Reply With Quote
great articles Bouts, keep it up.
New Emails Suggest Coal Ash Polluter Helped State Regulator During Investigation
Emails obtained by the Associated Press suggest staff at North Carolina’s environmental regulatory agency coordinated with Duke Energy officials before intervening in a suit by citizen groups against the company.
For several years, various citizen groups in the state have attempted to sue Duke Energyunder the Clean Water Act. Ponds in which the company was storing its coal ash — the residue left over after coal is burned for power generation — were reportedly leaking and contaminating North Carolina’s groundwater.
In January 2013, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed notice that it intended to sue Duke Energy over the same matter. According to emails the Center provided to the AP this week, a Duke lobbyist contacted the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to set up a meeting just days after the 2013 filing. “The emails suggest the company and regulators were in frequent contact,” the AP reported, “with a lawyer for Duke even advising the state on legal strategy at one point.”
Lawyers for the SELC had informed the state government that citizen groups could not be blocked from participating in the dispute over the coal ash. But in April of 2013, a lawyer for Duke tried to find case law that could convince a judge otherwise. In May, the Duke lawyer emailed an example case to North Carolina’s Special Deputy Attorney, who forwarded it to the top lawyer at the DENR. Then in July, the Special Deputy Attorney went before the judge in the suit to argue that citizens groups should not be allowed to participate from the legal proceedings against Duke. The judge ultimately turned down the argument.
“They tried to keep us from being full parties in the case,” said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Duke is the lawbreaker. DENR is the law enforcement agency. They are supposed to be protecting the people. Instead, they are working with the lawbreaker to find a way to limit the participation of the citizens groups in the law enforcement proceedings in the way that will benefit the lawbreaker. It’s astonishing.”
The DENR had used its authority to negotiate a proposal in which Duke would pay a $99,100 fine to settle the violations of the Clean Water Act, but would be under no requirement to actually clean up the pollution. That settlement was derided by environmentalists as a “sweetheart deal,” and was tabled after a massive new spill from one of Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds in February of this year.
Eighty-two thousand tons of coal ash leaked into North Carolina’s Dan River, polluting 70 miles of the river and layering as much as 5 inches of coal ash slurry along some points of the river bed.
The latest spill has sparked a federal criminal investigation into whether DENR has been inappropriately lax in regulating Duke Energy due to its close interactions with the company.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory also worked for Duke Energy for 28 years and received substantial financial support form the company in his campaign. McCrory recently said he wants Duke Energy to remove coal ash from all the ponds that sit near water sources. He also gave Duke Energy until tomorrow to come up with a plan to clean the latest spill.
According to the SELC, data collected over years reveals that coal-fired power plants and their coal ash ponds in the state have polluted North Carolina’s groundwater. The Center also argued that most of North Carolina’s coal ash ponds are aging, with some having been in operation for as long as 50 years. The DENR has also cited a total of seven power plants, including at least five owned by Duke Energy, for not having proper storm water permits.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ergy-coal-ash/
Confederate Repug good ol' boy misgovernance, malfeasance, what's not to love?
NC governor is really Governor Duke Energy, worked for Duke about 28 years.
Duke Energy gets its name from Tobacco Death Merchant and monopolist
"In 1885, James Buchanan Duke acquired a license to use the first automated cigarette making machine (invented by James Albert Bonsack), and by 1890, Duke supplied 40% of the American cigarette market (then known as pre-rolled tobacco). In that year, Duke consolidated control of his four major compe ors under one corporate en y, the American Tobacco Company, which was a monopoly in the American cigarette market."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Duke
Duke, poisonous for your lungs, poisonous for your water, poisonous for your air.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 03-15-2014 at 11:04 AM.
great articles Bouts, keep it up.
Hidden Camera Reveals Dumping of Toxic Coal Ash Into Ohio River
This photographic evidence, along with Google Earth satellite images from 1993 to present, support the Sierra Club and Earthjustice’s notice of intent to sue LG&E for violating the federal Clean Water Act and the terms of the utility’s own permit allowing only an “occasional” discharge into the river.
“It’s devastating to think that this could have been going on for more than 20 years,” said Sierra Club organizer Thomas Pearce, who helped install the hidden camera last year. “It’s like the North Carolina or West Virginia spills but in slow motion, with no one to stop it.”
