Board to hear update on ash
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 2, 2017 10:07 AM
Wayne County commissioners Tuesday morning will be updated on a proposed coal ash project at Duke Energy's H.F. Lee Plan just west of Goldsboro.
They also are scheduled to hear from Bobby Jones of the Down East Coal Ash Coalition.
Jones, who lives near the plant, could not be reached for comment prior to press time.
The meeting will get under way with an 8 a.m. agenda briefing followed by the formal session at 9 a.m. Both will be held in the commissioners' meeting room on the fourth floor of the Wayne County Courthouse Annex.
Consent agenda items include applications for Present Use Value and budget amendments.
Public comments will be taken at 9:15 a.m. Speakers will have four minutes to comment on their topic of choice.
Carol Bowden will be sworn in as the new clerk to the board. Ms. Bowden was hired recently following the retirement of longtime clerk Marcia Wilson.
A rezoning public hearing will be held at 9:30 a.m.
Cedric Jackson is asking the county to rezone 1.60 acres of land in the Saulston Township from airport residential agricultural 20.
The property is located on Parkstown Road.
Airport zoning requires one-acre lot sizes.
Residential agricultural 20 requires 20,000 square feet.
The change in zoning will allow three 20,000-square-foot residential lots to be developed.
Commissioners can act on the rezoning following the public hearing.
Millie Chalk, Duke Energy Progress district manager government and community relations, is expected to talk about the company's recently announced plans to excavate coal ash from four basins at the plant to be recycled for use in concrete products.
Coal ash is a material created when coal is burned to produce electricity, company Ms. Chalk said in a press release sent to commissioners.
Recycling is the only way to avoid permanent disposal of the material, she said. However, much of the ash stored in basins has too much carbon to be used in concrete products.
Duke Energy is making additional investments in technology designed to reprocess coal ash from basins to be used in various concrete products.
This is a change from previously announced plans for the site.
In 2015, the company announced plans to excavate and relocate coal ash from the site to a fully lined structural fill in Lee County. The Colon Mine project remains a contingency site if final closure plans for basins across the state require it.
After evaluating a variety of locations, company experts have determined that H.F. Lee is an ideal site for a project of this nature based on a number of factors including, proximity to market demand, the volume of ash at the site, ash quality and the site's current closure deadline, company officials said in the press release.
The majority of the 6 million tons of ash on the property will be safely reprocessed for use in concrete products by the current 2028 closure deadline, according to the press release.
Any material left after recycling operations have ended will be relocated to a safe, permanent storage solution off-site, according to the press release.
The company does not intend to construct a landfill onsite to store remaining material. In 2015, Duke Energy recycled nearly two-thirds of the ash produced across its states.
North Carolina's coal ash law encourages even more recycling and requires the company to identify three sites across the state for recycling projects, making 900,000 or more tons of material available each year.
The announced plan is ahead of the Jan. 1, state deadline for announcing locations for two coal ash recycling projects.
A recent evaluation conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute confirmed recycling ash for concrete as one of the most practical and proven uses of the material, according to the press release.
The release adds that more than half of the concrete produced in the United States contains coal ash because it makes roads, bridges and buildings stronger and more durable.