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Ten Duke Energy coal ash basins, including four near Charlotte, are among 44 “high hazard potential” impoundments nationwide, federal enforcers said Monday.
The basins, where electric utilities dump power-plant residues, have come under intense scrutiny since a Tennessee Valley Authority basin in Kingston, Tenn., failed in December. The collapse released 5.4 million cubic yards of contaminated sludge.
The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to public pressure, identified 427 ash basins at power plants. Those rated “high hazard” aren't in danger of failing but, because of their locations, could kill someone if they did collapse.
Among them are Duke's Allen and Riverbend coal-fired power plants on the Catawba River in Gaston County and Marshall plant on Lake Norman in Catawba County. Two more are at Progress Energy's Asheville plant.
Duke's eight Carolinas coal-fired plants produce 2.2 million tons of ash a year, piping two-thirds of it into landfills and ponds. The ash is laden with metals that in high concentrations can cause cancer and other health problems.
EPA said it has conducted on-site inspections of some of the high-hazard basins and will review others that have been inspected by state officials in the past 12 months. The agency said it will make inspection results public when they're completed.
Duke spokesman Jason Walls said the utility has completed, or will soon complete, all recommendations that N.C. dam-safety officials made after their most recent inspections. EPA has not asked Duke to take any action, he said.
The N.C. Utilities Commission, which regulates Duke, requires safety inspections of coal-ash basins every five years. Duke has said it voluntarily does annual inspections.
The Observer's review of state records in December found no reports of imminent instability at Duke's dams. But the records showed “potentially serious” seepage in 2007 at its Dan River plant near the Virginia line. “Major distress” was reported after a 2005 storm that overtopped a dike at the Cliffside plant 60 miles west of Charlotte.
EPA has not provided the Observer with information it sought this spring on Duke's responses to the agency.
“This is critical information for the communities that live near these facilities who now know there is a substantial threat nearby,” attorney Lisa Evans, of the Oakland, Calif., environmental law firm Earthjustice, said in a statement. “The next step is for EPA to regulate coal ash as hazardous waste and guarantee protections for these local communities.”