A coal ash pond for LG&E’s Mill Creek Generating Station, which sits on the Ohio River, is the source of the pollution. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) previously classified the pond as being “high hazard,” meaning a failure or misoperation of the ash pond dam will likely result in fatalities and environmental damage.
While the federal Clean Water Act does protect waterways from pollution, there are no federal safeguards specific to coal ash pollution. The Sierra Club is part of a legal agreement with 11 organizations compelling the EPA to finalize safeguards against coal ash pollution by Dec. 19.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/17/camer...sh-ohio-river/
Clean Coal, just another UCA/VRWC lie.
Excuse me if i have a hard time believing an activist group with an agenda.
Two pictures, one taken in January this year, and a Google 2010. I would like to see several photos, days in a row to believe these are not two cherry picked days.
I also went to ecowatch.com. At Duke, they have 11 photos, but the pumps are hooked up differently than claimed between the two.
Inconsistency? Ignorance? What is it with them?
http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/17/duke-...llery/326556/2
you didn't even read the lede
Interesting how there is no link to the time lapse photos.
keep digging, sport
How about you showing me.
In these revealing stories in Sunday’s New York Times and Monday’s Los Angeles Times, Duke Energy admitted its workers were pumping coal ash wastewater out of a toxic wastewater pond and into a canal which drains into the Cape Fear River. The Cape Fear River is a source of public drinking water for residents in Fayetteville, Sanford, Dunn, Harnett County, Fort Bragg and Wilmington.
Even more startling, Duke Energy described the pumping of coal ash wastewater into a watershed as part of “routine maintenance.” The New York Times quoted Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks as saying: “They’re lowering the water to conduct the maintenance they need to.” According to the New York Times, Duke claims it notified state regulators—a claim that was contradicted by officials with DENR.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/17/duke-energy-coal-ash/#/BlackoutGallery/326556/2
North Carolina Says Utility Pumped Millions of Gallons of Wastewater in River
Duke Energy, the electric utility whose massive spill of toxic coal ash into a river six weeks ago is part of a federal investigation, illegally pumped as much as 61 million gallons of coal-ash wastewater into a second river from September to last week, North Carolina regulators charged on Thursday.
Both the accidental spill and the deliberate releases occurred not far upstream from municipal drinking-water intakes.
The utility’s officials have said that the pumping was part of preparations for routine maintenance of two settling ponds that hold ash, the remains of coal burned to generate power.
But regulators cast doubt on that claim on Thursday. “The state’s investigation revealed that the pumping activities ongoing at this plant far exceeded what would reasonably be considered routine maintenance,” said Tom Reeder, the director of the water resources division at the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
A spokeswoman for the water resources division, Susan Massengale, noted that Duke had spent 31 days emptying 17.4 million gallons of water from one ash pond and 78 days releasing 44.4 million more from a second.
Peter Harrison, a lawyer for Waterkeeper Alliance, the New York-based environmental group that first uncovered the pumping, said Duke’s explanation was “absurd.”
“They’ve essentially simulated a terrible coal-ash spill by pumping the pond out,” he said.
Duke briefly addressed the releases in a statement on Thursday evening, saying that “water was being pumped to the existing, permitted outfalls and was being monitored according to the plant permit.” The statement said Duke notified state officials before beginning pumping.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/21...?from=homepage
not my post. jeez you're like a baby bird.
Why have you just become full of lame excuses these last couple years?
it's not my job to back up someone else's post, or to backstop your refusal to read or do your own homework.
Your reply "keep digging" can suggest you know something that you are not sharing.
"Do You Own Research"
-- (c) WC
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=allFreedom Industries did not hold up well under scrutiny. It had failed to file mandatory leak-prevention plans with the Department of Environmental Protection. State inspectors made occasional visits, as in April, 2010, when a neighbor complained of a licorice smell that “leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” but the plant was never fined.
Freedom Industries was founded in 1992 by Carl Lemley Kennedy II, a local businessman who had owned real estate and restaurants. In 1987, he had pleaded guilty to selling cocaine as part of an operation that brought down Charleston’s mayor at the time, Mike Roark. The Mayor pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and went to jail. Kennedy got probation. He and some partners converted a former Pennzoil facility into Freedom Industries, and by 2005 the business was valued, in court papers, at $13.5 million. That year, after federal prosecutors accused Kennedy of tax evasion and pocketing money withheld from workers’ paychecks, he became an informant. He made controlled cocaine buys and wore a wire to record a former business associate, a septic-tank cleaner who told his drivers to pour sewage down the drain. For his coöperation, Kennedy served less than two years.
