SANFORD, N.C. (AP) - Although officials said there have been no problems with liquid from a Duke Energy coal ash storage site in Chatham County that is being treated at the wastewater treatment plant in Sanford, local environmental groups are still worried.
According to local media outlets, officials said there haven’t been any incidents with the treatment, which has been going on for three months.
The liquid, which is called leachate, is collected from the bottom of pits where coal ash is being dumped. Coal ash contains toxic heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic.
Officials said the plant is in compliance with environmental regulations in treating the liquid. The treated liquid is discharged into the Deep River, which eventually flows into the Cape Fear River.
“We’ve been in compliance before they started hauling it here, and we’ve been in compliance since,” Scott Siletzky, the plant superintendent, said.
However, environmental groups are concerned that heavy metals could have an impact on the river where communities draw their drinking water.
“It’s a complicated waste stream,” Therese Vick, a community organizer with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said. “We’re very concerned about it.”
Marsha Ligon, a spokeswoman for EnironmentaLee, a nonprofit group in Lee County, says the group is also worried because the plant is set up to deal with organic material, while the leachate contains inorganic material.
“Some heavy metals cannot be totally removed, not the way they treat it,” Ligon said.
Siletzky said that while the plant is set up for biological nutrients, it also has to comply with its permits, which include some of the inorganic material, but not all of them.
Jeff Brooks, a Duke Energy spokesman, said the company has confidence in the city’s evaluation of wastewater from the Chatham site and in its ability to treat the wastewater in a way that continues to meet permit limits and protect water quality.
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