Duke Energy Poisons More Water With Their Coal Ash

UPDATE: 2-15-14:

US Prosecutors Open Criminal Probe Of Duke Energy Coal Ash Spill



Sure looks criminal to me.

UPDATE: 2-11-14

Compensation/Salary/Stock Options-Lynn Good

I thought it would be enlightening to post the salary/compensation/stock option information for Lynn Good, now president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy to show how OBSCENE it is. While our waterways continue to be polluted and made unusable by companies like Duke Energy cutting corners to save a dollar it is only fitting to see what is so damned more important that the money needs to go to.

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Massive Coal Ash Spill Chokes North Carolina River As EPA Considers Water Rules

Excerpt:

A ruptured Duke Energy pipe in Eden, North Carolina, caused the release of up to 82,000 tons of toxic coal ash and 27 million gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River. "The ecological disaster that is unleashed here is going to play out in the order of months, if not years," said Matt Wasson of Appalachian Voices.

Matt Wasson stood on the banks of the Dan River in North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon, just two miles downstream from the third-largest coal ash spill in US history. "The entire river is this eerie ashen color that is just incredibly unnatural," said Wasson, a member of the group Appalachian Voices who joined researchers and environmentalists in responding to the spill. "If you take a bucket and sort of scrape along the bottom, there is what looks like 6 to 10 inches of coal ash, and again this is two miles downstream [from the spill]."

On Monday, Duke Energy reported that a ruptured stormwater pipe under its 27-acre coal ash pond in Eden, North Carolina, caused the release of 50,000 to 82,000 tons of toxic coal ash and up to 27 million gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River.

Since then, the company has been working around the clock to permanently plug the leaking waste reservoir, which continues to release pollution into the river. Environmentalists, who claim the company has refused to move tons of toxic coal ash from unlined holding ponds next to rivers and lakes across the state, are echoing a collective "we told you so."

Coal ash pollution can be contaminated with toxic and heavy metals such as arsenic, chromium, lead, selenium and manganese. The volume of coal ash spilled into the river would fill between 20 and 32 Olympic-size swimming pools. Duke Energy and state regulators have been testing the river for pollution and said the results would be made public by Thursday.

Wasson compared the spill to the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority disaster in Kingston, Tennessee, where a coal ash sludge impound broke and unleashed 1 billion gallons of toxic sludge that destroyed houses, wetlands and streams. He said the Duke spill might not have the human impacts of the Kingston disaster, but impacts to local ecosystems could be just as bad.

"This is a really big disaster," Wasson said. "… The ecological disaster that is unleashed here is going to play out in the order of months, if not years."

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I just want to SCREAM- WHY? WHY are these corporations that are considered PEOPLE allowed to continually KILL our waterways without ANY REGULATION OR ACCOUNTABILITY? The EPA stated in 2009- FIVE YEARS AGO that it would seek to implement rules. This is now 2014 and they are just "considering" it? The Environmental Protection Agency should have its name changed to the Environmental Procrastination Agency. How the hell long does it take to realize that OUR WATER AND THOSE WHO USE IT NEED PROTECTION from those only in business to make a profit?

Duke Energy waited 24 hours to report major coal ash spill into Dan River



HOW IS THIS NOT CRIMINAL? In this age of climate change as well, we CANNOT AFFORD to poison our water with coal ash, chemicals, oil, tarsands, fracking fluid, nitrogen runoff! I am so angry I am in tears for the water and us. Also in seeing my own water now privatized I recently wrote the company, United Water inquiring about where I could find a water quality report since it is not linked on the EPA site... I got no response. So now I will ask in our public community newspaper and see if they respond there. EVERY American now needs to be concerned about what is in their water and question it.

These corporations are making BILLIONS off keeping you in the dark to cut costs while our water which is now even more precious is poisoned! They don't care about you. All they care about is giving their shareholders a good report. CLEAN WATER IS A PUBLIC TRUST AND A HUMAN RIGHT. It is time for us to care and hold them accountable for their crimes against our water.

Waters protected under the Clean Water Act:

Summary-Clean Water Act

Are our laws enforceable anymore?

NC River Turns to Gray Sludge After Coal Ash Spill

Twenty miles downstream from the spill site and across the state line in Danville, Va., worried fishermen watched ash swirl in the water. A woman dipped her hand into the water and it came out coated slate gray.

Municipal officials in Danville say they are successfully filtering out contaminates in the drinking water for the city of about 43,000 people.

Meanwhile, officials in Virginia Beach, Va., announced they had stopped drawing water from Lake Gaston, a major reservoir fed by the Dan.

Personnel from Duke Energy and an alphabet soup of state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, traveled the river in motorboats Wednesday, collecting water and sediment samples. A command center has been set up at the power company's facility in Eden.

An EPA spokeswoman did not respond to questions Wednesday, including when the test results on the samples collected by the agency would be made public.

Environmentalists and government regulators have been warning for years that the 31 ash ponds at Duke's power plants in North Carolina had the potential for calamity, especially after a similar pond in Kingston, Tenn., burst open in 2008.

"Even without a spill, these settling ponds have been releasing continuous contamination into the rivers downstream from coal-fired power plants," said Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry at Duke University, which was named for the same family that founded the power company.