Ten Year Anniversary of the Dan River Spill

February 2nd, 2024 marks the ten-year anniversary of the Dan River Spill. Five years ago, The Lilies Project hosted a Prayer by the Dan River. This year, we are resurrecting the Alliance of Carolinians Together (ACT) against Coal Ash, as we prepare for the public comment period for Duke’s Carbon Plan.

Following is an overview of what’s happened over the last ten years, as compiled by Ridge Graham with Appalachian Voices.

Coal Ash Timeline

Feb. 2 2014 @ approx 3 p.m → approx. 39,000 tons of ash and 27 million gallons of ash pond water through buried storm sewer → Duke Energy Dan River Steam Station https://www.cerc.usgs.gov/orda_docs/CaseDetails?ID=984 

Feb. 8 2014 → Six days after the spill, Duke Energy announces that the leakage has stopped and they plan on cleaning up the coal ash. https://www.southernenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-6-27-Southern-Environmental-Law-Center-NC-coal-ash-timeline.pdf 

May 2 2014 → EPA enters financial agreement with Duke Energy to address Feb 2014 coal ash spill at Eden. Agreement requires Duke Energy to perform comprehensive assessment and removal at an estimated cost of 1M. Additionally, Duke Energy will pay EPA 2 mil for past and future costs associated with the spill. https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/case-summary-duke-energy-agrees-3-million-cleanup-coal-ash-release-dan-river 

September 2014 → NC’s First in the Nation Coal Ash Law takes effect https://www.mcguirewoods.com/client-resources/alerts/2014/9/north-carolinas-first-in-the-nation-coal-ash-law/ 

“The 2014 Coal Ash Management Act  mandated that four Duke Energy sites designated as “high priority” — Dan River, Sutton, Asheville, and Riverbend — needed to close by 2019, with all the ash removed.” Energy News Network → Intermediate risk sites by 2024, and low risk sites to close by 2029 https://energynews.us/2022/08/29/to-excavate-or-not-to-excavate-with-toxic-coal-ash-that-is-the-question/ 

Feb. 20 2015 → Federal prosecutors file criminal charges against three subsidiaries of Duke Energy for violating the Clean Water Act. Nine misdemeanor charges in all in North Carolina’s three federal court districts. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-criminal-charges-duke-20150220-story.html 

May 14 2015 → Duke Energy’s operating companies plead guilty to all charges and are ordered to pay a 102 million dollar fine. 68 million went to criminal fines and the other 34 to environmental projects in NC and Virginia. Duke Energy is put on nationwide criminal probation. https://appvoices.org/2020/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-of-north-carolinas-coal-ash-crisis/ 

2015 → Appalachian Voices helps bring together NC community groups and leaders for a conversation → Alliance of Citizens Together Against Coal Ash → Pressures NCDEQ plans to not push “cap-in-place” plans https://appvoices.org/2020/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-of-north-carolinas-coal-ash-crisis/  

March 2016 → McCrory shuts down Coal Ash Management commission over questions of legality https://www.utilitydive.com/news/north-carolina-coal-ash-commission-abruptly-shuts-down/415926/ 

August 2016 → NC State Epidemiologist Megan Davies under McCrory admin → says DHHS “deliberately misleads the public” http://epimonitor.net/NC-Epidemiologist-Resigns.htm 

April 1 2019 → Communities across the state informed that NCDEQ ordered Duke to excavate all six of its North Carolina coal ash ponds that did not have clean up orders in place. https://appvoices.org/2020/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-of-north-carolinas-coal-ash-crisis/ 

April 26 2019→ Duke Energy appeals order, SELC intervenes on the case with seven other orgs (including App Voices)  

October 2019 → Excavation of Dan River impoundments and coal ash stacks complete. https://www.southernenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-6-27-Southern-Environmental-Law-Center-NC-coal-ash-timeline.pdf 

Jan. 2 2020 → State announces settlement, confirms Duke Energy required to excavate ash ponds https://appvoices.org/2020/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-of-north-carolinas-coal-ash-crisis/ 

