RALEIGH – As Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) trustees, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this week filed a motion in federal court that requests the judge to approve and enter a consent decree to resolve the trustees’ claims for natural resource damages, resulting from the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill.
“This is the final step in a long process that ensures North Carolina’s environment is restored and the responsible party is held accountable for the impacts,” said DEQ Secretary Michael S. Regan. “Because the communities suffered the brunt of the impacts, it was extremely important that they played a vital role in shaping the final restoration plan.”
The final restoration plan considered projects to restore injured natural resources or replace resource services lost because of the Dan River coal ash spill. The NRDAR process is distinct from closure and cleanup activities. Four projects have been selected; three of those have been completed as early restoration. Completion of the last project – improved recreational access to the Dan River – is expected after court filing. Selected projects include:
- acquisition and conservation of the Mayo River floodplain and riverbank adding up to 619 acres to the Mayo River State Parks in North Carolina and Virginia for long-term stewardship (completed),
- aquatic habitat restoration in the Pigg River via removal of the Power Dam returning riverine conditions to 2 miles, benefiting game fish such as smallmouth bass, and the federally and state listed Roanoke logperch and other nongame fish (completed),
- establishment of public boat launch facilities on the Dan River, and
- improvements to the Abreu Grogan Park in Danville, Virginia, including new amenities and other improvements that address impacts related to park closure during spill response activities (completed).
On February 2, 2014, a stormwater pipe underneath the primary coal ash basin at the Duke Energy Dan River Steam Station failed, resulting in the spill of approximately 27 million gallons of coal ash wastewater and between 30,000 and 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, resulting in documented ash or ash-like material co-mingled with native sediment in North Carolina and Virginia as far as 70 river miles downstream.
The Dan River spill NRDAR process included collecting and reviewing monitoring data in the Dan River for several years after the completion of the cleanup as well as identifying projects that would restore the habitat and gathering public input about those project ideas. In October 2014, the Trustees invited restoration project ideas from the public to help identify the types and scale of restoration needed to compensate for those injuries. Public feedback showed support for land protection and conservation projects, dam removals, and increasing public access to the river.
The final restoration plan and environmental assessment can be found at: https://www.cerc.usgs.gov/orda_docs/DocHandler.ashx?task=get&ID=6321. The Dan River Case page can be found at: https://www.cerc.usgs.gov/orda_docs/CaseDetails?ID=984&ex=1857.
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