Mobile
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
News WRAL: Duke and state collaborated to keep coal ash dam breach plans secret
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 2:59 PM
While Charlotte was still reeling from the crash and burn of Patrick Cannon's political career, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources released approximately 13,000 pages of public records. Among the many pages is this:
Duke Energy worked with North Carolina environmental regulators for years to ensure information about potential fallout from dam breaches - including those at coal ash ponds - would stay exempt from the state's public records law.
Specifically, the department worked to keep secret emergency action plans should the dams breach. They said it was because of terrorism, but environmentalists aren't buying it.
"People need to understand what the plan is if something like Dan River were to happen in, say, Asheville," Sandra Diaz, who requested the information on behalf of an environmental group, told WRAL. "That greater public interest should definitely trump any small chance that a terrorist would look at it like it is a target."
Related Stories
-
Duke Energy contributed three times as much money to McCrory campaign than to five sitting governors combined 2
Dirty details of this love affair continue to emerge.
Speaking of...
Latest in The CLog
More by Ana McKenzie
-
Veterans Day deals
Veterans Day: Creative Loafing says "thank you." Other companies give you discounts.
-
Why do people hate Dave Matthews? 82
I can't seem to find a reasonable answer for why DMB draws so much ire.
-
Question the Queen City: The unsolved death of Delette Nycum 2
The trial that followed was nothing short of a Charlotte version of the O.J. Simpson spectacle.