June 2020 → Excavation of coal ash from the Sutton site in Wilmington is completed. https://www.southernenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-6-27-Southern-Environmental-Law-Center-NC-coal-ash-timeline.pdf 
May 2022 → Excavation of coal ash from the unlined Asheville coal ash lagoons is completed. https://www.southernenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-6-27-Southern-Environmental-Law-Center-NC-coal-ash-timeline.pdf 

May 17, 2023 → EPA announces latest action plan to protect communities from coal ash, requiring safe management of legacy coal ash sites  in federally un-regulated areas. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-latest-action-protect-communities-coal-ash-contamination 

Speaking Out Against EPA's Proposed Rollback of the Federal Coal Ash Rule

This week our partners from Appalachian Voices traveled to Arlington, VA to speak for three North Carolina moms, who are opposed to the EPA's Proposed Rollback of the Federal Coal Ash Rule. According to Talking Points from Earthjustice, the 2015 coal ash rule was already the weakest regulatory option to benefit utilities, states and recyclers. Now those minimum standards are at risk of being abolished. Appalachian Voices is collecting comments online for the EPA through April 30th deadline.

As always, we can rely on Lisa Sorg of NC Policy Watch to keep us abreast on the latest coal ash news impacting North Carolina, including her feature on the overwhelming opposition shared at Tuesday's hearing in DC. 

For a quick overview of the EPA Hearing on the Federal Coal Ash Rule:

Talking all about a proposal from the EPA to roll back regulations put in place by the Obama Administration in 2015, in part because of the coal ash spill in the Dan River -- thanks for having me on @NCCapTonight @TimBoyumTV @benmcneely pic.twitter.com/TlmwOlTsT1

— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) April 25, 2018

Earthjustice ranks the following changes of greatest concern:

1. Allows Weaker Groundwater Protection Standards and Removes Children’s Health Protections

2. Makes Toxic Cleanups of Groundwater Contamination Discretionary

3. Eliminates the Requirement that Leaking Unlined Ponds Install Liners or Close

4. Removes the Requirement For Polluters To Respond Immediately To Coal Ash Spills

5. Eliminates the Requirement to Close Coal Ash Ponds that Fail Safety Standards

6. Allows Coal Ash Dumps to Continue to Operate in Dangerous Locations

7. Allows Political Appointees to Decide if a Cleanup Is Adequate or Even Required

8. Shortens the Post-Closure Care Period and Lets Polluters Off the Hook

9. Removes the Requirement to Post Compliance Data, Leaving Citizens in the Dark

This Earthjustice analysis provides more extensive information about this proposed rollback.

Margaret Talbot came to visit Belews Creek last fall as part of her recent story "Scott Pruitt's Dirty Politics" in the April 2nd issue of The New Yorker. This extensive look into Scott Pruitt includes an overview on how federal rollbacks will directly impact citizens, including those living in Stokes County. The story highlights a faded memory of my own childhood, during which I had severe asthma: "Kids wrote their names in the ash that blanketed their parents’ cars and corroded the paint." Now I know, I was drawing smiley faces and phrases like "Wash Me" in a blend of toxic heavy metals. The thought of rolling back regulations to life before the smoke stacks and well monitoring are frightening. 

Thank you to Amy Adams, Ridge Graham and Jessica Albright, who shared the testimony of Deborah Graham from the Buck Community in Salisbury, Amy Brown from the Belmont Community, a suburb of Charlotte, and myself speaking on behalf of Belews Creek. Both Amy and Deborah have been living on bottled water for over three years. Amy finally received hook up to a permanent water supply on Day 1 of her third year on bottled water. But Deborah Graham, who was featured in the documentary, "From the Ashes," continues on living the struggle of dealing with countless bottles of water and is concerned about who will protect our families if the EPA will not. 

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Amy Brown's Speech On Twitter:    Part 1    |     Part 2

Deborah Graham's Speech On Twitter:     Part 1     |     Part 2     |     Part 3  |   Written Comments

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Other advocates who spoke on Tuesday include Bobby Jones, one of our ACT community members from Goldsboro, and Frank Holleman, lead attorney from the Southern Environmental Law Center, who are both featured in this news story. 

