Coal ash cleanup: Someone will pay; will it be customers?
The cost for Duke Energy to safely dispose of the toxic byproducts of nearly 100 years of burning coal along waterways in North Carolina could cost upwards of $10 billion, the company says.
The figure, cited by a company executive this week, raises questions in South Carolina — particularly along the Saluda River where a Duke coal plant in Anderson County has been cited for violations and amid concerns that a disaster like one that happened recently along the Dan River in North Carolina could happen here.
Among the questions: Is the cost real or inflated? What does it mean for how Duke's "coal ash" ponds in South Carolina will be put to rest? And who will ultimately pay for it: shareholders or customers?
The company is using the estimate as "a public relations ploy," said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has sued Duke in North Carolina and been involved in legal settlements with South Carolina's other two utilities, who unlike Duke have committed to clean their ash ponds in the Palmetto state.
"We have every reason to believe that Duke has inflated this number," Holleman told The Greenville News. "We have no reason to accept this estimate at face value."
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http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/04/28/question-dukes-numbers-cost-cleanup/8350057/
We should take it out of the Koch Bro's hides. Lord knows they can afford it.
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and D*mn. 
