Premature end to river cleanup
Published July 28, 2014
Editorial by Jacksonville Daily News, July 24, 2014.
The state has lifted its public health advisory regarding recreational use along the environmentally damaged Dan River in Rockingham County.
It seemed a logical course. Just last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators in two states said it’s OK for Duke Energy to halt its efforts to remove remaining coal ash from its disastrous Feb. 2 spill that dumped thousands of tons into the waterway near Eden.
It all seems like too much and too soon. So far, according to the EPA, Duke Energy’s cleanup efforts have recovered about 3,000 tons of a total spill estimated at between 38,000 and 39,000 tons. While we’re hardly environmental experts, that doesn’t sound like nearly enough. It’s between 7.7 percent and 10 percent of the total. It’s a figure low enough to cause environmental groups to blink.
Pete Harrison, an attorney for the Waterkeeper Alliance conservation group, told the Greensboro News & Record that evidence of substantial coal ash lingering in the river sediment is easy to find. In fact, he scooped some from the river bottom near Draper’s Landing in Rockingham County, a couple of miles down from the spill site and headed for the Virginia border. He said he found an inch and a half of coal ash there. He’s heard anecdotal evidence of greater amounts on the river bottom in more areas.
Doesn’t take much to stir up that kind of collection and create a new toxic stew. Moderate to heavy rainfall would do it.
That so much coal ash would remain in the sediment is no surprise. After hog waste spills in the 1990s along rivers winding through Eastern North Carolina, sediment was the great collector of fecal coliforms, which led to high testing levels after heavy rainfalls or hurricanes.
The EPA agreed. They do not contest that there is coal ash where its critics say, just that it poses no immediate threat and trying to clear it with more dredging might create more harm than good. The EPA contends that these coal ash deposits are too diluted to be a health hazard either by the amount of flowing water or sediment itself.
All are potentially valid considerations. But when balanced against the Tennessee Valley Authority’s coal ash cleanup from the historic 2008 spill into the Clinch and Emory rivers near Kingston, Tenn., the Duke Energy action seems laughably small. The TVA cleanup took six years and recovered 90 percent of the ash, according to the News & Record.
In lifting its advisory regarding recreational use of the river, the Department of Health and Human Services has reopened it to fishing and swimming but still warns against eating fish caught downriver from the spill.
It’s probably too soon for any advisory to be lifted with so much coal ash still along the river bottom. We hope the state DHHS will monitor this closely and take the appropriate action if needed.
July 28, 2014 at 3:05 pm
Johnny Hiott says:
What else could one expect when a sitting governor is a former (?)employee of duke energy ? Since government and business have mergered and created fascism in America it is not about the enviroment. It is about tyranny. It is about squashing the little people while advancing the cause of the giant conglomerates.