Every year coal-burning power plants generate not only electricity, but a staggering amount of leftover coal ash – that includes heavy metals unhealthy to humans. Now, the EPA is considering rolling back regulations on coal ash disposal – put in place by the Obama Administration. pic.twitter.com/W7B3y2qasv

— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) April 25, 2018

Ridge presented an edited version of my following comments and voiced his own concerns about the health impacts that he has witnessed in the community, as well. I plan to submit my full comments that include my concerns with the elimination of rapid response to coal ash spills:

Thank you for taking our comments. My name is Caroline Armijo. I am a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina and I advocate for my home community, which surrounds the Belews Creek Steam Station, along with all of the communities impacted by coal ash in North Carolina. 

I am gravely concerned about the rollback of regulations that we see proposed here today. As community members, we know that industry self-reports these regulations. But they are helpful and critical to our health. We hope that through the data collected, we can figure out how to clean up our communities, so that they may once again thrive. However the strides being made to correct these issues are in jeopardy. It is important that they remain in place for the sake of our citizens, who are bearing the hidden cost of our electricity in the United States. 

As a mother, I am particularly concerned about the health protections of children. I was sick as a child with constant respiratory problems until I moved away to college. So I empathize with all of the families who face the host of illnesses associated with poor air and water quality. I am also concerned about the rising trend of obscure cancers impacting children in groups around many communities in North Carolina - brain and blood cancers around Belews Creek, thyroid cancer in Marshall, and ocular cancer in Huntersville. The number of individuals with cancer in all of our coal ash communities are not normal. 

Although many of these proposed changes disturb me, the most horrific is eliminating the requirement for industry to respond immediately to coal ash spills. In February 2014, it took Duke Energy five days to stop the Dan River spill from leaking out of a corroded pipe that had been flagged as an issue in the past. They knew where the problem was yet. Yet it took them five days to stop the spill. Only 5% of the spill was cleaned up. It all flooded neatly into the Dan River and the refuse remains hidden in plain site. 

However just upstream on the Dan, Belews Creek houses over 20 million tons of coal ash, 12 million sitting precariously behind a 40-year-old earthen dam looming over 140 feet high and 27 holes punched in it to serve as a constant drain into the Dan River. A failure at this ash pond would wipe out Walnut Cove and Pine Hall. After a law suit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, we know that ash would devour the land upstream into downtown Walnut Cove, directly north through pastures and thirty-five miles downstream into Stoneville. Over eighty structures would be lost. The closest in proximity has 21 minutes to escape. We have no ideas how secondary roads would be impacted, because they are not numbered. It would be a massive crisis, only rivaled by the TVA Spill. And then to think, Duke Energy would no longer be held accountable to respond or clean up the spill. This is unfathomable. 

Why must we wait for a crisis? We need and demand that all coal ash impoundments are moved away from our rivers and bodies of water to lined landfills or reused as a raw material and stop the importation of additional coal ash from foreign countries. 

Thank you. 

Magical Inspiration from Clean the Cove

St. Patrick's Day 2018 began with a dreary start. I woke early to make the 45 minute trek from Greensboro to Walnut Cove to pick up trash as part of the Clean the Cove event. It was an easy morning to roll over and stay snuggled up in bed. The clouds were heavy and luminous over the landscape. In fact, as I approached Stokes County in Stokesdale, I noticed that the smokestacks for Belews Creek seemed to be producing large, violet clouds, a site I had never seen before.

As I headed west along Hwy 158, I shrieked out loud as I rounded a curve. There stood a large rainbow streak boldly looming above the red foliage of new spring leaves of a maple tree. It was almost like a presence. I have never had such a close encounter with a rainbow before. Drastically slowing my speed, I realized that there was a complete rainbow in front of me and the pot of gold was next to Belews Creek smokestacks. The lighting of the emissions at this point was like a golden flame. I quickly pulled off onto a side road. I was searching for a clearing where I could see the entire rainbow arching across the Sauratown Mountain range, encompassing Walnut Cove, Stokes County, and completing its decent next to the smokestacks. 

Just the day before, my four-year-old had asked me if there was going to be a rainbow the next day for St. Patrick's Day. They had discussed the holiday at preschool. The rainbows, the gold, the leprechauns were all fresh on his mind. I told him that was tricky. Rainbows usually require some rain. They don't just magically appear. But here it was.

