Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 36

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040

    82,000 Tons of coal ash spill into North Carolina river

    Tons of coal ash spill into North Carolina river

    Between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of ash have poured into the Dan River, but drinking water has not been affected, say government officials and plant owner Duke Energy.


    What might be coal ash is seen in a Monday photo of the Dan River in Eden, N.C. Duke Energy says tens of thousands of tons of coal ash spilled into the river Sunday. (Appalachian Voices / February 3, 2014)





    By David Zucchino
    February 4, 2014, 8:55 p.m.


    Tens of thousands of tons of coal ash have spilled into the Dan River from a closed North Carolina coal plant since Sunday, but drinking water supplies have not been affected, according to municipal officials and the plant's owner, Duke Energy.

    Between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of ash have poured into the Dan River, which flows between North Carolina and Virginia, Duke Energy said. Corporate officials, who blamed a broken storm water pipe, said Tuesday that the utility was still working to stop the leak at the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C.


    About 24 to 27 million gallons of basin water from a 27-acre coal ash reservoir at the retired plant also spilled into the river, Duke Energy said in a statement. The company said a temporary plug had stopped most of the coal ash flow, and crews were working to completely fix the leak. Crews were inserting a camera into the broken pipe to devise a long-term solution, the statement said.


    A Duke Energy spokeswoman, Lisa Hoffmann, told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview that municipal water supplies downstream had not been affected. She said Duke was working closely with Danville, Va., the nearest downstream city.


    Danville has successfully treated the contaminated water, according to a statement on the city's website.


    "All water leaving our treatment facility has met public health standards," Barry Dunkley, division director of water and wastewater treatment for Danville Utilities, said in a statement. "We do not anticipate any problems going forward in treating the water we draw from the Dan River."


    City officials in Eden, near the Virginia border, said the town's water supplies were not affected because its intake valves were above the site of the leak.


    The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources said it was testing samples of water upstream and downstream from the leak to determine whether water quality had been affected.


    "Our chief concerns are that we do everything we can to assist in controlling this spill and assessing its damage," said department secretary John Skvarla, who announced that he was on his way to the site Tuesday.


    The Southern Environmental Law Center, which focuses on environmental issues in North Carolina, Virginia and four other Southern states, criticized Duke's coal ash storage policies.


    "It's the latest in a series of spills and leaks into waterways, including drinking water reservoirs and upstream from drinking water uptakes, and groundwater," Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the center, said in statement. Holleman represents several environmental groups who have taken Duke Energy to court over the storage of coal ash, a byproduct of coal-fired energy plants.


    "Storing large amounts of coal-related toxic substances in outdated earthen pits beside rivers and lakes is a recipe for repeated disasters and pollution," Holleman said.


    He said two other major utilities in North Carolina had agreed to move their coal ash out of unlined lagoons to dry landfill storage away from waterways. He also said Duke Energy had experienced coal ash structural failures at three of its other facilities in North Carolina.


    In addition, the law center said contaminated water had been leeching for years from the coal ash containment basin at the Dan River plant, releasing arsenic, boron and sulfate into groundwater. The plant closed in 2012.


    Speaking of the environmental groups that have criticized Duke Power, spokeswoman Hoffmann said, "They have good intentions but they are not presenting all of the facts."


    She said "coal ash issues" cited by the law center at three Duke plants in North Carolina were "small and had little public impact."


    Seepage is a common feature of coal ash storage basins but is minimal; state regulators have found that such seepage has had no effect on water quality at the Dan River plant, she said.


    Duke Energy agrees that storing coal ash in lagoons is outdated, Hoffmann said. She said the company was working on developing methods using lined landfills to more safely store coal ash.


    The utility is implementing those methods in some of its seven remaining coal-fired plants in North and South Carolina, she said.

    Duke has closed seven other coal-fired plants, including the Dan River facility, Hoffmann said.

