Heavy rains breach coal ash landfill in Wilmington

Heavy rains have breached a Duke Energy coal ash landfill at Sutton Lake in Wilmington, the company said Saturday evening.

The company said some 2,000 cubic yards of soil, water and ash, enough to fill two-thirds of an Olympic-sized pool, were displaced.

The company said that, because of the heavy rain, it's difficult to calculate how much contaminated water reached Sutton Lake, the cooling pond outside the retired plant. But it also said most of the ash ended up in a perimeter ditch and on a haul road that surrounds the landfill, and that it doesn't believe the incident "poses a risk to public health or the environment."

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Watchdogs have been worried that the torrential rains from Hurricane Florence will cause environmental calamities, including at coal ash ponds, which are used to collect the waste from coal-fired electric plants and are often near water. The Southern Environmental Law Center said it was monitoring th esituation and awaiting more information on the extent of the damage at Sutton, and in other places.

The SELC and the Sierra Club called on Duke Energy to be more proactive at disposal sites. Environmentalists have called repeatedly on the company to move ash, created when coal is burned for power, from pits near bodies of water to lined landfills further away.

“This failure illustrates the dangers of Duke Energy’s practice of disposing of coal ash near waterways throughout North and South Carolina," senior SELC attorney Frank Holleman said in a statement. "Disposing of coal ash close to waterways is hazardous."

Duke Energy said it will do environmental sampling at the Sutton site and that it will perform repairs.