Not only was it a rainbow, it was a vibrant, complete rainbow seeming to make a promise to make amends for the weight of over-reliance on fossil fuels. For the hidden health burdens that had been placed on our community forty years ago. It was hard not to cry. It felt like the Double Rainbow Guy, who cried out, "What does it mean?" I certainly knew what I hoped that it meant. That we are nearing a complete cleanup of our community, despite the physical evidence of moves by Duke Energy to begin capping our site in place.

We are one of six remaining sites slated to be capped, even though we are the only remaining site to have proven off-site contamination with high levels of arsenic found in groundwater beyond Duke Energy's property line. Next week marks the three year anniversary of 42 families living on bottled water at Belews Creek out of the almost one thousand in North Carolina. That is if you are lucky enough to fall within the arbitrary half-mile radius that determines whether Duke provides you with water. 

I was unable to capture the beauty of the rainbow. Certainly, I have some lovely pictures. But they are faint and pale in comparison to what I experienced in person: the sudden appearance above the flaming red tree, seeing the complete rainbow across the landscape, and even driving beneath the rainbow and seeing it from a side angle. It all felt like magic. 

As I continued back on route to the Clean Up Event, a few drops of rain started to fall. There was the rain. I could not wait to tell Oliver what happened and to see if I was able to capture anything with my iPhone. Certainly rainbows are why we should have cameras built into the front of our cars. 

As we selected our clean-up route, I originally planned to focus on the Walk Walnut Cove route through London. I am hoping that we will create an audio walking tour through the area this summer. But instead, we were redirected to Highway 65, which is my regular drive into town. We would pick up from Hedgecock Builder's Supply down to MLK Jr. Drive, which includes the recently annexed Walnut Tree entrance. As we waited for the rain to clear, Linda and I watched Chad drive his cement truck to and from the power plant to receive coal ash to complete a job that had been disrupted by the previous weekend's snow. 

Once the sun appeared, my father, who has a lot of experience picking up trash, warned that I needed a stick to use. He had one along with a handled bag, which made it easy for him to drop his collection directly in with little effort. He was right. I was starting to feel the fatigue of picking up trash and shifted my efforts to taking pictures to document the event, which allowed me to create a video. 

It seems that each side of the road had a particular pattern of trash: approaching town, there were a greater number of beer bottles. Leaving town included predominantly styrofoam cups and food containers. Some of my more poignant finds included:

A new growth underneath a glass beer bottle in a patch of wild day lilies growing along the side of the road just beyond Hedgecock's

A chance to closely examine the mosses and native plants along the roadside that have often intrigued me

A plastic colander was found over the bridge as we approached the end of our route

The colander is a perfect metaphor to describe the current state of our unlined coal ash basins in North Carolina. We have used the colander as a metaphor in presentations. I have used it as part of my prayers and meditations since fall of 2016. I quickly grabbed it and knew that it would become an art project in the near future. 

Later that evening as we gathered in Fowler Park, we spent time planting flowers and discussing ideas of other spaces we could plant them. Certainly our entrances could use some sprucing up. We talked to the kids, who were enjoying Fowler Park. And I played around with creating my first video. When I returned home to watch it, I was astonished that it looks like a little green friend did in fact showed up. I pointed it out to Oliver and Lucy as my leprechaun. I have never had anything like that happen before. 

Walnut Cove is a tiny, rural town. It has approximately 1400 people living within its town limits. Small events like picking up trash do not feel like they are making a tremendous difference. But as I shared the video on Facebook, I was surprised by the outpouring of comments by people. Many referred to the PSAs of the early 70s to help "Keep America Beautiful." NC no longer funds roadside cleanup by prisoners. We need to hold one another accountable and stop littering. Period.

Picking up trash has a rewarding feeling of instant gratification and gives you a sense of ownership over a small strip of land. In searching for how to heal our massive environmental issues, the notion of intent returns over and over again. Just our intent to clean up our lands makes a large difference. A morning of stepping outside and picking up trash IS taking the action that we need to shift our greater environment to a cleaner, healthier one. It creates a renewed sense of awareness and makes a big difference, even if we cannot clean up larger problems - like coal ash - solely on our own.

