Coal Ash Chronicles

Critics say there was a key flaw in the registry’s study: It looked at county-wide numbers, a data set large enough to subsume and hide the high number of cancer-stricken residents living right near the coal ash pond. This deficiency is representative of a larger problem that characterizes most attempts to uncover what’s behind suspected but unconfirmed geographical cancer clusters: Often, researchers can’t get the granular data they need forproof. “With environmental exposures, it’s much more difficult to measure at the individual level,” says Hal Morgenstern, a University of Michigan epidemiologist who studies cancer clusters. “Even with people living in the same neighborhoods, some may be exposed while others aren’t.”

Coal ash is now layered in one more controversy: whether the toxins pollute the ground water and whether it is a violation of the Clean Water Act. A federal judge in Virginia is deciding this issue.

Third, cleaning up coal ash would generate at least a billion dollars in new spending right here in Virginia and clean our environment. If the average coal ash job pays $50,000/year, $1 billion in coal ash remediation spending equates to at least 20,000 new jobs and would cost the average rate payer about $1 per month.”

"We hope that the governor sees our tweets," Curelop says. "He may not tweet us back, but he'll definitely see it."

But a Carolina Public Press investigation has found serious doubts about the credibility of the report that relies heavily on the statements of one scientist who may have been misquoted or taken out of context.

Thoughts?

According to the company, although the arsenic level was triple the standard, they say the leak was contained to their property and did not spread beyond that. Plus, they told me this chemical leak was only detected at one of the eleven test wells at the site.

Jeff Brooks, a spokesman for Duke Energy, said the legislation was a collaborative effort between lawmakers and the governor to find a sensible solution to closing the coal ash sites.

Regulators and Gov. Pat McCrory have been all over the map since the spill, first downplaying its importance, and then gradually increasing their apparent concern - some of which was prodded by lawsuits filed by environmental groups. The hard line for regulation reached its zenith in May, when the Department of Environmental Quality proposed that the ash at all 14 Duke Energy sites around the state be excavated and transported to safer storage, like the lined abandoned clay mines in Chatham and Lee counties that will be filled with millions of tons of ash.

It's interesting to see advice like this in gardening articles, "Coal ash should not be used on the garden." I say that because I have documentation from the 1950s where states encouraged people to use coal ash on their gardens.

"EPA's general guidance is that either option could be just as environmentally safe if done properly," Brooks said.

Leslie doesn’t consider herself an activist ... “When you see something that is wrong, you just have to fight,” she says.  “Putting toxic and carcinogenic materials over a watershed is just wrong.  I had to get involved.”

The same laboratory at Virginia Tech that analyzed the water in many Flint, Mich., homes also looked at West’s drinking water. The results? West’s water showed lead levels between four and 10 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level” for lead. Samples collected from West’s drinking water and some of his neighbors’ wells have revealed hexavalent chromium, arsenic, cobalt, aluminum, barium, copper, magnesium, manganese, nickel, zinc, vanadium, boron and strontium — many of which are carcinogenic, and all of which are found in coal ash. West and many of his neighbors believe millions of tons of toxic coal ash Dominion stored next to his property in unlined pits for the last few decades have contaminated their drinking wells.

“No. No, North Carolina is not a leader on coal ash,” said Xavier Boatright of Clean Water for North Carolina. “One of the main things it wants to do involves the cheaper options, like cap-in-place or the controversial act of mine reclamation. And until Duke Energy starts its beneficial reuse projects, South Carolina companies are supplying North Carolina concrete companies with ash. As is Asia. In North Carolina, where we have significantly more coal ash, our only coal-ash export is to landfills in communities in other states.”

PANIC spread in Talcher on Sunday  morning when ash slurry leaked out of the pipeline of Talcher Thermal Power Station (TTPS), a unit of NTPC, at Central Colony on Balanda road. Sources said the leakage started at 6 am and continued till 8 am. It was stopped by TTPS officials who rushed to the spot after a road blockade was staged by locals. However, the cause of leakage is yet to be ascertained. The ash slurry has inundated large  parts of the area and damaged a road side hotel. The locals alleged that the pipeline was damaged and failed to resist pressure.

Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (OTCQX: TMRC)announced that is has signed a MOU with a privately held well-established Pennsylvania coal company to recover and produce scandium and rare earth byproducts from coal ash and coal overburden. The name of the coal company is undisclosed.