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2014 Dan River coal ash spill

Existing lead statement: 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 substantial fines. The EPA has since been responsible for overseeing cleanup of the deposits and formulation of the Administrative Settlement Agreement and Order on Consent for Removal Action in EPA regions 3 & 4, which Duke has approved.

Our group's lead statement: Upwards of 82,000 tons of coal ash spilled in the Dan River near Danville, Virginia, in February 2014. A Duke Energy power plant was responsible for the spill and the company has vowed to help clean up the damage. Long-term health and environmental effects resulting from the spill are unknown. The EPA has been monitoring water and soil chemistry since the incident.

Contents

• Incident
• Causes
• Environmental impact
• Regulation
• Outcomes
• Efforts
• Citations
• References
• Further reading

Incident

Our groups Incident Paragraph:

On February 2, 2014 at a coal ash containment pond owned by Duke Energy in Eden, North Carolina, a drainage pipe burst 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 also released into the Dan River. The broken pipe was left unsealed for almost a week before the draining coal ash was stopped. Coal ash was spread and deposited up to seventy miles from the site of the spill and contained harmful metals and chemicals that had environmentalists enraged. This catastrophe occurred at the site of a retired Duke Energy coal power plant. Duke Energy apologized for the incident and worked for months attempting to clean up the coal ash. Workers were only able to remove about ten percent of the coal ash that was spilled into the river, but efforts are still being made and Duke Energy has put a plan in place to spend around 3 million dollars to continue the cleanup efforts.

An article from CNN stated that the water was turned into an oily sludge, the same water that is supplied to communities in North Carolina and Virginia as drinking water. Immediate tests showed increased amounts of toxic chemicals such as arsenic and selenium, but tap water pulled from the river was deemed safe to drink by officials. Duke Energy quickly realized how difficult it would be to clean up the coal ash and apologized for the incident. The coal ash immediately endangered animals and fish species that lived in or around the river and relied on the fresh water. Six days after the spill Duke Energy announced that the leakage had been stopped and they pledged to clean up the coal ash.

Original paragraph:

In February 2014, an Eden, North Carolina facility owned by Duke Energy, the largest electric utility company in the United States, spilled 39,000 tons of coal ashand 27 million gallons of wastewater into the Dan River. and coated the river bottom for 70 miles downstream.

Reasons for spill

The cause of the ash spill was described by the EPA as a limited structural flaw . A storm pipe nearby the deposits of a coal ash slurry containment area broke and allowed for the leakage . 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. . 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 . This material was released into the Dan River because of the collapse of a 48 inch drain pipe . The pipe was made of concrete and corrugated metal and reason for the fracture cannot be identified . What resulted was 39 thousand tons of coal ash and 27 million gallons of ash pond water were deposited into the Dan River .

Environmental Impact

The EPA has been collecting dissolved contaminant concentration data in the Dan River (from the VA/NC state line to mid-way between Danville and South Boston) since the coal ash spill . 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 . They have been periodically comparing the retrieved water/sediment chemistry data to ecological risk screening levels (ERSLs) to assess risk to aquatic and plant life . Certain contaminants that were measured exceed the screening levels, necessitating that the water/sediment chemistry must continue to be monitored . Coal ash can coat and degrade the habitats of aquatic animals as well as cause direct harm to certain organisms .

The latest surface water sampling results were released by the EPA in July, 2014 . All surface water chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for lead . The latest sediment sampling results were released in July, 2014 . All sediment chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for aluminum, arsenic, barium, and iron . The latest soil sampling results were released in June, 2014 . All soil chemical concentrations were found to be below the ERSLs except for aluminum, barium, iron, and manganese .

The coal ash will never be fully removed from the river . 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 . In addition, the coal ash is already mixed in with existing sediment .

Regulation

An article in the New York Times alleged that North Carolina's state environmental protection agency was directed to minimize their regulatory role prior to the accident by pro-industry governor Pat McCrory. Prior to being governor, McCrory had worked for Duke Energy nearly three decades. At the time, it was the third largest coal ash spill to have occurred in the United States. Prior to the incident, environmental groups had attempted to sue Duke Energy three times in 2013 under the Clean Water Act to force them to fix leaks in its coal ash dumps. Each time, they were blocked by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which eventually fined them $99,111. Federal prosecutors found this suspiciously low, and investigated both Duke Energy and the state regulators. Many newspaper editorials alleged that Duke Energy's environmental safety controls were lax and that the company "bullied" regulators.

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. 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 Energy agreed to pay $102 million in fines and restitution, the largest federal criminal fine in North Carolina history. Duke also agreed to pay North Carolina ??? and Virginia $2.5 million.

Outcomes

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. On may 2nd 2014, Duke Energy and the 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 the EPA to address future response methods needed in order to clean up the Dan River . Spokesperson with Duke Energy has announced that they plan on getting out of the coal ash business all together . Associates have said that well before the Dan River incident they had allocated 130 million dollars to transitioning plants to handle fly-ash dry and manage it in lined landfills . Duke energy said that they have also created an advisory group of researchers to help with cleaner coal combustion in their facilities .

Efforts

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. The work plan includes descriptions and a schedule of actions required by the settlement; the public health plan ensures protection of public health during on-site removal projects; the post-removal site control plan provides the EPA with documentation of all post-removal arrangements; and the engineering report describes steps executed by Duke to improve the structural durability of post-release impoundments and storm sewer lines running under their coal ash ponds. Within these plans, Duke 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, the Kerr Reservoir, and Schoolfield Dam in Virginia. These assessments were approved by the EPA in consultation with the affected states agencies including North Carolina Department of Environemtnal Quality (NCDEQ) and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ). Following the spill and written into the AOC are monitoring protocols in which the EPA will sporadically authorize the NCDEQ and VDEQ to take split and or duplicate water samples to ensure consistent quality after removal of the coal ash.

In February 2016, the EPA proposed a $6.8 million settlement, which Duke Energy immediately appealed. The following 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. Regarding the initial settlement cost listed above, EPA sends periodic bills to Duke Energy accounting for direct and indirect costs incurred by EPA, its contractors, and the Department of Justice.