Area environmental groups put out call for action on proposed coal ash legislation

Link to MountainTrue action alert.

Media release from MountainTrue:

On the evening of Tuesday, June 28 the North Carolina Senate rushed through a rewrite to H630, the state’s coal ash cleanup law. This bill is quickly making its way through the legislature and we expect the House to take it up as soon as today.

Official statement by MountainTrue Co-director Julie Mayfield:

“The legislature’s rewrite of the state’s coal ash cleanup law is a betrayal of the people of North Carolina. The General Assembly has abdicated its responsibility to clean up North Carolina’s coal ash and protect us from the ill effects of toxic pollutants.

“HB630 would disband the Coal Ash Management Commission and with it any effective oversight of the Department of Environmental Quality, which has a poor record of protecting our communities and our environment. Worse, this new legislation delays final classification for North Carolina’s coal ash pits and completely guts the criteria the state uses to determine the threat of these pits to our communities. The result will leave coal ash in place to continue polluting groundwater, our rivers and our streams.

“The strength of the Coal Ash Management Act of 2014 (CAMA) was that it used science to guide the coal ash cleanup effort. That science indicated that there are no low priority coal ash sites or low priority communities. Now the legislature wants to scrap the  protections that are based on that science – protections lawmakers themselves have repeatedly touted as ‘the best in the country.’ The legislature’s willingness to weaken laws that protect so many people from such harmful pollution is both bewildering and shameful.”

H630, as passed by the Senate, would:

• eliminate the Coal Ash Management Commission and, with it, legislative oversight over the NC Department of Environmental Quality, a deeply politicized agency with a poor track record;
• eliminate criteria for risk assessment based on a sites’ threats to public health health, safety, welfare, the environment and natural resources;
• give Duke two years, until October 15, 2018, to provide clean drinking water to affected households through a water line or filtration device;
• require that DEQ classify ponds as “low risk” if dams are repaired and public water supply hookups are provided, regardless of whether they continue to pollute ground and surface waters;
• allow the DEQ to revise and downgrade their classifications of coal ash pits for 18 months, until November 15, 2018;
• delay closure plans for low and intermediate sites until December 31, 2019; and
• give DEQ expanded authority to grant variances and extensions to the deadlines above, creating further delay and less accountability for Duke Energy.

Our blog post: http://mountaintrue.org/14531-2/

Press release from Sierra Club:

RALEIGH— A Senate committee this afternoon backtracked on cleanup plans for coal ash pits in North Carolina by amending and approving changes to an unrelated bill that has already passed the House. The Senate Committee on Rules and Operations approved changes to H 630 to alter the state’s timeline and require, under certain conditions, that seven coal ash sites not already slated for full excavation be reclassified as low risk, regardless of the actual level of risk to surface and groundwater.

“This bill abandons the idea that risk to groundwater and surface water should determine closure methods and timelines at half of the coal ash sites in the state,” said Molly Diggins, State Director of the NC Sierra Club.

“Current law requires the state to base coal ash classifications and cleanup schedules on risks to public health and safety, and the need to protect the environment and our natural resources,” added Diggins. “This measure takes away agency discretion to classify a site as high or intermediate risk if public water supply hookups have been provided and structural issues addressed. The bill also eliminates the Coal Ash Management Commission, which was created to retain experts to conduct an independent scientific and technical analysis of sites.”

The low-risk classification would allow pits to be capped in place, leaving nearby communities at risk of continuing contamination of their water supplies. The bill also includes loopholes to allow longer timelines for cleanup and doesn’t include an opportunity for the public to have input into the reclassification process.

In 2014, the legislature put a deliberative process into place to assess risks to the environment and public health from coal ash stored in unlined pits along waterways. The law, adopted in 2014 and the strongest in the country, required oversight by an independent commission as well as public input. The Coal Ash Management Act included a list of risk criteria.

The Coal Ash Management Act required that risk classifications must be based on the sites’ threats to public health, safety, and welfare; the environment; and natural resources. The new bill eliminates the specific criteria adopted in 2014 that include, but are not limited to:

• The site’s risk to public health, safety, and welfare;
• The proximity of surface waters to the impoundment and whether any surface waters are contaminated or threatened by contamination as a result of the impoundment;
• The extent of soil and groundwater contamination for all contaminants confirmed to be present in groundwater;
• The location and nature of all receptors and significant exposure pathways;
• The geological and hydrogeological features influencing the movement and chemical and physical character of the contaminants;
• The amount and characteristics of coal combustion residuals in the impoundment; and
• Whether the impoundment is located within an area subject to a 100-year flood.

(Source: Coal Ash Management Act, p. 14)

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) staff’s initial recommendations on risk factors, issued late last year, rated nearly all the coal ash pits as high or intermediate risk. DEQ management overruled the professional staff’s recommendations, rating the impoundments as intermediate risk. High and intermediate risk classifications require full excavation and removal of the ash; an intermediate ranking means Duke Energy gets a longer timeline to complete closure. But when DEQ classified coal ash pits as intermediate risk, the agency also requested legislative approval to change the classifications for up to 18 months.

“The Senate’s new coal ash bill walks back promises made in 2014 to do the job right, with scientific and technical analysis and public input on what’s needed to ensure a safe cleanup,” said Emma Greenbaum, organizing representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “Earlier this year, more than 600 community members attended public hearings and expressed the need to safely close coal ash pits across the state.”

Press release from N.C. League of Conservation Voters:

RALEIGH (June 28, 2016) – Today, the North Carolina Senate revealed another sweetheart coal ash deal for Duke Energy in the gutted and amended House Bill 630. This bill would get rid of the coal ash commission, give Duke over two years to begin providing safe drinking water, and give the NC Department of Environmental Quality broad leeway to let Duke off the hook for contaminating water all over North Carolina. The North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Director of Governmental Affairs Dan Crawford issued the following statement in response:

“The North Carolina Senate has once again failed to protect the people they claim to represent. Instead, the anti-clean water N.C. Senate has brokered yet another sweetheart deal for Duke Energy. Right now, families in North Carolina can’t drink their own well water. But decision-makers in Raleigh would allow a monopoly with over $23 billion in revenue to go two whole years without providing those families clean water. When we say these politicians put polluters over people, the N.C. Senate’s coal ash bill is exactly what we’re talking about.”