H.F. Lee plant on cleanup list
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on September 30, 2015 1:46 PM
Goldsboro's H.F. Lee Plant was named Tuesday in a multi-million dollar settlement between Duke Energy and the state Department of Environmental Quality as one of four coal ash sites in North Carolina being scheduled for accelerated cleanup of offsite groundwater contamination.
As a result of the settlement with the NCDEQ, formerly known as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Duke Energy will pay $7 million to North Carolina regulators for past groundwater contamination, and incur an estimated $10 million to $15 million in cleanup costs, state officials say.
Duke Energy will have 35 days from the execution of the agreement to pay the $7 million fine for the "full settlement of all current, prior and future claims related to exceedances of groundwater standards associated with coal ash facilities at Duke Energy's North Carolina facilities," the settlement says.
The other three sites where Duke Energy will be required to clean up existing groundwater contamination are its Sutton Plant near Wilmington, its Asheville Plant and the Belews Creek Steam Station.
But the agreement comes with another cost -- one that will see Duke Energy pay less in fines for alleged groundwater contamination throughout the state.
In exchange for agreeing to an accelerated cleanup of the groundwater at the four plants and paying $7 million to settle the allegations of groundwater pollution, state environmental regulators agreed to drop their case for the impending $25.1 million fine against Duke Energy for groundwater contamination from coal ash found at its Sutton Plant.
"We welcome the opportunity to put this issue behind us, allowing us to continue focusing on closing coal ash basins as quickly as the state process will allow," Duke Energy said in a statement released Tuesday. This comprehensive $7 million settlement resolves former, current and future groundwater issues at all 14 North Carolina coal facilities, including the retired Sutton plant. Operating our system safely and protecting the health and well-being of our plant neighbors are our highest priorities."
The agreement to drop the case for the $25.1 million fine and have both parties sign off on the new conditions came as lawyers for Duke Energy and the state were preparing to make arguments about the multi-million dollar fine for groundwater contamination at the Sutton Plant.
Duke Energy's lawyers were only four minutes into making their case at the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings when lawyers for both sides announced they had reached a last-minute settlement.
But the settlement lacks any form of substance or teeth, activists say.
"It's a nice facade for something that isn't there," said Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Matthew Starr, who filed a lawsuit last year against Duke Energy in conjunction with other riverkeepers in the state over groundwater contamination at power plant facilities around the state. "There's no deadline, no plan, no timeline. If you can't tell me any of those things, then (the settlement) doesn't mean anything. There's no meat to it."
The settlement will drop any legal actions being taken against all 14 Duke Energy sites across the state that have reported tainted groundwater from the company's coal ash pits.
The agreement only requires that Duke Energy use extraction wells to clean up its groundwater contamination at the four plants named in the settlement, including the one in Goldsboro.
Allegations of groundwater contamination near Goldsboro's H.F. Lee Plant -- which is located at 1199 Black Jack Church Road, off Stevens Mill Road -- began mounting in early 2014.
Starr then took it upon himself to test groundwater well sites near the plant in June and July 2014.
He sent his samples to an independent lab in Asheville, Pace Analytics, which came back showing illegally high levels of groundwater contaminants in the water. Arsenic, boron, mercury, lead, iron, manganese, barium, chromium and selenium were all found in tests conducted on Starr's samples.
These contaminants that seep into the water are the waste byproduct of coal burning energy plants that turn to ash and get dumped in cooling ponds and buried. The H.F. Lee Plant in Goldsboro has five of these coal ash ponds where the ash is buried, although the plant itself stopped burning coal years ago.
"This agreement allows the state to walk away from contaminated groundwater all over the state," Starr said. "They did a nice job of putting lipstick on a pig. It's another sweetheart deal between Duke Energy and the state."