Public meetings set on ash pond closings

Jan 8 - McClatchy-Tribune Content Agency, LLC - Bruce Henderson The Charlotte Observer

State regulators have scheduled a series of public meetings on the hazard ratings that will determine when and how Duke Energy closes its 32 coal ash ponds in North Carolina.

The Department of Environmental Quality proposed the ratings last week, but they're not final. Ponds judged to be of high risk have to be closed by 2019, intermediate risk by 2024 and low risk ponds by 2029.

The 14 public meetings, to be held in each county with ponds, will be held in March. The first meeting in the Charlotte area will be March 1, in Gaston County, with its focus the ash at Duke's retired Riverbend power plant.

Groundwater under each of Duke's coal-fired power plants in the state is contaminated. An open question is whether metals in ash stored at the plants has reached private wells.

DEQ says it is "committed to relying on science and public comment to determine closure deadlines." The department, which has analyzed the ponds for months, says it hopes the public will offer new scientific and technical data.

That might be at odds with the emotions of power plant neighbors who can't readily do their own scientific studies but are weary of drinking bottled water.

More than 200 households in Gaston and Rowan counties were advised last spring not to drink water from their wells. Many neighbors are convinced the contaminants come from ash, despite Duke's denials and no determination by the state.

A draft list of DEQ's ratings in November classified all but two of the 32 ponds as of high or intermediate risk. The version released Dec. 31 recommended that four ponds be listed as low risk and said more data is needed for eight other ponds.

Charlotte-area meetings, all beginning at 6 p.m.:

March 1, on the Riverbend power plant, Gaston College's Myers Center Auditorium, 201 U.S. 321 South in Dallas.

March 22: Allen power plant, Gaston College's Myers Center Auditorium, 201 U.S. 321 South in Dallas.

March 22: Buck power plant, Catawba College, Room 300, 2300 W. Innes St. in Salisbury.

March 29: Marshall power plant, Catawba Valley Community College auditorium, 2550 U.S. 70 in Hickory.

Bruce Henderson: 704-358-5051, @bhender