One of the great benefits of life in the Carolinas during the month of May is the perfuming of the air by countless flowering shrubs and trees. Even weeds flower this time of year, adding to the cacophony of delightful perfume flooding the senses when out of doors or with windows open in the car, home or office.
So it was with displeasure my idyllic world was invaded these last two weeks with the sickening smell of fresh asphalt. Paving of streets occurred in a neighborhood near my home. My windows, normally opened during the day, had to be quickly cranked back shut lest the noxious smell invade my personal sanctum.
Then one of the major thoroughfares I travel at least three times per week also received layers of new asphalt last week, so that my enjoyable spring fervor rides, windows open and music playing as warm air floods my car, were terminated as soon as I reached the point of new stinky asphalt.
Then this week, similar nasty-smelling repaving work began outside my office windows in the stretch of Wrightsville Avenue leading up to the drawbridge on the mainland side.
Lest you feel I am complaining with little reason, consider that one of the permissible filler ingredients in asphalt is none other than coal ash.
Yes, the toxic, noxious byproduct from burning coal to make electricity, coal ash.
Coal ash is used as mineral filler in hot mix asphalt paving applications rather than hydrated lime or stone dust.
The Sierra Club reports on its website that the nation’s coal plants produce 140 million tons of coal ash pollution each and every year.
Mike Giles, remarking on coal mining this week said, consider black lung, just breathing coal dust makes you that sick, imagine what spreading the ash on fields, feeding it to animals does.
The National Academy of Sciences identified 24 potentially hazardous metals in coal ash as far back as July 2006. Coal ash contains mercury, arsenic (a known carcinogen), lead, selenium, cadmium as well as aluminum, barium, boron, and chlorine. These metals build up cumulatively in ecosystems and most are known to be dangerous to humans, animals and plants even in very small amounts.
Years ago this was not widely known; and cheap ways were derived by big industry to get rid of coal ash. It was actually sold to be used in fertilizer and animal feed, spread onto fields, used to build up highway shoulders, cap landfills. Most ashes are safe to mix into compost piles, but coal ash is not. It contains sulfur and iron in amounts high enough to damage plants.
Coal ash is repurposed today in products like wallboard, bricks, cement and asphalt.
Lobbyists for the utility and coal mining industry have fiercely defended against regulations on this toxic waste. Despite coal ash being recognized as the nation’s second largest waste stream there are zero federal safeguards specific to coal ash pollution, zero. Regulation has been left up to individual states. The most recent spill in February, the Dan River environmental disaster, speaks to how well North Carolina is handling its responsibility.
And it’s not just spills, there is a real danger of leaching and infiltration into the aquifers and wells. Sierra Club cites EPA data to identify at least 535 coal ash ponds without a simple liner to prevent the dangerous chemicals and heavy metals from reaching drinking water sources. People living within 1 mile of an unlined coal ash pond are said to have a 1 in 50 risk of cancer. A risk assessment drafted by the EPA in April 2010 states, living near a wet coal ash storage pond is significantly more dangerous than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Erin Brokovich became rich from her 1993 David and Goliath fight against Pacific Gas and Electric for contaminating the drinking water in the town of Hinkley, Calif., but not all tales of polluters sickening people and livestock end with a $333 million payout.
As long as big industry remains un- and under-regulated, the pursuit of the almighty dollar will put gargantuan profits before the health and welfare of citizens.
Monday, May 12 was the first day of cleanup of the Dan River spill that dumped 39,000 tons of coal ash into the river on Feb. 2 when an aging drainpipe failed at Duke Energy’s “shuttered” Dan River Steam Station in Eden. Despite the Dan River station being retired in 2012, coal ash pouring from a broken pipe coated the river bottom with toxic sludge for some 75 miles.
Duke Energy’s Cape Fear Power Station, a coal-fired power plant built in 1923, and its five coal ash lagoons and dams on the Cape Fear River near Moncure, N.C., have been classified by the EPA investigators as “even more dangerous” than the Dan River ponds.
Not all polluting is accidental. In March, Duke Energy was caught red handed dumping 61 million gallons of contaminated water from a Cape Fear River coal ash pit into the river. Regulators said the illegal pumping at this one station “had been going on for months.”
A report this week in the Charlotte Business Journal states 86 percent of 400 small business owners responding to a poll conducted May 2 through May 4 said they “believe protecting North Carolina’s good environment and quality of life is important to our state’s economic growth.” Thirty-nine percent said, “The N.C. General Assembly does a poor job of protecting the environment.”
On Wednesday Senate Rules Committee Chairman Tom Apodaca and Senate Leader Phil Berger filed a bill for consideration of Gov. Pat McCrory’s coal ash mitigation proposal. It was the first bill filed in the Senate this session.
“It’s important to get this conversation started right away, and Gov. McCrory’s proposal to handle the Dan River coal ash spill and other coal ash ponds is a good starting point,” said Apodaca and Berger.
Good lip service, but this state needs regulations and penalties with teeth.
Will legislators continue their previous efforts to repeal renewable-energy standards, open wide the door to fast-track fracking for gas drilling as well as hamstring localities from enforcing local environmental regulations?
Area elected representatives need to hear from you. A visit in person counts the most, followed by a phone call, even if you leave a message with an underling. Email and texts also count. It is easy and each one carries a great deal of weight.
Tweet the governor @PatMcCroryNC
Find House or Senate Member List contacts for: Rep. Rick Catlin, Rep. Ted Davis Jr., Rep. Susi H. Hamilton, Rep. Frank Iler, Rep. Chris Millis, Sen. Bill Rabon and Sen. Thom Goolsby, www.ncleg.net
