Duke Energy and state environmental regulators say it's possible that coal ash near Wilmington, N.C., has spilled out into the Cape River from flooding after Hurricane Florence.
The 47-year-old coal ash pond is separated from the river by Sutton Lake, a public fishing lake used as a source of water to cool a coal-burning power plant that was shut down in 2013. If the flooding river causes the lake to overflow into the adjoining ash pond, the river, lake and ash will be part of one water system.
"What we know is the Cape Fear River has spilled into the Sutton Lake," Michael Regan, director of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, said at Gov. Roy Cooper's press briefing Friday morning. "Sutton Lake has spilled over into Duke's transmission yard, so they have evacuated their employees."
"What we don't know at this point is if any coal ash has filtered into the Cape Fear River," Regan said. "We plan to conduct flyovers and/or partnering with the Department of Transportation to look at driving capabilities to see if we can ascertain that."
Charlotte-based Duke Energy said Friday that the flooding forced it to shut down its 625-megawatt natural gas power plant at the L.V. Sutton plant.
"There are two coal ash basins at the site," Duke said in a statement. "The company believes that ash in the 1971 ash basin remains in place behind a steel wall separating the excavation area from the cooling lake."
However, Duke officials can't tell if that's the case because "that wall is submerged by flood water. "There is no visible ash in the cooling lake, and prior to flooding the ash level was at least five feet below the top of the steel wall," Duke said.
Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal at power plants and contains toxic elements like mercury, arsenic and selenium. The ash is also used as construction fill to build roads but utilities produced more ash than is needed by the construction industry and stored in in open-air pits filled with water.
Coal ash entered the public consciousness in 2014, when a Duke pit failed and released 39,000 tons of ash into the Dan River.
If the coal ash at the Sutton plan were to release coal ash, it would not be a total failure due to collapse. In that facility, the ash is settled at the bottom and covered by water. That water, which could contain some ash, would flow out into the Cape Fear River.