    Duke Energy reported the Dan River plant leak to regulators and Danville officials as soon as it learned of the incident Sunday, Hoffman said. The company did not announce the leak to the general public until Monday.

    david.zucchino@latimes.com

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...#ixzz2sTWrOiqD
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 08-20-2014 at 09:18 PM.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste - Scientific American

    www.scientificamerican.com › ... › Strange but True
    Scientific American

    Dec 13, 2007 - Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste..... the other is more fissionable material then there was to start...name another fuel source ...
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 02-05-2014 at 09:53 PM.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  3. #3
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  4. #4
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  5. #5
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040

    Coal ash spill into NC river still not contained

    ON THE DAN RIVER, N.C. (AP) — Canoe guide Brian Williams dipped his paddle downstream from where thousands of tons of coal ash has been spewing for days into the Dan River, turning the wooden blade flat to bring up a lump of gray sludge.

    Associated Press 52 mins ago
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 08-20-2014 at 09:19 PM.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  6. #6
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    1. North Carolina Sues for Coal Ash Water Contamination at 12 Duke ...

      www.powermag.com/40257/‎

      North Carolina Sues for Coal Ash Water Contamination at 12 Duke Energy Sites.
    2. 08/22/2013 | Sonal Patel. North Carolina on Friday sought a state Superior ...

    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  7. #7
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040


    NC river turns to gray sludge after coal ash spill


    ON THE DAN RIVER, N.C. (AP) — Canoe guide Brian Williams dipped his paddle downstream from where thousands of tons of coal ash has been spewing for days into the Dan River, turning the wooden blade flat to bring up a lump of gray sludge.

    Associated Press
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  8. #8
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    Video: Impact on wildlife from Eden coal ash spill unknown


    JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ/News & Record
    The disturbance to the ash basin, seen behind Duke employees, caused by a broken storm pipe that runs underneath the basin at the Duke Energy Dan River Steam Station, on Tuesday, February 4, 2014, in Eden, N.C.



    Related Stories




    Related Documents

    What is coal ash graphic 020414



    Posted: Tuesday, February 4, 2014 3:37 pm | Updated: 1:13 am, Wed Feb 5, 2014.
    By Brad Kesler brad.kesler@news-record.com
    Posted on February 4, 2014



    EDEN —
    Duke Energy on Tuesday continued its efforts to stop the spill of coal ash into the Dan River while environmental organizations began collecting data to assess the damage.

    The company said a 48-inch stormwater pipe beneath the unlined ash pond from the Dan River Steam Station broke Sunday afternoon. Water and ash from the 27-acre pond drained into the pipe.

    The company estimated that up to 27 million gallons of water and about 82,000 tons of coal ash — a volume that could fill about 32 Olympic-size swimming pools — were released from the pond into the Dan River.


    Coal ash is the waste left after burning coal. It contains arsenic, mercury, lead and more than a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic.


    It’s also unregulated by the Enviromental Protection Agency, although the organization is working to change that.


    Officials in Rockingham County and downstream in Danville, Va., have said there are no problems with their water supplies.


    Unknown, and of deep concern to environmental groups who converged on the area Tuesday, was the impact the spill will have on the surrounding wildlife.


    “I’m appalled and stunned that another coal ash pond has failed so catastrophically in the United States,” said Donna Lisenby, campaign coordinator for Waterkeeper Alliance.


    As darkness fell Tuesday, Duke Energy workers were still at the source of the spill trying to stem it. They hoped to insert a camera into the pipe to understand the damage.


    “Our intent is not to repair the pipe,” Duke Energy Communications Manager Erin Culbert said. “There is no need for that pipe to continue operating. The hope at this point is that we can design an engineering solution that will close the pipe permanently.”


    The company said the ash basin dam along the river remained secure.

    There wasn’t much water left in the basin. What remained was mostly gray sludge.

    Culbert said Duke Energy continued to dispatch teams every four hours to monitor the water quality in the river.


    Initial testing by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources didn’t detect contaminants.


