Front Porch Blog
Updates from Appalachia
It ain’t easy living on bottled water
Amy Brown lives in Belmont, North Carolina, with her two children. Since spring, she’s been living on bottled water. Her tap water, she’s been told, is contaminated by Duke Energy’s nearby coal ash pits. This is her story.
DENR is a “BOOR”
The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources is acting like–to use its own term–a “bureaucratic object of resistance.” The agency’s creative interpretation of its mission statement is just one reflection of the McCrory administration’s broader hostility to the notion that public servants have a responsibility to protect the natural resources and therefore the public health and welfare of the Tar Heel state.
Coal Ash: It’s not just toxic, it’s radioactive!
This week, a study conducted by Duke University was published in “Environmental Science and Technology” which concluded that coal ash is more radioactive than its parent coal or soil, and that the radioactivity may exceed safe levels for human exposure.
Clean Water Laws Wrestle With Coal
From The Appalachian Voice: America’s environmental regulations have hampered the coal industry to varying degrees for decades, and though those rules can protect communities from pollution, the law alone is often not able to secure clean water. Here are some of the trouble spots.
VIDEO: “Contaminated, But Smart!”- Duke Energy’s New Coal Ash Assessment
On Monday evening, Duke Energy released the executive statement from its study assessing groundwater contamination at two of its largest coal ash sites in North Carolina. Unsurprisingly, Duke Energy’s findings suggest it is not responsible for the contamination found in the drinking water wells of over 200 households within 1,000 feet of the company’s coal ash dumps.
