Gray (poison) gold
North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural Resources fined Duke Energy $25.1 million in penalty for letting coal ash
contamination leach into groundwater for years.
The $25.1 million penalty is nearly five times the amount of the previous largest fine from the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and applies to pollution from the Sutton coal power plant near Wilmington, which was decommissioned in 2013.
This all comes about a few weeks after prosecutors filed nine misdemeanor
charges against the energy giant.
In addition to the Dan River spill, the $55-billion company is charged with having illegally drained coal ash and wastewater from three power plants into the Catawba River, the Neuse River and the French Broad River. Prosecutors also say Duke failed to maintain treatment system equipment at its Cape Fear power plant, where it dumped 61 million gallons from ash ponds into a stream. Duke has admitted that 200 illegal "seeps" at its 14 coal-fired power plants have leaked three million gallons of coal ash-tainted wastewater a day near rivers and lakes.
Cape Fear River Watch's executive director Kemp Burdette explains why, so far, the only people excited about this
verdict is the DENR:
"A $25 million fine doesn't do anything to clean up the contamination caused by Duke's coal ash ponds," Burdette said.
"They're not forcing Duke to start treating groundwater, or start doing something to clean up the contamination. What they need to be doing is forcing them to clean it up. If they want to fine them, fine. The important thing here is getting the groundwater cleaned up," he said.
$25 million is a lot of money, if you or I had to pay it. But, as ThinkProgress points out:
“This proposed fine does not clean up one ounce of coal ash pollution,” Frank Holland, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center said in an email to ThinkProgress. “It is the easiest thing in the world for Duke Energy to write a check. What the Wilmington community and its clean water need is elimination and cleanup of the coal ash pollution.”
Duke Energy has an annual revenue of more than $24 billion and sold more than 58 thousand gigawatt-hours of electricity last year.
In Duke Energy's defense, they have already agreed upon about
$100 million in settlements for fines and for community service in the areas affected. Many wonder if those original settlements paved the way for what, in many respects, is a very lenient penalty today.
The fact that the fine is "record breaking" does not mean that previous fines were hefty. As we know, most "regulators" connected to the fuel industries don't seem to do much in the way of regulating.