    The Dan River Steam Station, which has been out of service since 2012, is considered by the EPA to have one of the most hazardous coal ash ponds in the country.


    According to Duke Energy officials, a security guard spotted an unusually low water level in the ash pond about 2 p.m. Sunday, leading to the discovery of the pipe break.


    But the company waited until 4 p.m. Monday to make the news public.

    Environmental groups, some of which have sued Duke Energy over 14 coal ash dump sites in North Carolina, have criticized the utility for the delay.

    “I’m shocked,” said Matt Wasson, the director of programs at Appalachian Voices, an environmental watchdog group. “It took them 24 hours to get word to the public that this is happening.”


    Wasson had been on the river since late Monday night collecting water samples.


    On Tuesday afternoon, he was roughly two miles downstream from the spill at the Draper’s Landing Boat Launch on U.S. 700. There, he stood on the bank and said he was “stunned” at what he saw — gray water.


    “I knew it was going to be a big coal ash spill, but I had no idea it was going to be at this scale,” Wasson said. “Two miles downstream and there’s nothing but coal ash coating the bottom of the river.”


    Wasson said he was worried about damage to wildlife and fish. He doubted there would be any problems with the drinking water — a sentiment echoed by other environmentalists Tuesday.


    Jenny Edwards hoped the spill would prompt Duke Energy to act faster in removing the ash ponds. Edwards, the program manager for the Dan River Basin Association, first heard of the spill Monday afternoon when someone called to report the river was “running black.”


    “Coal ash is highly toxic,” Edwards said. “One of the things we’re very concerned about is the impact this is going to have on wildlife, on the fish and the potential impact on human health.”


    She looked over toward the gray waters of the Dan.


    “I find this extremely disconcerting,” Edwards said. “I’m worried about this river.”


    http://www.news-record.com/news/arti...a4bcf6878.html
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 08-20-2014 at 09:21 PM.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  9. #9
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    Water safety threatened by North Carolina coal ash spill, group says

    Amy Adams, North Carolina campaign coordinator with Appalachian Voices, shows her hand covered with wet coal ash from the Dan River. (Gerry Broome / Associated Press / February 5, 2014)

    By David Zucchino
    February 6, 2014, 7:18 p.m.

    EDEN, N.C. – An environmental group Thursday challenged Duke Energy’s assurances that drinking water from the Dan River in North Carolina and Virginia remained safe despite a massive spill of toxic coal ash that released a deluge of murky gray sludge into the river Sunday.

    The Waterkeeper Alliance said its tests of water collected just yards from the spill site here showed dangerous level of toxins, including arsenic, chromium, lead, iron and other heavy metals. Arsenic levels in the samples were 35 times higher than the maximum containment level set by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water, the group said.


    "The stuff flowing into the river out of that pipe is disturbingly high in toxins and laden with heavy metals," Peter Harrison, staff attorney for the alliance, said as he stood on the riverbank downstream from the spill site late Thursday afternoon. Tests were conducted by a certified lab in North Carolina, he said.


    The samples were collected Tuesday, 48 hours after the spill was discovered, Harrison said. He spent two hours in a kayak on the river Thursday, collecting more water samples whose test results are expected in a few days.


    The Waterkeeper Alliance called the ash spill the third-largest in U.S. history. The biggest was a 2008 spill in Tennessee that unleashed more than a billion gallons of ash slurry, destroying homes, flooding residential areas and polluting waterways.


    State regulators said initial test results, released Thursday night, found no violations of state water quality standards for 17 heavy metals in most samples taken Monday and Tuesday. Copper levels were above state surface water standards, the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources reported.


    Tom Reeder, director of the state Division of Water Resources, said tests of the water and river bottom sediments would continue. "The Dan River does not have a clean bill of health," he said.


    Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan, standing on an overlook above the spill site at the company’s shuttered coal-fired Dan River plant, said company tests showed only traces of heavy metals within accepted safety standards for drinking water, fish and wildlife. Levels of arsenic, lead and selenium taken from water intakes at Danville, Va., and South Boston, Va., were less than two parts per billion – the lowest level that lab instruments can accurately measure, the company said.


    Danville and South Boston are the nearest cities downstream from the spill, which Duke Energy said dumped between 50,000 and 80,000 tons of coal ash into the river after a 48-inch stormwater pipe ruptured beneath the ash basin. Some 24 million to 27 million tons of polluted water from the basin also poured into the Dan River, the company said.


    The state of North Carolina, along with several environmental groups – including Waterkeeper Alliance – have sued Duke Energy over its handling of coal ash at the utility’s coal-fired plants. The Dan River plant, closed in 2012, is one of seven Duke decommissioned coal-fired plants. Another seven remain in operation.


    Sheehan said crews were still working Thursday to plug the leak, four days after the spill was reported. She said they had managed to stop almost all water seepage from the basin and most of the flow from the ruptured pipe.


    "It’s a very low flow and at times no flow," Sheehan said, gesturing toward workers, trucks and a crane at the edge of the coal ash basin near the river’s edge.


    Sheehan said the company has tested river water at 11 locations above and below the spill site, as well as near the spill itself. "There is no challenge to drinking water," she said. "Drinking water is absolutely safe downstream."


    The Waterkeeper Alliance said levels of lead in its tests were far higher than levels recommended by the EPA to prevent contamination of drinking water. Dangerous levels were also detected for boron, manganese, zinc and iron, the group said.


    "Duke could have avoided contaminating the Dan River and poisoning Virginia’s water supplies if it had removed its toxic ash heaps years ago after being warned by EPA," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance.


    Erin Culbert, a Duke spokesperson, said the highest arsenic level in samples taken from the river Monday was 35.3 parts per billion – below the state surface water standard of 50 ppb. The highest test results for samples filtered to indicate levels that would be expected after water is treated for drinking were 3.43 ppb, well below the 10 ppb drinking water standard, she said.


    Duke is also having water tested at municipal water intakes downstream and after water has been treated by municipal water systems. "Results in both areas look very good," Culbert said.


    North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican and former Duke executive, visited the site Thursday and called the incident "a very serious spill," adding, "We need to get it under control as quickly as possible."


    EPA officials began sampling water from the river Wednesday and sediment on the river bottom Thursday to determine the amount of ash that had settled there, said Dawn-Harris-Young, an EPA spokesperson in Atlanta.


    Sheehan, the Duke spokeswoman, said hundreds of people were working at the spill site 24 hours a day, trying to come up with a way to plug the leak and to secure the pond.


    Harrison, the Waterkeeper Alliance attorney, said water was still flowing from the ruptured pipe when he paddled near the site Thursday.


    Culbert said at that site Thursday that efforts to deal with the spill could last for weeks.


    http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...#ixzz2sbtutfSk
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  10. #10
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    PARADISE (San Diego)
    Posts
    99,040
    Arsenic Detected in NC River After Coal Ash Spill

    RALEIGH, N.C. February 6, 2014 (AP)

    By MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press



    The nation's largest electricity provider and an environmental group are reporting conflicting data about the levels of toxins detected in a North Carolina river following a massive spill of coal ash.


    Duke Energy said Thursday its results from the Dan River downstream from the company's power plant in Eden showed traces of arsenic contamination, but at levels considered safe for both people and aquatic life.


    The closest samples the company collected were about two miles downstream from where about 82,000 tons of toxic coal ash has spilled into the river. The spill was discovered Sunday and is ongoing.


    Water samples tested by a certified lab hired by the Waterkeeper Alliance contained hazardous levels of arsenic 10 times higher than Duke's readings.

    Those samples were collected yards from the spill site.


    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/c...ained-22384415
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


    Sign in and post comments here.

    Please support our fight against illegal immigration by joining ALIPAC's email alerts here https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •