Appalachian Voices: Coal Ash Facility in Wayne County, N.C. Triggers Community Concern

BOONE, North Carolina, Oct. 27 -- Appalachian Voices issued the following news release:

The H. F. Lee coal-fired power plant in Wayne County, North Carolina was retired by Duke Energy in September 2012, after burning coal for more than 60 years. For that time, the community of Goldsboro and the rural areas that surround it were exposed to dangerous, air-borne particulate matter that causes heart and lung disease as well as cancer. Those who live near and around pollution emitting fossil fuel plants stand at a higher risk of respiratory illness and thus are at a higher risk of a more lethal case of COVID-19.

In 2015, several residents were forced to rely solely on bottled water for safe drinking and daily functions of their households after Duke's poisonous coal ash had seeped into their wells. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused the Neuse River to flood and breached a dam of one of the coal impoundments, spilling its toxic contents and again exposing the community and its drinking water to heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, antimony, and thallium.

Now Duke Energy has chosen to reburn 6,000,000 tons of poisonous coal ash that have been stored above ground at the facility. They are calling it recycling, an option afforded to them in their "bought and paid for" legislation HB 630. Today, Duke will be opening the "reprocessing facility" that will take the coal ash and reburn it to remove its high carbon content so it can be marketed to the concrete industry to be used for concrete production. Duke claims that the coal ash is non-toxic, but members of the community have significant concerns.

"The opening of this facility represents not only a huge loss for our community, but it also represents a departure from a mission of a 'just transition' toward clean power. Instead, the plant represents turning a blind eye to climate change, it represents a continuation of the under-the-table dark money deals, it represents Duke putting corporate greed ahead of our lives and it represents more sickness and deaths in our community," said Bobby Jones, long-time resident of Goldsboro and member of Down East Coal Ash Environmental and Social Justice Coalition.

Alliance

At the same time as Duke is opening this facility in an extremely environmentally burdened community, it is making claims that environmental justice principles are now part of its business model. The company touted these new guidelines at a recent Environmental, Social and Governance investor meeting, though has yet to release those policies for public review.

"Too many of our families have been made sick by the operations of the H. F. Lee facility," Jones said. "Wayne County doesn't need to have another county commissioner or community member die from cancer or any coal ash poison related illness, including COVID-19. Now, with this reburning of the coal waste, it is like we are being exposed to the same poisons all over again. Duke Energy has a proven record of abuse and criminality. We cannot trust them to respect the environment or community safety. We can only trust them to prey on vulnerable, black, brown, indigenous and poor communities."

According to the Southeast Coal Ash Coalition: "Unlike coal ash disposal sites, practices that meet Environmental Protection Agency's definition of beneficial reuse are exempted from EPA's operating, monitoring, design, and location restrictions."

The H. F. Lee plant has four coal-ash basins, three of which are inactive. These basins can hold coal ash anywhere from 4 to 10 feet thick over an area of 170 acres. According to a 2015 Duke Energy site assessment, the basins had high levels of toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, antimony, and thallium.

Wayne County, the location of this plant, has a cancer incidence rate that is one of the highest in North Carolina, between 513 and 564 per 100,000 of the population, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services data from 2017.

According to the Center for Disease Control's cancer instances data from the same year, North Carolina experienced a higher rate of cancer than the national average, making Wayne County one of the most alarming cancer rates in the nation.