The chairman of the state’s new Coal Ash Management Commission, which met Friday for the first time, warned that the cleanup of Duke Energy’s ash will involve some public pain.
Chairman Michael Jacobs, a UNC business professor and founder of a merger advisory business in Chapel Hill, vowed the commission’s oversight of closing 32 ash ponds won’t be influenced by politics.
But Jacobs, who was appointed by Gov. Pat McCrory, added that “everyone will share the cost” of the cleanup.
He noted that the state employees’ retirement system is invested in Duke stock. Duke also expects to ask the state Utilities Commission for permission to pass cleanup costs, which it most recently estimated at $3.4 billion, to its 3.2 million North Carolina customers.
Jacobs said ash disposal decisions will involve other public considerations such as the prospect of heavy truck traffic to haul ash from Duke’s power plants for disposal elsewhere.
“I want to encourage people to come to us with workable solutions,” he said in an interview. “It’s a message to interest groups that we welcome ideas and solutions, but in the context of costs, safety and timing.”
Environmental advocates want quicker action by the state to force Duke to move the 108 million tons of ash stored in open ponds away from water supplies.
“The only role of the coal ash commission is to decide whether leaking, dangerous sites should be cleaned up,” said attorney Frank Holleman of the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has sued Duke over ash contamination. “The answer should be obvious.”
The nine-member commission, created by legislators in August, will play a major role in the pace and quality of the cleanup.
Legislators gave Duke until 2029 to close its ash ponds but mandated that ash be excavated within five years from four power plants. Duke filed plans Thursday for a first phase that would remove about 30 percent of the ash in those plants, including Riverbend west of Charlotte.
The disposal method at 10 other plants remains unclear.
The commission has two key duties: Approve risk ratings for each ash pond, which will determine when they have to be closed, and approve how they are closed. Ash from high-risk ponds will go to lined landfills, but ash at low-risk sites could remain in place.
The commission is allowed to consider costs in deciding whether to approve closure plans. It may also allow extensions of up to three years to finish the work.
The members are appointed by the governor, the state Senate president pro tem and the speaker of the House. Its five-member staff will be part of the state Department of Public Safety.
McCrory and two past governors on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging the legislature’s authority to create commissions, including the coal ash board, and appoint members who encroach on executive branch functions.
The lawsuit asks a judge to remove the legislature’s six coal ash appointees. The legislature gave the governor just three appointments to the commission.
Some of the members fill designated slots: a physician or public health official; a member of a conservation group; an electric membership corporation official; and experts in waste management, economic development, electric rates and manufacturing.
Two members come from Charlotte: UNC Charlotte civil engineering professor Rajaram Janardhanam, appointed by House speaker Thom Tillis, and Senate leader Phil Berger’s appointee Harrel Jamison Auten III, a retired solid waste executive.
Legislators’ decision not to house the commission in an environmental agency reflects criticism of the Department of Environment and Natural Resource’s regulation of ash.
Robin Smith, a Chapel Hill environmental lawyer and blogger who’s a former DENR assistant secretary, said she can’t think of another state agency structured like the ash commission.
“The one way it seems fairly unusual is it’s set up to have final authority over some decisions that DENR otherwise makes, when it comes to prioritizing closure and approving final closure plans,” Smith said. “It is unusual to have that relationship with a commission that’s in a totally different department.”
She said commission staff won’t have ready access to DENR staff with environmental expertise. “It’s going to come down to how they build that working relationship with DENR because there’s going to have to be an awful lot of cooperation,” she said.
Jacobs said that won’t be a problem, noting that commission staff will have a satellite office near DENR’s Raleigh headquarters.
“I am not concerned at all about cooperation between DPS and DENR,” he said.
The ash bill gave the commission factors to consider in assigning priorities to ash ponds, such as their condition or proximity to water. The state Sierra Club says legislators should have made clearer how to weigh those factors.
“The commission definitely has a tall order, and I think there was some lack of clarity for the determinations they have been asked to make,” said Sierra spokesman Dustin Chicurel-Bayard.
Legislators also failed in not designating a seat on the commission to anyone personally affected by Duke’s ash, he added.
THE (RALEIGH) NEWS & OBSERVER CONTRIBUTED.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/11/14/v-print/5314472/coal-ash-chair-everyone-will-share.html
