are "high hazard". [10] This material was released into the Dan River because of the collapse of a 48 inch drain pipe. [8] The pipe was made of concrete and corrugated metal and reason for the fracture cannot be identified. [8] What resulted was 39 thousand tons of coal ash and 27 million gallons of ash pond water were deposited into the Dan River. [8]
EPA has been collecting dissolved contaminant concentration data in the Dan River (from the VA/NC state line to midway between Danville and South Boston) since the coal ash spill. [11] The organization has been periodically comparing the retrieved water/sediment chemistry data to ecological risk screening levels (ERSLs) to assess risk to aquatic and plant life. [11] Coal ash is made up of various materials after the burning of coal takes place. These include silica, arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, selenium, and zinc. [8] Certain contaminants that were measured exceed the screening levels, necessitating that the water/sediment chemistry must continue to be monitored. [11] Coal ash can coat and degrade the habitats of aquatic animals as well as cause direct harm to certain organisms. [11]
The latest surface water sampling results were released by EPA in July 2014. [12] All surface water chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for lead. [13] The latest sediment sampling results were also released in July 2014. [13] All sediment chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for aluminum, arsenic, barium, and iron. [13] The latest soil sampling results were released in June 2014. [13] All soil chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for aluminum, barium, iron, and manganese. [13]
The coal ash will never be fully removed from the river. [13] This is due to samples passing human health screening, the potential for historical contamination to become re-suspended, and removal being more detrimental to certain endangered species than the coal ash itself. [13] In addition, the coal ash is already mixed in with existing sediment, complicating its removal further. [13] EPA estimated that about 72 percent of all the toxic water in the country comes directly from coal-fired power plants. [14]
The New York Times reported that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ; formerly the Department of Environment and Natural Resources) was directed to minimize its regulatory role prior to the accident by Governor Pat McCrory. [15] Prior to being Governor, McCrory had worked for Duke Energy for nearly three decades. [15] [16] At the time, it was the third largest coal ash spill to have occurred in the United States. [17] [18] [19] Prior to the incident, environmental groups had attempted to sue Duke Energy three times in 2013 under the Clean Water Act to force the company to fix leaks in its coal ash dumps. Each time, the groups were blocked by NCDEQ, which eventually fined the company $99,111. [20] [21] Federal prosecutors found this fine to be suspiciously low, and investigated both Duke Energy and the state regulators. [22] Many newspaper editorials alleged that Duke Energy's environmental safety controls were lax and that the company "bullied" regulators. [22]
After the incident, Duke Energy was prosecuted by a number of agencies, and substantial evidence was presented indicating that company officials knew about numerous coal ash leaks in various plants including the Eden facility and declined to resolve it or provide local plant administrators the funds they were requesting to monitor and mitigate the problems. [20] [21] At the federal level, Duke was prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and pled guilty to nine charges of criminal negligence under the Clean Water Act. Duke agreed to pay $102 million in fines and restitution, the largest federal criminal fine in North Carolina history. [20] Duke also agreed to pay fines to North Carolina and Virginia ($2.5 million). [23]
Largely as a result of the attention brought to Duke Energy's handling of coal ash ponds by the 2014 disaster, the North Carolina state legislature ordered Duke Energy to close its 32 ash ponds in the state by 2029. [24] On May 2, 2014, Duke Energy and EPA agreed to a 3 million dollar cleanup agreement. Part of the agreement is having Duke Energy identify areas of necessary cleanup on the Dan River that is estimated to cost around 1 million dollars. The other 2 million dollars is allocated to EPA to address future response methods needed in order to clean up the Dan River. [3] A spokesperson for Duke Energy announced that the company plans to exit the coal ash business. [7] Associates have said that well before the Dan River incident the company had allocated 130 million dollars to transitioning plants to handle fly ash in dry form and manage it in lined landfills. [7] Duke Energy said that it created an advisory group of researchers to help with cleaner coal combustion at its facilities. [7]
In February 2016 EPA proposed a $6.8 million settlement, which Duke Energy immediately appealed. In September the corporation accepted a settlement just shy of the original amount at $5,983,750, to be paid for fines, restitution, cleanup assessment, removal, and community action initiatives. [25] Regarding the initial settlement, EPA sends periodic bills to Duke Energy accounting for direct and indirect costs incurred by EPA, its contractors, and the Department of Justice. [26]