By 2009, Freedom had forty-five employees, but it needed help from the government: a buildup of silt in the Elk River was making it difficult for barges to reach the tanks. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used four hundred thousand dollars in federal stimulus funds to dredge the river, and Freedom survived. In December, 2013, Freedom was acquired by Chemstream Holdings, which is owned by J. Clifford Forrest, the founder and president of a Pennsylvania-based coal company named Rosebud Mining. Eight days after the spill, Freedom, facing dozens of lawsuits, filed for bankruptcy.
The responsibility for regulating Freedom Industries fell to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which during the past decade has been urged to scale back its enforcement. “It’s not subtle,” Pam Nixon, who retired this year after fifteen years as a senior department official, told me. She recalled a staff meeting in which Joe Manchin, the governor from 2005 to 2010, “said that when the industries see the D.E.P. coming onto their property he wanted them to feel comfortable.” Manchin, a Democrat, had prospered as a middleman who helped coal mines sell to power plants and other users. Once in office, he repeatedly advised the department to shift its emphasis from enforcement to “compliance assistance.” By that, Nixon said, he meant, “If there was a problem, work to make sure that the company can continue to operate. . . . He didn’t want us to come down heavy-handedly.” Nixon, who served as the department’s Environmental Advocate, expressed her concerns about gaps in enforcement to the head of the department, a Manchin appointee named Randy Huffman. “He said, ‘Remember how this administration feels about these industries.’ ”
In 2008, the Charleston Gazette discovered that in a nearly five-year period coal companies had self-reported around twenty-five thousand violations of the Clean Water Act, but the D.E.P. had not reviewed the reports or issued a fine. The following year, federal investigators from the Office of Surface Mining wrote that West Virginia had become so lax in its enforcement of coal-mining pollution regulations that “the consequences for violating the law, even when the violations are intentional, willful and blatant, are not significant enough to be a deterrent.” In 2010, Manchin left the Governor’s Mansion and ran for the U.S. Senate. He promised to protect the state from environmentalists’ “attempts to destroy our coal industry and way of life in West Virginia.” The American Chemistry Council, the leading industry group, spent two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars on advertisements praising Manchin as the “Senator for Our Future.” In a campaign ad, Manchin fired a rifle into a copy of a climate-change bill. On his Senate financial disclosures, he has reported income of more than three million dollars between 2009 and 2012 from Enersystems, a coal brokerage that he owned. (It is now run by his son.)
sameBut the Freedom Industries spill exceeded the public’s capacity for tolerance. Governor Tomblin announced that his office would propose legislation—the “spill bill,” as it was known—to govern aboveground storage tanks of the kind that leaked at Freedom Industries. To understand who had a hand in creating the bill, Ken Ward, Jr., of the Gazette, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for communications between the Governor’s office and lobbyists and lawyers connected to the chemical and coal industries. He received a hundred and fifty-eight pages of e-mails and do ents. They revealed that the Governor’s office had arranged a closed-door meeting for what it called “the stakeholders,” which included the Chamber of Commerce, the Oil and Gas Association, and the Coal Association. No citizens’ groups or environmental organizations were invited.
Later, industry groups sent detailed notes on the bill. Rebecca Randolph, the president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, which lobbies on behalf of the chemical industry, proposed eighteen exemptions to the law that would “address some of our concerns.” Eventually, when lawmakers held a hearing to review the bill, regulators were unable to justify some of the exemptions. “They didn’t have any idea why things were in there,” Ward said. “It’s so ingrained in the way the legislature works that most of the people that cover the State House are kind of immune to how outrageous that is.”
“I smell freedom in my shower. I smell freedom in my sink. I will shower in my freedom, but my freedom I won’t drink.”
Review Of West Virginia Water Finds More Work To Be Done
A group of independent researchers has found that the chemical crude MCHM is still present in some West Virginia homes. That's the coal-cleaning chemical that spilled into the Elk River back in January out of a storage tank operated by the company Freedom Industries. The spill contaminated drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The research group was formed by West Virginia's governor after public pressure.
Dave Mistich of West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports on the research group's latest findings.
