Kinder, Gentler NC Bill Would Give Duke 5 Years To Close Worst Sites, Handy Deadline Extension Plan

[hatrack]

EDIT

The legislation was spurred by Feb. 2 spill at the retired Duke Energy Dan River Steam Station near Eden. Up to 39,000 tons of coal ash dumped into the water from a broken stormwater pipe. The Senate approved legislation that would close four coal ash ponds by 2019. Other, low-risk ponds could take 15 years to close.

The House’s proposed version of the bill provides Duke Energy a way around those deadlines by allowing the environmental secretary to grant Duke more time to meet closure deadlines.

To get such a “variance,” Duke Energy would have to show that the impoundment cannot be closed “by application of best available technology found to be economically reasonable at the time” and the closure would produce “serious hardship without equal or great benefit to the public,” according to the proposed legislation.

The House version of the bill also deletes a requirement that capped ponds have a system to collect liquids that seep from the impoundment.

EDIT

http://www.news-record.com/news/dan_river/article_0ec71eca-01a0-11e4-89a5-001a4bcf6878.html

[appal_jack]

1. This shameless pandering to polluters is reprehensible. k&r, nt.