The states affected launched a lawsuit on July 18, 2019, asking that the court declare Duke Energy responsible for the damage done to the environment by the spill. [27]
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To keep the energy provider accountable, under the Administrative Settlement Agreement & Order on Consent for Removal Action (AOC) as of May 2014, the Respondent, Duke Energy, was required to submit a number of plans to EPA, including a scope of work, public health, post-removal site control, and engineering plans. [26]
Within these plans, Duke Energy is responsible for creating and implementing a Site Assessment that includes but is not limited to ecological analysis, surface water and sediment assessment as well as post-removal monitoring protocols to calculate the extent of pollution in the Dan River in North Carolina and the Kerr Reservoir and Schoolfield Dam in Danville, Virginia. [26] These assessments were approved by the EPA in consultation with the affected state agencies including NCDEQ and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ). [26] Following the spill and written into the AOC are monitoring protocols in which EPA will sporadically authorize the NCDEQ and VDEQ to take split or duplicate water samples to ensure consistent quality after removal of the coal ash. [26]
As of April 1, 2019 North Carolina has ordered Duke Energy to dig up millions of tons of coal ash at six of its power plants. The dangerous coal ash has been mixed with water and stored in uncovered, unlined ponds for decades, but following the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill, many lawsuits have been filed. If the plaintiffs in these cases are successful, Duke Energy would be required to drain all of its 31 ponds. The draining process would cost $5 billion to the already $5.6 billion cleanup from 2014. With the added costs, Duke energy customers could expect to pay a higher fee in the next coming years. [28]
In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed.
The Catawba River is a major river located in the Southeastern United States. It originates in Western North Carolina and flows into South Carolina, where it later becomes known as the Wateree River. The river is approximately 220 miles (350 km) long. It rises in the Appalachian Mountains and drains into the Piedmont, where it has been impounded through a series of reservoirs for flood control and generation of hydroelectricity. The river is named after the Catawba tribe of Native Americans, which lives on its banks. In their language, they call themselves "yeh is-WAH h’reh", meaning "people of the river."
Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company ranked as the 141st largest company in the United States in 2024 – its highest-ever placement on the Fortune 500 list.
The Dan River flows 214 miles (344 km) in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Virginia. It rises in Patrick County, Virginia, and crosses the state border into Stokes County, North Carolina. It then flows into Rockingham County. From there it flows back into Virginia through Pittsylvania County before reentering North Carolina near the border between Caswell County and Rockingham County. It flows into northern Caswell County and then back into southern Virginia and finally into Kerr Reservoir on the Roanoke River.
Blackwater is a form of pollution produced in coal preparation. In its purification, coal is crushed in a coal preparation plant and then separated and transported as a coal slurry, From the slurry, incombustible materials are removed and the coal can be sized. After the recovery of the coal particles from this slurry, the remaining water is black, contains very fine particles of coal. This blackwater cannot be processed in a water treatment plant.
The Martin County coal slurry spill was a mining accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, broke into an abandoned underground mine below. The slurry came out of the mine openings, sending an estimated 306 million US gallons of slurry down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a 10-foot-wide (3.0 m) stream became a 100-yard (91 m) expanse of thick slurry.
Coal combustion products (CCPs), also called coal combustion wastes (CCWs) or coal combustion residuals (CCRs), are categorized in four groups, each based on physical and chemical forms derived from coal combustion methods and emission controls:
The health and environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
The Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, used a series of ponds to store and dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion. The spill released a slurry of fly ash and water which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. It was the largest industrial spill in United States history.
An ash pond, also called a coal ash basin or surface impoundment, is an engineered structure used at coal-fired power stations for the disposal of two types of coal combustion products: bottom ash and fly ash. The pond is used as a landfill to prevent the release of ash into the atmosphere. Although the use of ash ponds in combination with air pollution controls decreases the amount of airborne pollutants, the structures pose serious health risks for the surrounding environment.