DAVE MISTICH, BYLINE: Samples taken from 10 homes across the affected area in mid-February showed traces of MCHM, with the highest levels at one home coming in at 6.1 parts per billion. That's hundreds of times lower than the CDC's short-term drinking water screening level.
WV TAP project manager Dr. Andrew Whelton notes the levels of MCHM in the homes are also lower than the state-established screening level of 10 parts per billion.
DR. ANDREW WHELTON: The public should feel encouraged that the levels that were detected in the homes are significantly less than January 17th and significantly less than when the spill occurred. There is, however, a low level of MCHM being distributed to the population from the water treatment plant. So there still remains this issue of persistence of this chemical in the water system.
MISTICH: In addition, recent testing conducted by WV TAP also indicated that MCHM wasn't present just before West Virginia American Water's Elk River intake. However, Whelton says traces of the chemical were found in a nearby home, leading them to believe that the chemical was being added to the water supply at the treatment plant.
WHELTON: The results of that testing that we conducted for a different purpose actually helped us determine that MCHM was leaving the water plant but wasn't entering it, and therefore it's likely that it was a source of MCHM for the community.
MISTICH: Whelton and company then recommended the water company to collect samples before intake after and within their treatment facility. Ultimately, those results indicate that the filtering process was the source of the chemical continuing to make its way through the distribution system.
Here's Laura Jordan of West Virginia American Water.
LAURA JORDAN: These results that we got back this week change nothing about the commitment that we've made to our customers ever since January 19th was the first time that we, in my recollection, that we announced to our customers we will be changing out all of the activated carbon in our filters as soon as conditions allow.
MISTICH: Jordan says the filter change is a weekslong process, with weather and other variables playing a role. Nevertheless, the company has been under fire for not acting sooner.
Elkview resident Perry Dotson says he and his wife have experienced rashes, even after taking his doctor's recommendation to take baths in cold water.
PERRY DOTSON: I think the water company needs to be more aggressive in installing these new filters. It does not do very much good to be two or three months down the road to finish, you know, that process. And I think they need to move quicker and faster to get those filters out.
MISTICH: As WV TAP plans to expand their in-home testing to a larger scale, they've charged a group of health effects experts to examine available toxicological research on MCHM. And while that panel is expected to release some conclusions this coming week, including scrutinizing the short-term drinking water screening levels suggested by the CDC, some, like Dotson, clamor for long-term medical monitoring.
DOTSON: Well, I think that's the bottom line, you know? What this stuff is going to do to the 300,000 people who have been exposed to this chemical now and in the future? And I think that's really the bottom line. You know, you want to protect your people from any particular problems that may occur, you know? And so if need be, set up some kind of monitoring system.
MISTICH: And Dotson may get his wish. A bill passed by the state legislature is set to require the Bureau for Public Health to conduct long-term medical monitoring. However, the bill awaits Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's signature, and a deadline for that to happen looms only until Tuesday.
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/29/296421...ork-to-be-done
Toxic Chemical Dioxane Detected In More Water Supplies
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/26/294639...water-supplies
Duke Energy Wants Citizens Groups Barred From Complaint
uke Energy is asking a judge to prevent citizens groups from taking part in any action that would make it clean up nearly three dozen coal ash pits in the state. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources filed a complaint against Duke last year, and several citizens groups got involved in the case, saying the pits polluted groundwater. But Duke filed a motion on Monday to remove the groups from the case. The motion comes nearly two months after a coal ash spill at a Duke plant coated 70 miles of the Dan River in toxic sludge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/us...complaint.html
What Should Happen To Coal Ash Ponds?
A screenshot of an interactive map by the Sierra Club shows coal ash zones throughout the United States. Yellow spots mark coal ash ponds, orange spots mark “high hazard” coal ash ponds, and red spots mark coal ash “disaster sites.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...oal-ash-ponds/
Well, considering this is from liberal agenda sites, I don't give too much merit. It would have helped their claim if these markers were on google maps so we could independently look at the, but no. These liberal sites only give enough information to instill fear in their faithful followers.What Should Happen To Coal Ash Ponds?
A screenshot of an interactive map by the Sierra Club shows coal ash zones throughout the United States. Yellow spots mark coal ash ponds, orange spots mark “high hazard” coal ash ponds, and red spots mark coal ash “disaster sites.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...oal-ash-ponds/
yes, all environmental orgs are paid liars.
google "us government map coal ash sites"
LOL...
I just did. I didn't get anything remotely close!
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
