April 8, 2016 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Efforts to clean up coal ash and change the way ash and coal products are stored are taking place across the country, but nowhere is more central than Tennessee and North Carolina.

Coal ash excavation at Sutton. Credit: Duke Energy

For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is adding a bottom ash dewatering facility at its Kingston Fossil Plant, as the result of an Environmental Assessment by TVA that looked at the potential environmental impacts of three alternatives -- a no action alternative, which would continue the wet storage of bottom ash in ponds, and two construction options, including the dewatering facility.

TVA plans to construct and operate a dewatering facility which will remove moisture from bottom ash before it is stored in an onsite, dry landfill.

Fly ash and gypsum are already stored dry onsite at Kingston, and TVA plans to discontinue wet storage of coal combustion residuals altogether, moving toward dry storage throughout TVA's coal fleet.

Meantime, in North Carolina, the state Superior Court has ordered the cleanup of coal ash from three of 14 leaking Duke Energy sites.

"Cleanup of these leaking coal ash sites and four more covered by a pending motion have been the goal of five years of work by citizen conservation groups from North Carolina's Mountains to the Coast…," said Frank Holleman, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. "North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality actually opposed the order requiring cleanup of three of these polluted sites, even though both Duke Energy and conservation groups agree that the cleanups are required to protect North Carolina's rivers and communities. We can only hope that North Carolina's environmental protection agency will begin to actually protect North Carolina's environment, and require a total cleanup of the remaining polluted coal ash sites across the state."

The court has pending a similar summary judgment motion dealing with coal ash removal at Duke Energy's Asheville, Riverbend, Sutton, and Dan River sites, a separate order for which is expected to be issued.

The court's current order was entered in response to a motion by Duke Energy and the citizens groups represented by Southern Environmental Law Center that the court order excavation and the removal of the coal ash from these three locations in North Carolina to dry, lined storage away from waterways and groundwater.

For more:
- visit this website

© 2016 FierceMarkets, a division of Questex, LLC. All rights reserved.

http://www.smartgridnews.com/story/some-coal-ash-cleanup-efforts-getting-boost/2016-04-08