River is chewing up everything that it passes, flowing at a very high rate, and it will cause erosions of anything," said Matthew Starr, Upper Neuse Riverkeeper.
Disturbing news out of North Carolina Wednesday as thousands of gallons of water flowed out of a cooling pond that holds 1.2-billion-gallons. Part of the retaining wall gave way at the 545-acre pond.
WaterKeeper Alliance and Upper Neuse Riverkeeper are responding to and documenting the breach.
When families are being threatened by some of the worst flooding in North Carolina’s history, they should not also have to worry about Duke Energy’s dams collapsing.
“This failure likely happened because the river has begun to recede, which is when structural problems often develop. Like so many of Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds across the state, the cooling pond at Lee has a long history of structural problems – these are disasters waiting to happen.
“Minutes before the dam collapsed on the cooling pond, Duke Energy issued a statement declaring it was operating safely. Duke continues to claim the dam of a 120-acre coal ash pond at Lee is operating safely, even though the river has only begun to recede. The same ash pond suffered extensive damage after flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. We remain very concerned about the integrity of the ash pond dams at Lee as the river recedes over the next week.
“It has been more than two years since the Dan River disaster, and Duke’s coal ash continues to sit behind rickety dams on the banks of flood-prone rivers all across the state. Three ash ponds at the Lee plant, totalling 160 acres, have been completely submerged since Sunday.”
See the breach video here and at the end of the diary as I am unable to embed.
The below video highlights Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt from Climate State making the case for how climate change has made the many weapons of a Hurricane Matthew worse.
Greenpeace Organizer stated in a response to the news of the pond wall collapse.
"Duke Energy can attack environmental groups all it wants, but the fact remains that it is misleading the public and the people of North Carolina about the safety of its dams, and Governor McCrory is letting the company get away with it- again. As the flood waters from the devastating Hurricane Matthew recede, we need a Governor who will put people's safety and access to clean drinking water before the interests of his previous employer, Duke Energy.
"Duke Energy has a terrible track record when it comes to protecting the safety of North Carolina's waterways and drinking water. In the two years since the Dan River coal ash disaster, Duke Energy has fought efforts to clean up leaking coal ash pits which threaten the health and safety of nearby communities. Instead of cleaning up its hazardous messes, Duke uses its political influence with its previous employee, Governor McCrory, allowing the company to leave 70 percent of its toxic coal ash leaking across the state.
"Hurricane Matthew proves again that Governor McCrory will always put corporate interests before the people of North Carolina."
Sky 5 News reports on Duke Energy spokeswoman Erin Culbert’s statement on the breach.
Later, spokeswoman Erin Culbert issued a statement noting the 50- to 60-foot break in the wall holding in the estimated 1.2 billion gallons of water in the pond, which was used to cool equipment at the coal-fired power plant before it was taken out of service in 2012.
"There is water still coming into the cooling pond from the Neuse River through the spillway, and now there is water leaving the cooling pond though the opening in the basin wall," Culbert said.
Duke officials said they expect the water from the cooling pond to add less than 1 inch to the rising levels of the Neuse.
"The active ash basin is not impacted by this incident and continues to operate safely," Culbert said.
Shocking video can be seen at the below Eco-Watch link.
h/t Eco-Watch