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NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Sam Perkins (sam@catawbariverkeeper.org) 704-651-5974


Catawba Riverkeeper

FINAL DAYS FOR PUBLIC TO COMMENT ON DISTURBINGLY INADEQUATE DUKE ENERGY


PERMIT TO DISCHARGE COAL ASH CONTAMINANTS FROM ALLEN INTO LAKE WYLIE

For Immediate Release: May 15, 2018

(Charlotte, N.C.) The deadline is nearing for the public to comment on a permit for Duke Energy to
discharge coal ash contaminants into the Catawba River. Through Friday, May 18, the North Carolina
Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting comments on Duke Energy’s draft permit to
discharge coal ash contaminants into Lake Wylie. The draft permit fails to set limits and even basic
monitoring requirements for contaminants known to be present at high levels in coal ash.

“The proposed permit is disturbing evidence that neither Duke nor DEQ have learned lessons from
past and ongoing contamination problems with coal ash,” says Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins.
“Especially given that Lake Wylie is a drinking water reservoir for more than 100,000 people
downstream in York County and beyond, it is baffling that with this re-permitting event, the state
would fail to limit or even require sampling to know what contaminants are being discharged.”

Throughout the draft permit, there are no limits set for contaminants like arsenic, selenium, mercury,
lead and more. Furthermore, the permit fails to even require monitoring of contaminants like cobalt,
hexavalent chromium, vanadium, radioactivity (radium 226/228) and others that Duke itself has found
to be present around its sites above water quality standards.

“The public can and must submit comments to let DEQ know that this permit is unacceptable,
especially with all we have learned about coal ash in recent years. Why in 2018 are we still allowing
unlimited amounts of pollution to be dumped into our drinking water reservoir? Why are we not even
requiring basic monitoring for contaminants we know to be a problem with coal ash?”

“Any assessment of risk looks at past behavior, and based on that, Duke Energy cannot be trusted to
handle coal ash piled high on the banks of our drinking water reservoirs. If Duke is not going to do it,
then at the very least, the State of North Carolina must realize its past permit requirements were
insufficient. Yet, we’re seeing more of the same – a lack of diligence and accountability being required
of Duke Energy, a company on probation for a criminal lack of diligence in managing its coal ash.”

A WATERKEEPER® ALLIANCE Member


715 N Church St #120 P.O. Box 11838
Charlotte NC 28202 Charlotte, NC 28220
www.catawbariverkeeper.org
The Allen permit offers less protection than permits for other coal ash sites in the region. At
Riverbend’s coal ash upstream on Mountain Island Lake, dewatering in 2016 quickly caused a spike in
arsenic, and simple filtration had to be added. But Allen’s dewatering will not have any filtration
requirement, nonetheless pollutant limits. “Ultimately and in multiple facets, this 2018 draft permit is
significantly weaker than the first draft permit released in 2016.”

The Clean Water Act of 1972 requires pollutant discharges to be disclosed and regulated under
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) discharge permits. In recent years, Duke
has acknowledged its coal ash sites have both engineered and uncontrolled seeps discharging from its
unlined coal ash ponds. Though previously undisclosed and partly the subject of its $102 million fine
and five-year probation, Duke is finally asking for permission for these discharges in the current re-
permitting and a Special Order by Consent passed earlier this year.

“Duke says they can responsibly manage these into the future, but they have had decades of chances
and have failed to do so. Meanwhile, other utilities – like those next door in South Carolina – have
realized the risk that old, unlined coal ash piles pose, and they have employed the common sense
solution: move unlined, leaking coal ash away from water and recycle it into concrete.”

A 2016 North Carolina law (House Bill 630) changed the coal ash rules updated in 2014 after then Dan
River spill. Under the 2014 law, the North Carolina General Assembly realized their criteria would
require excavation (real cleanup) of coal ash. But in the 2016 law, North Carolina said Duke could leave
coal ash in place if Duke ran municipal water to neighbors with contaminated groundwater and fixed
structural problems that had developed over the years – structural issues that Duke had allowed to
develop and persist in the first place.

Among the permits biggest problems:


 A complete lack of monitoring, discharge limits, and sufficient monitoring frequency for
pollutants like selenium, arsenic and mercury.
 A lack of Best Available Technologies (BATs) for water quality treatment (a key component of
the Clean Water Act and the NPDES discharge permitting program).
 Relaxed deadlines and compliance requirements for new discharge standards.
 No limits for bromides, which have caused exceedances of Safe Drinking Water Act levels of
trihalomethanes in treated drinking water in the region in recent years.
 Granting Duke amnesty for its illegal, engineered discharge channels.
 A 316(a) variance that will allow Duke to discharge extra-hot water, even though Duke never
provided legitimate justification to receive such a variance.

Public comment on the draft permit modification should be mailed to:


Wastewater Permitting, Attn: Allen Permit, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1617

Public comments may also be submitted by email to: publiccomments@ncdenr.gov. Include “Allen” in
the email’s subject line.

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