Duke Energy says it’s accountable for its coal ash pollution while evading responsibility and delaying any real action.

Duke Energy has appealed a March 6 ruling by a Wake County judge that it must take immediate action to end groundwater pollution from its coal ash ponds at its coal-fired power plants in North Carolina.

The company also asked the N.C. Court of Appeals to freeze an order to clean up its coal ash pollution until the appeal can be heard.

From the Charlotte Business Journal:

Duke contends that if the stay is not granted “years of planning … will be eliminated, and significant material costs will be imposed on Duke Energy and its customers while this matter is pending appeal.”

And if an appellate court overturns the ruling, it argues, Duke and its customers will be harmed by a ruling that is no longer in force.

If you’re skeptical that Duke Energy has invested “years of planning” into how to better manage its toxic coal waste, well, you have every reason to be.

After all, would a company that has spent years of planning to resolve its coal ash issues pump 61 million gallons of toxic wastewater from coal ash ponds directly in to the Cape Fear River and call it “routine maintenance?”

Would a company that has spent years of planning to protect the public from high hazard coal ash ponds miss a large crack in an earthen dam holding back millions of gallons of sludge?

Or how about when the state asked Duke Energy to send it comprehensive documentation on how it plans to address its coal ash problem, and the letter Gov. McCrory and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resource received was four-pages long? Even DENR Secretary John Skvarla called the response “inadequate.”

“There are far too many questions left unanswered and Duke Energy should provide the information we originally requested, including the estimated costs of cleanup, plans for the future and a detailed timeline,” Skvarla said.

Don’t you think a company that has spent “years of planning” on the issue of coal ash would have some of that information? Oh, and it was only last week that Duke Energy announced it had created a “task force” to review how it handles coal ash. And the company was quick to update a website with details about its Coal Plant Decommissioning Program after the Dan River spill.

CEO Lynn Good and other Duke representatives have repeatedly said the company is accountable for the Dan River spill and coal ash pollution at other plants. So why does the company seem so focused on evading its responsibility?