In this Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, photo, Amy Adams, North Carolina campaign coordinator with Appalachian Voices dips her hand into the Dan River in Danville, Va., as signs of coal ash appear in the river. Duke Energy estimates that up to 82,000 tons of ash has been released from a break in a 48-inch storm water pipe at the Dan River Power Plant in Eden N.C.RALEIGH, N.C. - Duke Energy said Tuesday it plans to begin dredging coal ash out of a North Carolina river as the state's environmental agency moved to scuttle a previously proposed settlement with the company over pollution leaking from waste dumps at its power plants.
Lawyers for the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources asked a judge late Monday to disregard its own proposed settlement with the nation's largest electricity provider. Under the deal, Duke would have paid fines of $99,111 for pollution that leaked from two coal dumps like the one that ruptured Feb. 2, spewing out enough toxic sludge into the Dan River to fill 73 Olympic-sized pools. The deal proposed over the summer covered plants near Asheville and Charlotte, while this month's spill was near the town of Eden.
The state dumped the settlement one day after a story by The Associated Press in which environmentalists criticized the arrangement as a sweetheart deal aimed at shielding Duke from far more expensive penalties the $50 billion company might face under the federal Clean Water Act.
The settlement would have required Duke to study how to stop the contamination, but included no requirement to clean up the dumps near Asheville and Charlotte.
Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday a new task force would be created at the environmental agency within the month to assess all 31 of Duke's coal ash dumps in the state.
"We need a comprehensive plan to address the future of coal ash in North Carolina and we need to make sure we have all available resources to respond to this situation, including the knowledge we have gained during our environmental assessment and investigation into the spill of the coal ash into the Dan River," said McCrory, a Republican who worked at Duke Energy for 28 years.
Influential GOP lawmakers also called Tuesday for legislation requiring Duke to move its coal ash dumps away from rivers and lakes.
On the afternoon of Feb. 2, a security guard at Duke's Dan River Steam Station discovered that a pipe running under a 27-acre toxic waste pond had collapsed. The company reports that up to 82,000 tons of coal ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water drained out, turning the river gray and cloudy for miles. The accident ranks as the third-largest such coal ash spill in the nation's history.
The public was not told about the breach until the following day and initial reports provided by Duke and DENR did not make the disaster's scale clear. It took six days for the company to seal the pipe.
State regulators initially said testing showed levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants in the river were safe for fish and humans. On Sunday, however, the state officials admitted they had made an "honest mistake while interpreting the results" and warned people to avoid prolonged contact with the water.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new test results Tuesday showing elevated levels for lead and copper in samples collected from the Dan River last week.
Federal officials were hosting a community briefing Tuesday night in Danville, Va., a city of nearly 43,000 people about 20 miles downstream of the spill site. The agency's tests show the toxins detected in the river are successfully being filtered from the city's drinking water.
Duke plans to start cleaning out a small section of the Dan adjacent to its waste dump, where the ash accumulation on the bottom is believed to be the thickest.
"We're going to use big vacuum hoses and a vacuum truck to pull that ash out," said Paige Sheehan, a company spokeswoman. "It will help us better inform our long-term plan and test out a particular technique to see if it's effective. It's a long-term process."
Duke Energy, which issued an apology over the weekend, said that as of late Tuesday afternoon it was staging equipment by the river and hadn't begun dredging.
AP reported Sunday that environmental groups have tried three times in the past year to sue under the Clean Water Act to force Duke to clear out leaky coal ash dumps.
The groups sued after North Carolina regulators failed to act on evidence conservationists gathered of groundwater contamination.
Each time, the state agency blocked the citizen lawsuits by intervening at the last minute to assert its own authority under the act to take enforcement action in state court. After negotiating with the company, the state proposed settlements that environmentalists regarded as highly favorable to the company.
Clean water advocates have long complained that state regulators are too cozy with the polluters they regulate. But they say the relationship appears to have grown closer since McCrory's inauguration in January 2013.
Since his unsuccessful first campaign for governor in 2008, campaign finance reports show Duke Energy, its political action committee, executives and their immediate families have donated at least $1.1 million to McCrory's campaign and affiliated groups that spent on TV ads, mailings and events to support him.
On a state ethics form, McCrory indicated that his investment portfolio includes holdings of Duke stock valued in excess of $10,000, though he is not obligated to disclose the specific amount.
Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, worried that Monday's about-face might be just another tactic by the state to help Duke avoid paying for the harm it has done to the North Carolina's rivers and lakes.
"They are reacting to the public heat," Holleman said. "The spill at Dan River has shown that the entire path they have taken - not enforcing the law effectively as to coal ash - is a political embarrassment and a disaster for clean water in North Carolina. They are scrambling to figure out what to do without losing face."