River is chewing up everything that it passes, flowing at a very high rate, and it will cause erosions of anything," said Matthew Starr, Upper Neuse Riverkeeper.
Disturbing news out of North Carolina Wednesday as thousands of gallons of water flowed out of a cooling pond that holds 1.2-billion-gallons. Part of the retaining wall gave way at the 545-acre pond.
WaterKeeper Alliance and Upper Neuse Riverkeeper are responding to and documenting the breach.
When families are being threatened by some of the worst flooding in North Carolina’s history, they should not also have to worry about Duke Energy’s dams collapsing.
“This failure likely happened because the river has begun to recede, which is when structural problems often develop. Like so many of Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds across the state, the cooling pond at Lee has a long history of structural problems – these are disasters waiting to happen.
“Minutes before the dam collapsed on the cooling pond, Duke Energy issued a statement declaring it was operating safely. Duke continues to claim the dam of a 120-acre coal ash pond at Lee is operating safely, even though the river has only begun to recede. The same ash pond suffered extensive damage after flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. We remain very concerned about the integrity of the ash pond dams at Lee as the river recedes over the next week.
“It has been more than two years since the Dan River disaster, and Duke’s coal ash continues to sit behind rickety dams on the banks of flood-prone rivers all across the state. Three ash ponds at the Lee plant, totalling 160 acres, have been completely submerged since Sunday.”
See the breach video here and at the end of the diary as I am unable to embed.