The state of North Carolina has filed a second lawsuit against Duke Energy regarding threats of contamination to Charlotte’s water resources.
The issue became particularly pressing after Duke Energy’s Riverbend Steam Station, located near Charlotte, closed April 1st, said Rick Gaskins, executive director of the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation and one of the instigators of the case. Gaskins estimated that the Riverbend plant has leaked almost 400,000 gallons of waste a day into the nearby drinking water reservoir in the two months since it closed.
Frank Holleman, senior attorney for Southern Environmental Law Center, gave the court notice that the organization would file an independent lawsuit against Duke Energy if the state did not do so.
“If Duke Energy had their way they would put a cast over the ash pond, take some clay soil, put it over top of it and bury this stuff on the banks of the drinking water reservoir,” Gaskins said. “What we’re saying is that’s crazy. Why would you bury something…that is hazardous on the edge of a drinking water reservoir?”
Headquartered in Charlotte, Duke Energy is the largest electric power holding company in the United States. It was co-founded in the early 1900s by James Buchanan Duke who was also involved with developing Duke University in its early stages, but the energy company and university are unaffiliated.
A 2012 study conducted by Duke University professors revealed high levels of arsenic in Mountain Island Lake, which Duke Energy denied. Holleman explained that, although Duke Energy generally tested only the water columns—where arsenic does not tend to build up—they refrained from examining the sediment, as well.
“Sometimes you will hear Duke Energy say ‘There’s no arsenic in [the water],” Holleman said. “[That’s like saying] we have gone to Raleigh and we didn’t see a single grizzly bear, therefore there are no grizzly bears in North America.”
Lisa Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy, refuted the use of the Duke study as evidence, noting that the method undertaken in the study was a pore water sampling, which differs from the samplings Duke Energy is required to carry out by law. She added that the energy provider has always complied with state water regulations.
Duke Energy’s inability to control this one area of water calls into question its ability to grow as an organization, noted sophomore Alekhya Sure, a Charlotte native. Despite the energy company’s lack of regulation, Sure said she has never encountered contaminated water but speculated that this could be due to Charlotte’s water quality legislation rather than Duke Energy’s initiatives.
Gaskins emphasized that it is hard to tell whether Charlotte residents have consumed contaminated drinking water. Many of the toxic materials found in reservoir water are removed by water treatment plants, but this does not necessarily eliminate the problem.
“[Duke Energy] is putting a carcinogen, arsenic, into the drinking water reservoir,” Gaskins said. “The water treatment plants seem to be getting most of the arsenic out, but there’s a cost to that… and any level of this stuff is bad.”
If the lawsuit is successful, Holleman said that Duke Energy will have to move the coal ash currently stored at the now-defunct Riverbend steam station and contain it in a dry area.
Duke Energy, however, is still in the process of making decisions regarding the plant. Hoffman noted that Riverbend must undergo “site characterization studies” before a final verdict can be made.
Nevertheless, Gaskins echoed Holleman’s words, expressing a hope that Duke Energy will not build plants as close to water reservoirs in the future.
Sure summarized the plight at the center of this lawsuit— having clean water for the people of Charlotte.
“There’s such a limited amount of waterways when you get to North Carolina [and] where we live it’s the piedmont region,” Sure said. “We’re drawing water for three different districts… to have any of them contaminated [is a problem].”
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