Riverkeepers Unearth Crumbling Pipe At Duke Energy Coal Ash Lagoon; Not In Schematics

[hatrack]

EDIT

On Dec. 15, representatives from the Catawba Riverkeeper, Waterkeeper Alliance and Southern Environmental Law Center led a court-sanctioned on-site inspection of the Allen Steam Station.

Perkins says it took the group just 20 minutes to locate the decades-old pipe, and informed Duke representatives. He says Duke Energy had never documented or mentioned the pipe in its engineering reports or disclosed its existence to the Department of Environmental Quality, Environmental Protection Agency, federal criminal investigators and probation officers.

“These sites are large and old and Duke has consistently demonstrated they are unable to adequately maintain them safely,” said Perkins. “If they’re missing an obvious protruding 24-inch corrugated metal pipe that took me 20 minutes to find, they’re not up for the job and they cannot be trusted to leave these sites in place."

The pipe is located at the site of the original unlined wet coal ash basin, though coal ash at Allen is no longer deposited in the water. Rather, it is stored dry on top of the basin in a permanent, lined landfill. Perkins says only one end of the pipe was closed with concrete when the wet basin was retired in 1966. But he believes the end leading into Lake Wylie was never grouted and essentially forgotten about.

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http://www.gastongazette.com/news/20161227/more-coal-ash-concerns-uncovered-at-belmont-duke-plant

[KT2000]

1. this is why every factory

or processing plant needs inspection and cleanup. Many do things like this. We have a harbor where people fish and crab. The state required businesses around the harbor to share the cost of cleanup. The first one addressed had a pipe that emptied into the harbor from train cars that were positioned over a ditch to release their toxic loads. No one but the company knew it was there.
A sulfite paper mill had pipes into the harbor that ran their waste in the middle of the night when no one would see. The workers knew about it.
The state says it is not safe to eat anything from the harbor but they or the local government will not put up signs. There is also a fish farm in the harbor that sells their product all over.

People who own these plants hate regulations and think they are above the law because they are so rich. I say inspect, cleanup and jail the offenders. They know what they are doing.

[WhiteTara]

2. Too late now.

SCUM has declared the EPA dead. Regulations are for sissies.

[KT2000]

3. so true n/t