In 2008, 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic waste spilled from
the coal-burning Kingston Fossil Plant along the
Emory River, upstream from the
Tennessee River.
After ignoring years of warnings, in February 2014 Duke Energy spilled a reported 100 million tons of coal ash, arsenic, and other hazardous waste into the Dan River. People swim in, fish in, and get their drinking water from the Dan River.
Seventy miles of that waterway in North Carolina and Virginia were coated with toxic gray sludge.
DUKE ENERGY'S FINE:
About $1 to dump each of a million tons of
toxic industrial waste directly into
a U.S. river -- a fraction of
what it costs to put it
into a landfill.
WASHINGTON – Three subsidiaries of North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corporation, the largest utility in the United States, pleaded guilty today to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act at several of its North Carolina facilities and agreed to pay a $68 million criminal fine and spend $34 million on environmental projects and land conservation to benefit rivers and wetlands in North Carolina and Virginia. Four of the charges are the direct result of the massive coal ash spill from the Dan River steam station into the Dan River near Eden, North Carolina, in February 2014. The remaining violations were discovered as the scope of the investigation broadened based on allegations of historical violations at the companies’ other facilities.
Under the plea agreement, both Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, must certify that they have reserved sufficient assets to meet legal obligations with respect to its coal ash impoundments within North Carolina, obligations estimated to be approximately $3.4 billion....
Under the plea agreement, both Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, must certify that they have reserved sufficient assets to meet legal obligations with respect to its coal ash impoundments within North Carolina, obligations estimated to be approximately $3.4 billion....
-- From “Duke Energy Subsidiaries Plead Guilty and Sentenced for Clean Water Act Crimes...,” at this May 14, 2015 EPA site:
__________
GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — As Duke Energy pleaded guilty Thursday in a North Carolina courtroom to nine criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act, federal prosecutors recounted examples where time and again the nation's largest electricity company failed to prevent its illegal pollution.
Two years before the massive February 2014 spill at a Duke ash dump in Eden coated 70 miles of the Dan River in gray sludge, engineers at the plant twice requested $20,000 from company headquarters to use a robotic camera to inspect aging drainage pipes, including the one that later collapsed, triggering the disaster.
Prosecutors said Duke executives denied the request both times, even after a top manager at the plant personally pleaded for the money to inspect the pipes....
-- From “Prosecutors: Duke Energy could have avoided Dan River spill,” by the Associated Press, at this May 14, 2015 Bristol, Tennessee Herald Courier site:
A criminal is a person guilty of a crime.
Can you find one person held
responsible for the
above crimes?
Money talks.
ReplyDeleteAnd your "leaders" listen to it when it talks, because its talking to THEM.
THEY don't swim in that river and don't drink from it either. And they don't care who does or what happens to those who do.
Where are the State prosecutors?
Cashing their checks.
Keep cheering.
And yet, the chicken plants and the farms that use the litter, continue to poison our water.
ReplyDelete