The Dan River Steam Station is a power plant in Eden, North Carolina, owned by Duke Energy. The plant comprises three natural gas-fueled combustion turbines, which began operation in 1968.), and two natural gas-fueled combined cycle turbines are planned for the near future. A coal-fired electrical power plant at the site ceased operation in 2012.
The Kalamazoo River oil spill occurred in July 2010 when a pipeline operated by Enbridge burst and flowed into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Michigan. A 6-foot (1.8 m) break in the pipeline resulted in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history. The pipeline carries diluted bitumen (dilbit), a heavy crude oil from Canada's Athabasca oil sands to the United States. Cleanup took five years. Following the spill, the volatile hydrocarbon diluents evaporated, leaving the heavier bitumen to sink in the water column. Thirty-five miles (56 km) of the Kalamazoo River were closed for clean-up until June 2012, when portions of the river were re-opened. On March 14, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered Enbridge to return to dredge portions of the river to remove submerged oil and oil-contaminated sediment.
Little Blue Run Lake or Little Blue Run is the largest coal ash impound in the United States. FirstEnergy owns the site, located in Western Pennsylvania and parts of the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, and has disposed of billions of gallons of coal waste into the body of water. Several court cases have been brought against the company as a result of the damage caused by the company's practices at the site.
On October 31, 2013, a waste pit at the Obed Mountain Mine failed near the town of Hinton in Alberta, Canada. Following the collapse of a tailings dam, up to 1 billion litres of wastewater flooded into the nearby Athabasca River in what may have been the largest coal slurry spill in Canadian history. The river's waters experienced immediate spikes in arsenic, metals, and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Although the Athabasca was deemed safe for drinking and wildlife by the end of the year, the extent of the environment's recovery remained in doubt.
Coal ash, also known as coal combustion residuals (CCRs), is the mineral residue that remains from burning coal. Exposure to coal ash and to the toxic substances it contains may pose a health risk to workers in coal-fired power plants and residents living near coal ash disposal sites.
Environmental issues in Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, include long term and ongoing environmental impact from human activity, and specific incidents of environmental harm such as environmental disasters related to mining. A mountainous area with significant coal deposits, many environmental issues in the region are related to coal and gas extraction. Some extraction practices, particularly surface mining, have met significant resistance locally and at times have received international attention.
The H.F. Lee Energy Complex, formerly the Goldsboro Plant, is an electrical power generating complex operated by Duke Energy. The power complex was originally owned by the Carolina Power & Light Company, which inaugurated a coal-fired power plant in 1951. Two more coal plants were added in 1952 and 1962, and then oil-fueled turbines were added in 1967–71. In 2012 these units were shut down and replaced by four gas-fired units. The Quaker Neck Lake was built as a cooling pond for the coal-fired power stations, and is still used to supply cooling water. It was originally impounded by a low dam on the Neuse River, but in 1998 the dam was removed, while the lake remained contained in an earthen wall. This change allowed fish to migrate further upstream for spawning. Ash ponds near the lake hold toxic coal ash. There are plans to remove and recycle or bury the ash.
In September 2018, a dam failure caused by Hurricane Florence led to the leakage of coal ash into the Cape Fear River about five miles northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina. The coal ash came from two storage areas owned and operated by Duke Energy. Contaminants from the coal ash may have leached into the water source but long term testing has yet to be done by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or other environmental agencies. Clean up efforts were led by Duke Energy and mostly consisted of skimming the coal ash off the top of the water.
Michael Stanley Regan is an American environmental regulator. He has been serving as the 16th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency since March 11, 2021. He is the first African American man to serve in the role.
The Martin County water crisis is an on-going public health crisis that began in 2000, when a coal slurry spill contaminated the area's water supply with cancer-causing disinfection byproducts and coliform bacteria. Residents report the water having a strong smell of chlorine, discoloration, odd taste, sediment and irritation/burning when in contact with skin. The contamination was caused by the spillage of approximately 300 million gallons of arsenic and mercury concentrated coal sludge into an abandoned underground mine and two tributaries of the Tug Fork River by local coal company Massey Energy Company on October 11, 2000. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the spill was one of the worst environmental disasters ever in the southern United States.