Group worries coal ash jeopardizes health
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- As the state House prepares to consider the Senate clean up plan for Duke Energy coal ash plants, parents from Rowan County pressed lawmakers Thursday to make the bill stronger and require Duke to do more.
Office by office, lawmaker by lawmaker, the small group of advocates made their way around the General Assembly.
Ron and Joanne Thomas' have lived near the Duke Energy Buck Coal Plant on the Yadkin River all their lives. They have 50 acres that they say are now worthless. But the value of their land pales in comparison to the lives affected by coal ash toxins seeping out of Duke's lagoons near their homes.
"We've had sick children. We've had a lot of people die from cancer and other diseases down there," said Joanne Thomas. Asked if they thought they lived in a cancer cluster, a la Erin Brockovich, she quickly replied, "Yes, we do."
Then there's Kim Brewer: mother of four who gave birth to two daughters in a home near the Buck plant. Both were born with severe health problems. "My daughter's had 13 surgeries already," said Brewer, "five brain surgeries and she's going to have to continue to have surgery for the rest of her life."
The Waterkeeper Alliance (the same group the I-Team went out with collecting samples from the Cape Fear Coal Plant near Sanford) found high levels of toxins in the wells around the Buck plant and saw what they say was toxic water seeping out from the coal ash ponds nearby.
Duke Energy tells ABC11 that tests run by the state and an independent lab show wells are safe and give no indication the plant's ash basins have influenced water quality.
Duke showed the I-Team some of those test results but the group pressing lawmakers today was skeptical. Joanne Thomas says Duke "missed the ones with the highest levels of chromium; they didn't check those."
What the group wants is for duke to scoop up, dry out, and move out all the coal ash at the buck plant. Duke has promised to do that at four other sites but Buck isn't on the list.
Among the lawmakers they asked to put Buck on the list is Representative Chuck McGrady. He's heading up the NC House's review of the Senate's coal ash bill and he didn't tell the group what they wanted to hear.
"If we start picking out- so we add Buck. What do I say to the Cliffside people? And then what do i say to the next group?" McGrady asked. "I can assure you, I'm not going to do what you ask. But what I'm going to try to do is to draw the criteria in a way that buck is a high priority sight."
By "high priority sight," McGrady is referring to the state's current plan for Duke Energy's other 10 coal facilities. In the Senate bill, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would prioritize those sites and, at the worst of them, require Duke to remove all the coal ash. At others, however, DENR could authorize Duke to "cap" the coal ash lagoons, leaving the toxic sludge underground forever. A specially created review board would have to sign off on DENR's decisions.
That isn't an acceptable solution to Brewer. "I'm going to continue to talk to legislators to have this coal ash removed," she said. "Not just capped in place, because we already have seeps, we already have contaminated wells. We need clean water in that community. My kids are unable to take baths or have food cooked in that water."
Joanne Thomas agrees. "They talked about capping in place, which is no good because it pushes it down and out the sides, which causes seeps which have come onto our side."
Rep. McGrady says the Senate's bill does need to be tweaked but he doesn't support adding more plants to a mandatory cleanup list. Instead, he says he wants to strengthen that review board. "I can assure you," he told the group, "I'm not going to do what you ask. But what I am going to try to do is to draw the criteria in a way that Buck is a high priority sight."
Still, the group vowed to come back and testify in front of other lawmakers, hoping their past will be enough to change their future. "We have proof," said Brewer. "We have evidence. It's not us just saying we want our community first. We have serious issues going on in our community and we need help."
Related information for this story:
Buck Coal Plant Groundwater Sampling Results
