{"id":4136,"date":"2015-10-05T10:34:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T16:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=4136"},"modified":"2015-10-08T09:40:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:40:59","slug":"duke-gets-sweetheart-deal-from-ex-employee-north-carolina-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=4136","title":{"rendered":"Duke gets “sweetheart deal” from North Carolina Governor, an ex-employee of Duke Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 4, 2015- by the Editorial Board of The Charlotte News and Observer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A massive coal ash problem (Foreground) exists at the Duke Energy Gibson Station in SW Indiana that goes largely ignored by Indiana environmental officials. Already, the drinking water for the little community of East Mt. Carmel, IN is so contaminated with selenium and other substances that it is unsafe for human consumption. Indiana seems to simply look the other way at this and the other numerous power plant ash and waste issues across the state. \u00a9 2010 BlairPhotoEVV.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, one has to admire the legal tactics if not the outcome. Duke Energy, after years of coal ash violations, made a deal with the state last week to make a $7 million payment, $500,000 for each of 14 coal ash pit and pond sites to settle the matter. In February, fears of a breach became a reality when a Duke coal ash pit in Western North Carolina spewed 39,000 tons of toxic waste into the Dan River.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminal investigations ensued. Gov. Pat McCrory, a former long-time Duke employee when he was mayor of Charlotte, the company\u2019s headquarters, vowed a righteous response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, state environmental regulators levied a $25.1 million fine against Duke. But that all went away Tuesday when the state and the company settled for that $7 million. Duke called it a payment and didn\u2019t even seem to concede it was a fine.\u00a0\"Dupe-Energy-Logo-trans\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Frank Holleman, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, rightly called it a sweetheart deal for Duke. \u201cThere\u2019s a $7 million fine,\u201d Holleman said, \u201cbut Duke gets amnesty at every single site in the state. Where is any new requirement on Duke to do something it wasn\u2019t already required to do?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duke is paying millions for cleanup and wrestling with what to do about remaining coal ash pits, which contain heavy metals that are an environmental hazard. Duke says tainted groundwater near the sites contains \u201ctrace elements\u201d of the metals.<\/span><\/p>\n

The state in this case appears to have fallen victim either to a botched investigation or to the high-dollar legal team Duke threw at the problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In legal filings, the company claimed that Donald van der Vaart, secretary of the newly renamed state Department of Environmental Quality, told his staff to figure a big fine for Duke so that McCrory wouldn\u2019t look bad as a former Duke employee. For its part, DEQ said Duke had been delaying action for years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But there seems little doubt that the country\u2019s largest electric utility certainly bested the state in this case. Going from $25 million to $7 million doesn\u2019t seem the shrewdest negotiating on the state\u2019s part. And the coal ash problem is an ongoing threat.<\/span><\/p>\n

A spokesperson for DEQ tried, unsuccessfully, to put a good face on the situation: \u201cWe both see value in putting this case behind us so that we can turn our full attention to the coal ash cleanup and basin closure process.\u201d It\u2019s likely some of Duke\u2019s \u201cfull attention\u201d was directed toward a victory party somewhere in Charlotte.<\/span><\/p>\n

This tepid response to reprehensible threats of environmental problems related to coal ash only underscores the attitude of the governor and GOP legislative leaders that business should be left alone with regards to regulation, and if something happens to the environment, well, that\u2019s just the chance you have to take.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more here: http:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/opinion\/editorials\/article37605624.html#storylink=cpy<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 4, 2015- by the Editorial Board of The Charlotte News and Observer Well, one has to admire the legal tactics if not the outcome. Duke Energy, after years of coal ash violations, made a deal with the state last … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4136"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4146,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions\/4146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}