May 26, 2015 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Shortly after pleading guilty to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act at several of its North Carolina facilities, and receiving long-awaited permits, Duke Energy is acting quickly to close its coal ash basins and move the remaining coal ash.

Removal of coal ash at the Riverbend Steam Station. Credit: Duke Energy

The first truck of excavated coal ash left the retired Riverbend power plant near Charlotte late last week, marking the beginning of the end for coal ash storage at that site as Duke Energy relocates the ash to a fully lined landfill.

"We share our customers' urgency for closing ash basins, and we're glad to get this important work under way. We started moving ash just a few days after receiving the necessary permits," said John Elnitsky, Duke Energy's senior vice president for ash strategy, who adds that the project is being managed to meet the highest standards for safety.

Riverbend excavation will start with 10 truckloads a day to pilot the process and minimize impacts on the community. Ash will be sent to a fully lined landfill in Homer, Georgia, and will be transported moist, in covered and washed trucks, to control dust.

This landfill is an interim step as the company works with an outside company to permit two fully-lined structural fill projects proposed for North Carolina's Chatham and Lee counties.

The Riverbend site work, which has about 4.5 million tons of coal ash, initiates the first phase of excavation that the company announced in November 2014. The project will remove about 1 million tons of ash from the ash stack, a dry storage area on the property. Additional permitting and preparations are needed before water can be removed from the primary or secondary ash basins.

In addition to ash excavation, decommissioning of the retired coal plant at the Riverbend site continues. Next, decommissioning steps include removing remaining soil under the former coal pile, and demolishing buildings and equipment that are no longer needed.

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