Duke Energy will pay $7 million to resolve all alleged groundwater violations at its 14 North Carolina facilities.
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The settlement cuts by more than 70 percent a record $25.1 million fine the state Department of Environmental Quality levied in March for leaks from the ash ponds at the L.V. Sutton Steam Plant near Wilmington.
The energy company appealed the fine to the Office of Administrative Hearings, “citing a number of instances where evidence demonstrates that the regulator acted contrary to state law, the agency’s own rules, policies and procedures and the longstanding interpretation of the regulations”, Duke Energy officials said in a statement Tuesday. “This settlement resolves the issue of fines for past violations and allows DEQ to commit all of its resources to overseeing Duke Energy’s clean-up process”, DEQ Secretary Donald R. van der Vaart said in a statement.
“Our chief goal is to protect the environment and public health while requiring corrective action to restore groundwater quality”. The 2011 policy memo, which was written by the former Gov. Bev Perdue’s administration, allowed penalties to be assessed under certain circumstances.
The terms of the agreement can be found at Duke Energy’s website here.
The company partnered with the local water utility in 2013 to extend a municipal line to Sutton plant neighbors to make sure they continue to have high-quality water.
“This puts us back on the path to closing ash basins in a way that is safe for people and for the environment”, said Sheehan.
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Announced plans to retire the coal-fired Asheville Plant (Asheville, N.C.) in four to five years and modernize our generation and transmission system in Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina – significantly reducing environmental impacts, improving system reliability and minimizing long-term costs to customers. Groundwater tests are underway to learn whether ash has also contaminated private wells near the power plants. A commission was set up to establish a priority list for the effort, but Duke has already started removing ash from several retired plants and has laid out plans to build lined landfills at the Sutton plant and at the Dan River Steam Station in Eden to contain ash. The state environmental department announced Tuesday it’s settling the lawsuit, in part because of conflicting guidance from the McCrory and Perdue administrations on fines. As far as site cleanups, Holleman said the settlement “doesn’t appear to require Duke to do anything it wasn’t going to do anyway” under last year’s coal-ash cleanup law and other agreements with the state.
