NC lawmakers float easing Duke Energy’s coal ash cleanup
By EMERY P. DALESIO
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina legislators are moving to change laws that direct Duke Energy to excavate and move toxic coal ash from unlined pits near rivers by 2024.
A state Senate committee on Tuesday unveiled quickly advanced legislation allowing lower-cost alternatives at half of Duke Energy’s 14 coal plants. The others must be excavated.
Gov. Pat McCrory’s environmental agency spent months evaluating factors including health and safety risks before saying in May that residues from decades of burning coal for power must be moved.
The changes would allow Duke Energy to leave the ash in place if the nation’s largest electricity company supplies drinking water to neighbors who fear their water wells are polluted by arsenic, chromium and other hazardous elements. The company also must shore up questionable dams around some pits.
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