Canvassing Against Coal Ash

The Red, White & Water team hit the streets near Belmont, N.C., to speak with residents who live near Duke Energy's G.G. Allen Steam Station about the threats of coal ash pollution.

Last Saturday, the Red, White and Water team traveled to Belmont, N.C., to the G.G. Allen Steam Station for a day of canvassing. Walking door-to-door, we asked residents of the communities near the coal-fired power plant if they had been impacted by water pollution.

I met Archie Dixon, who was featured in the Gaston Gazette a few months ago. Dixon had complained to Duke Energy, which owns the power plant, about coal ash staining his property and getting into his drinking water. I spoke with him while he and his grandson (also named Archie, or “Lil’ Arch”) waited for a plumber for a broken pipe on their property. In his garage sat a waist-high stack of bottled water. Mr. Dixon said that he still refuses to drink his own home’s water.

The pollution near the plant happens in two ways. One is through coal ash ponds. Coal ash is the waste byproduct from burning coal and it contains contaminants such as arsenic, mercury and chromium. Because the one active coal ash pond at G.G. Allen is an unlined impoundment, these toxics can seep into groundwater. Tests near the plant have revealed exceedances in manganese, iron and nickel in the groundwater.

Effluent is the other form of pollution at G.G. Allen — the plant wastewater that discharges directly into the surface waters of nearby Lake Wylie. Under the Clean Water Act, permits are issued for each of the plant’s discharge points. These permits, however, only set limits for traditional pollutants, including oil and grease, “total suspended solids” and pH. They rarely limit pollutants such as mercury, selenium, and arsenic. And with a lack of federal guidelines, many states don’t set their own permit limits for these toxic chemicals.

Our merry band of Red, White and Water canvassers continued on, meeting many people throughout the Belmont community. Some had never heard of coal ash, or had not thought it possible that the G.G. Allen plant could be discharging chemicals into the waterways. Many of them, like Mr. Dixon, depend on well water. Others swim, boat and fish on Lake Wylie, near where the plant’s effluent drains into the water.

On April 19, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose an “effluent limitation guideline” rule for this wastewater. The agency is also supposed to issue the first-ever federal rule governing the disposal of coal ash, though not until 2014. Both the effluent rule and the coal ash rule will greatly impact the waters of communities such as those near the G.G. Allen Steam Station.

The effluent rule, once proposed next month, will be open to public comment. We’ll be inviting you to join us in speaking up for clean, safe water.

And we’ll be out canvassing other communities soon, talking with people like Archie Dixon about the problems of power plant pollution, and helping those who are willing to speak up for their families, their water and their homes. It’s their future — they should have the final say.

About Matt Grimley

Matt Grimley was our AmeriCorps Project Conserve Outreach Associate for 2012-13, serving as Associate Editor of The Appalachian Voice as well as the education coordinator for AV's Red, White and Water campaign.