FEBRUARY 26, 2015
Duke Energy Corp. has agreed to pay $102.2 million to settle
violations stemming from its 2014 coal ash spill, which leaked 35 million
gallons of toxic coal-ash slurry into North Carolina’s Dan River.
Under the plea agreement with the Justice Department,
subject to court approval, the North Carolina energy company has agreed to pay
$68.2 million in fines and $34 million for community service and mitigation to
settle four misdemeanor Clean Water Act violations. The penalties, the company
said, “will be borne by shareholders, not customers.”
“We are accountable for what happened at Dan River and have
learned from this event,” Duke chief executive Lynn Good said in a statement
Friday.
The coal ash poured through a rupture in a 48-inch concrete
storm pipe that ran underground. It took six days to plug the leak, and an
entire day for the company to properly notify the city’s manager of
contamination.
In late June 2014, cleanup crews excavated 258 tons of
material from the site of the retired Dan River Steam Station near Eden.
Some 70 miles of the river was covered in gray sludge.