The Pine Hall Ruritan Club hosted Appalachian Voices’ presentation and discussion on protecting water from coal pollution on July 8.
The presentation and discussion concerned the impacts that coal ash and other coal waste can have on nearby communities. The event will be held at the Pine Hall Community Center.
Coal ash and other waste products from coal-burning power plants contains heavy metals, including but not limited to mercury, chromium, arsenic and selenium.
Appalachian Voices, a non-profit that is organizing the meeting, has sampled local water for coal contaminants.
The announcement of the event said that Appalachian Voices’ “previous sampling closer to waste impoundments have revealed levels of various metals higher than North Carolina’s standards for groundwater, which many rural residents rely on for drinking water.”
The meeting included a discussion of the sampling results, an overview of how coal waste pollution could impact drinking water and waterways like Belews Lake, and potential solutions to protect water sources.
The state legislature is considering change in state law to weaken the groundwater standards. Known as the “boundary loophole,” the provision would make it difficult to hold a facility responsible until the pollution had contaminated water beyond the facility’s property line (at the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing options for controlling coal waste).
The announcement for the event said the Belews Creek plant has “several dry landfills for coal waste and one wet impoundment, which is one of the largest coal ash ponds in North Carolina at 512 acres with a holding capacity of over 2 million cubic yards. In the late 1970s, selenium-laden wastewater that was being discharged into Belews Lake wiped out 19 out of 20 the fish species.”
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