The federal, North Carolina and Virginia governments asked a court Thursday to declare the country’s largest electricity company liable for environmental damage from a leak five years ago that left miles of a river shared by the two states coated in hazardous coal ash.
Government lawyers sought to have Charlotte-based Duke Energy declared responsible for harming fish, birds, amphibians and the Dan River bottom. Hazardous substances like arsenic and selenium poured into the river at levels high enough to harm aquatic life, according to a complaint filed in the North Carolina federal court district near the site of the 2014 disaster.
The leak of waste Duke Energy stored after burning coal for power coated about 70 miles (110 kilometers) of the river from a power plant near Eden, renewing national attention on the risks posed by similar storage pits across the country.
Duke Energy pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes in 2015 and agreed to pay $102 million. The company said three years of testing through 2017 found no long-term effects to the river’s environment.
FILE – In this April 25, 2014, file photo, Bryant Gobble, left, embraces his wife, Sherry Gobble, right, as they look from their yard across an ash pond full of dead trees toward Duke Energy’s Buck Steam Station in Dukeville, N.C. The federal, North Carolina and Virginia governments want a judge to declare Charlotte-based Duke Energy liable for environmental damage from a leak five years ago that left miles of a river shared by the two states coated in hazardous coal ash. Government lawyers on Thursday, July 18, 2019 sought to have Duke Energy declared responsible for harming fish, birds, amphibians and the bottom of the Dan River. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)The government’s complaint “establishes beyond any doubt that the Dan River spill did serious harm,” said Frank Holleman, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The two states and the United States government are pursuing money and compensation for that harm.”