Double Headline News!

Yesterday was an exciting day to wake up to not one, but two front page stories in my now local and childhood local newspapers, respectively!

A couple of weeks ago, Greensboro News & Record's Taft Wireback joined Dr. Shivakumar, Wade and I for an interview in Shivakumar's office.

As we shared the history of our collaboration, it began to feel like one of our actual meetings. Beginning in early 2016, I have met with Shivakumar and Wade to share ideas and updates about our work every six to eight weeks. We generally meet for roughly an hour and fifteen minutes to talk. The last fifteen minutes always feel like the most productive. By the end of our interview, I shared my next steps and the first molds that I plan to create and discussed how they will build on one another. 

I found this time frame to be true for all collaboration through my coal ash work. You have to be willing to talk to others on the phone for quite a while. Something always seems to arise in the end. 

I was particularly moved by our meeting, because it was Taft's original article about Shivakumar's EcoCore in August 2014 that moved me to contact him in February 2016. I remember reading the article on my phone as part of my daily headline updates. We were well into our organizing at that point. I kept thinking over the next eighteen months that surely something was happening with their research. Finally I sent an email to find out after being prompted by a meditation in my Call Class at Holy Trinity's Servant Leadership program, as described in Lisa Sorg's post. 

And the rest is front page news! Above the fold, my dad exclaimed!

We spent the day in Winston getting haircuts and running errands. The article's placement was perfect timing! We ran into old friends so excited to see the news and share it with others. This picture was taken at the local Mt. Tabor Barber Shop! 

Resources:

"A North Carolina artist wants to create lilies in a field of coal ash", by Taft Wireback, Greensboro News & Record, December 26th, 2017.

Also Reprinted in: 
Winston-Salem Journal 
The Roanoke Times
Omaha World-Herald

N.C. A&T RESEARCHERS FIND USE FOR COAL ASH, by Taft Wireback, Greensboro News & Record, JUNE 14, 2014

Talking with Keri Brown at WFDD

Thank you to Keri Brown for taking time to meet with me on Tuesday morning. It is always great to meet with Keri and to share her passion about environmental causes. She has won two Edward R. Murrow Award related to her stories on coal ash - one for the Dan River Spill and a second profiling Belews Creek. 

Turning Coal Ash Into Public Art

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Caroline Armijo looks at composite building material made out of coal ash. She is partnering with North Carolina A&T State University and other organizations to create public art with coal ash in Stokes County. Keri Brown/WFDD

A local artist is using her talents to create a new public art display in Stokes County.

Caroline Armijo recently won a $350 thousand grant from ArtPlace America’s National Creative Placemaking Fund to install her designs in Walnut Cove, near Duke Energy’s Belews Creek coal ash pond. Armijo has partnered with scientists at North Carolina A&T State University to recycle the waste and now she’s making art out of it. It’s called The Lilies Project.

“The sculpture itself will be the centerpiece,” says Armijo. “It could be a gateway with the lilies above or it may be a freestanding sculpture, so the actual design has not been determined, but I’m hoping it can be a warm and inviting place where people can share stories and come with their kids.”

Armijo says the project also includes collecting oral histories of residents who have been affected by coal ash. The information will be used to create a walking tour and original performance.

The artwork will have to be installed by the end of June 2020, according to the grant. Several community workshops will be held in the coming months to discuss where in Walnut Cove the artwork will be located.

Armijo says the project will also be a tribute to the arts heritage in Stokes County.

“The name of the project was inspired from the movie Lilies of the Field,” says Armijo. Jester Hairston, born in Belews Creek, wrote the music "Amen" for that film, which is the first movie for which an African-American won an Academy Award. "Hairston is a world-known composer and actor, and I wanted to somehow honor him.”

There are around 20 million tons of coal ash at the Belews Creek Steam Station. Armijo says she isn’t sure how much of the ash will be used in her art project, but she hopes it will draw more attention to other recycling possibilities and cleaning up the site.

*Follow WFDD’s Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

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