Behind the scenes look at Sutton coal ash removal

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — By August of 2019 seven million tons of coal ash will be moved from the basins at the Sutton Plant. Two million tons is heading to Chatham county to be stored.

According to Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks the ash is excavated from the basins and carried to a staging area, where it’s loaded onto a conveyor system that then deposits it into the rail cars directly. Bokks said the trains leave every other day.

“Each rail car holds between 90 and 100 tons of coal ash and each train that leaves the site carries 85 rail cars,” Books said.

That’s about 8,000 tons of coal ash heading to the Brickhaven mine at least twice a week. The remaining five million tons will be moved into a new on-site landfill.