What is four inches wide, 35 feet long and according to Duke Energy poses no threat? The answer is a crack in an ash pond dyke at their Cape Fear Steam Electric Plant in North Carolina.
They announced the news last night.
From the Charlotte Business Journal:
“Company engineers and engineering consultants responded to the site today and are making repairs,” Duke says in a prepared release. “No ash basin discharge has occurred, and out of an abundance of caution, the company is taking steps to prevent any potential for discharge.”
This is the same plant, and one of the same ponds, where the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resource says Duke violated its wastewater permits by improperly pumping water into the Cape Fear River.
Right now a Federal Grand Jury is investigation the relationship between Duke Energy and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. NC Governor Pat McCrory, worked for Duke Energy for 29 years.
The first batch of subpoenas was issued Feb. 10, the day after an Associated Press story raised questions about whether North Carolina regulators had helped shield Duke from a coalition of environmental groups that wanted to sue under the U.S. Clean Water Act to force the company to clean up its coal ash pollution.
Their efforts were stymied by the state environmental agency, which used its authority under the federal act to intervene. The state quickly proposed what environmentalists derided as a "sweetheart deal" where the $50 billion Charlotte-based company would have paid just $99,111 to settle violations over toxic groundwater leeching from two of its plants with no requirement that it stop the pollution.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
It appears that Grand Jury has caused the Governor to talk tough as it relates to this latest news:
This is the latest in a series of troubling incidents at Duke Energy facilities over the past few months, and it’s time for Duke Energy to come out of the shadows and to publicly address this growing problem,” he said in the prepared statement.
To that all I can add is: