Category Archives: Groundwater

Coal Ash Problems Continued

February 9, 2014. An earlier post described  groundwater contamination and  potential surface water  pollution associated with coal ash impoundments in North Carolina.  Last week,  a Duke Energy  ash impoundment in Rockingham County released  an estimated  82,000 tons of  coal ash into the Dan River. The ash, in a slurry of  as much as 27 million gallons of water, leaked from a ruptured  stormwater pipe running under an ash impoundment at Duke’s now-closed Dan River Steam Station.  The spill  continued off and on for five  days  as Duke Energy worked to temporarily contain the spill and then permanently cap the  stormwater pipe.  Duke Energy workers finished installing and testing the permanent cap  yesterday.  Early reporting on the spill can be found in stories by  Charlotte Observer reporter Bruce Henderson here and here and by AP reporter Michael Biesecker here.

EPA staff  have been on site since early last week.  Although coal ash has not been classified as a hazardous waste, coal ash can contain a number of metals identified as hazardous substances in rules adopted by EPA under the Clean Water Act.  Under federal law, a  hazardous substance spill that exceeds thresholds set in federal rules must be reported immediately to EPA and to emergency response agencies.     (You can find the rule listing hazardous substances regulated under the Clean Water Act and the reporting threshold for each substance here.)  Although EPA must be notified immediately of a reportable spill, the person (or company) responsible can take up  to 24 hours to determine whether the spill  meets the reporting threshold.

Under state law (G.S. 143-215.85),  anyone responsible for a hazardous substance spill  must “immediately notify the Department, or any of its agents or employees, of the nature, location and time of the discharge and of the measures which are being taken or are proposed to be taken to contain and remove the discharge.”  Both state and federal law also require immediate action to contain the spill, remove the hazardous substance and restore damage caused by the spill.

It is not yet clear how the spill  will affect water quality  and life in the Dan River.  The nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance reported that water samples  taken by that organization  close  to the spill site  showed high levels of arsenic and other  metals. The Waterkeeper Alliance reported arsenic at levels capable of causing acute injury to fish and wildlife.  You can find the Waterkeeper Alliance test results here.  (Click on an individual sampling location in the box on the left-hand side of the page to pull up the test results for that sample.)  Note that results have been reported as milligrams/liter (mg/L) and have to be converted to micrograms/liter (ug/L) for direct comparison to DENR sampling results.

DENR posted its complete water quality test results late Friday;  you can find  the  DENR  lab report here.  Allowing for different sampling locations and units of measure,   DENR’s results are generally consistent with test results reported by the Waterkeeper Alliance.   A DENR water quality sample taken on  February 3, 2014 at Draper Landing  (about 2  miles downstream of the spill site) showed arsenic levels of 40 micrograms per liter —  four times the water quality standard of 10 micrograms/liter.  A sample taken on the same day further downstream (at the Virginia border) showed arsenic levels of 13 micrograms/liter.  DENR’s results  also show water quality standard violations in the Dan River for  copper, aluminum and iron.  By February 4, arsenic levels at Draper Landing had  dropped back below the water quality standard and levels at the Virginia border were at the water quality limit of 10 micrograms/liter.  Results for copper, aluminum and iron remained high.

Sampling immediately after a  spill only  provides a snapshot of water quality conditions and may  not reflect  long-term impacts to the river as metals  leach out of  coal ash settled on the river bottom.  A year after the TVA coal ash spill, Duke University scientists found extremely high levels of arsenic in pore water (the water in river-bottom sediment) in Tennessee’s Emory River. Although surface water testing showed arsenic levels in the Emory River dropped just  after the TVA spill,  the contaminated sediment became a source of ongoing arsenic loading to the river in low oxygen conditions.  (Source:  Bruce Henderson’s  report for the Charlotte Observer.)   It will also take more time to get an assessment of the damage caused to vegetation, fish and wildlife as a result of the physical presence of ash in the water and on the river bottom.

There have been  no reported  impacts to drinking water. The Danville, Virginia water system has an  intake in the river  downstream of the spill site, but  the  water treatment plant had been able to filter out the ash and  treated water continued to meet drinking water standards.

Some questions and concerns raised  by the spill:

Public notice of hazardous substance spills.   It doesn’t appear that either federal or state law requires the person (or company) responsible for a hazardous substance spill to notify the general public and that may be a gap  for the N.C. General Assembly  to fill.   After notifying state and federal officials, Duke Energy put out a press release about the Dan River spill just over 24 hours after detecting the release.  In the case of an immediate health and safety hazard, early notice would be better — although there  may  be  a trade-off  between early notice and the completeness and accuracy of information about the spill.

Conflicting water quality test results.  Conflicting  water quality test results  created a significant amount of confusion about the Dan River spill — and some degree of suspicion. Mid-week, Duke Energy  reported  that river water samples taken  downstream of the release  showed only trace amounts of  arsenic and other metals.  You can find the Duke Energy water quality testing plan and results here.   Note that Duke Energy reported  water quality test results  as  parts per billion (ppb)  — a unit that is essentially equivalent to the micrograms/liter (ug/L)  used  by  DENR.  (For purposes of comparing  results, assume 1 ppb =1 ug/L.) Duke Energy also provides  results for both unfiltered samples and filtered samples used to monitor treated drinking water quality.

Duke Energy’s instream results differ significantly from  results reported by the Waterkeeper Alliance and by DENR. In the end, the Waterkeeper Alliance results and the DENR results seem to be generally consistent with each other;  differences can most likely be attributed to  selection of sampling locations. The extreme divergence of Duke Energy’s water quality test results calls for some explanation.  Since state water quality  test results lagged behind by several days, the  Duke Energy  results became the basis for early public statements about  water quality impacts and that information proved to be unreliable. The inconsistent test results also suggest the public  would be better served  if  the person  responsible for a hazardous substance spill provided   water quality test results to the state’s water quality agency for confirmation  before releasing the information to the public.

Much of the water quality concern over the last week  focused on arsenic levels in the Dan River. Another metal found in coal ash, selenium, can damage fish populations and present a health risk to people who eat  the fish.  DENR’s February 7, 2014 lab results for the Dan River did not find excessive levels of selenium, reporting selenium at the lowest quantifiable level.    Preliminary lab results released by DENR on February 6, 2014 omitted the initial selenium results,  indicating those samples would be given additional analysis because of suspected “interference”.   The preliminary lab report did not explain the nature of  the interference  — which could mean another potential source of selenium in the Dan River or something related to the analytical process. Given conflicting data  and general confusion over  water quality test results from the Dan River spill, it would be helpful to have more explanation of the preliminary and final selenium results.

Delays in providing state water quality sampling results. DENR tested for  more potential contaminants than either Duke Energy or the Waterkeeper Alliance, but  that does not  completely explain why results only became available five full days following the spill.  Some analytical methods take longer than others, but it is important to  know  if inadequacies in the state water quality laboratory or other factors contributed to the delay. In this case, waiting five full business days for complete water quality test results probably didn’t cause  additional harm, but the next hazardous substance spill may be different.  The delay clearly did have one immediate result  — it left an information gap that was filled by what turned out to be inaccurate water quality information.

Lack of information about conditions in old coal ash impoundments.   Since  older coal ash ponds have been largely unregulated, state and federal environmental agencies have very limited information about the impoundments. The Dan River spill suggests that utility company managers don’t have all of the information needed to manage  environmental risk  at these facilities either. Duke Energy struggled to find and fix the cause of the spill in part because the company believed the leaking stormwater pipe had been constructed entirely of concrete.  Duke Energy employees could not find any damage to the end of the pipe and there was no obvious reason that a buried section of concrete pipe would have broken. It turned out that much of the buried pipe was actually constructed of metal rather than concrete, suggesting that corrosion caused the break.

The lack of accurate information on conditions at the Dan River Steam Station impoundment  suggests the need for a  joint Duke Energy/ DENR engineering review  of existing ash ponds –including  documentation of past construction, maintenance and expansion activities –to identify potentially high risk conditions.

The Links between Coal Ash Disposal and Water Pollution

January 23, 2014. Burning coal  generates ash; depending on the  type of  coal,  the ash may contain iron, chromium,  manganese, lead, arsenic, boron and selenium.   At high levels of exposure, some  of those elements  cause  health problems  such as increased cancer risk and neurological damage.  At many coal-fired power plants, large open impoundments (or “ponds”) store coal ash in water; the ponds may also receive stormwater and process wastewater from the electric generating plant. Dry ash may be disposed of in a landfill, but can  also be  used in manufacturing cement or as additional fill material on construction sites.  Concern about the environmental impacts of  coal ash disposal prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to  propose new federal rules  in 2000. EPA ultimately withdrew the proposed rules in the face of opposition from  electric generating companies, members of Congress and state governments. More than a decade later, regulation of coal ash disposal  remains at a stalemate — no new federal rules have been adopted and Congressional supporters of the electric generating companies have responded to a new EPA  rule proposal by attempting to remove EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash disposal altogether. In the meantime, data collected by EPA and events in North Carolina suggest real risks to surface water and groundwater supplies.

Coal ash in North Carolina.  Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress (related companies  resulting from the 2012 merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy)  have a combined 33  wet coal ash ponds located at 14 electric generating stations  in North Carolina.  You can find a map showing the location of the N.C. ash ponds here.  The  ponds have been largely unregulated until very recently.  No state or federal standards applied to construction of the existing coal ash ponds. Unlike modern landfills, the ash ponds  are not lined to prevent contaminants from percolating into the groundwater below.   Although coal ash  can have some of the characteristics of hazardous waste,  EPA  has excluded  coal ash from federal hazardous waste regulations.

Before  2009, DENR’s water quality program exercised  very limited regulatory authority over coal ash ponds.  The Division of Water Quality (DWQ)  issued a federal Clean Water Act permit for any direct discharge from an ash pond to surface waters, but did not require stormwater controls or groundwater monitoring. State law exempted coal ash ponds and other utility impoundments from regulation under the  N.C. Dam Safety Act. The  state’s largely hands-off approach to coal ash ponds  began to change after a massive spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston plant in 2008.   On December 22, 2008,  an  ash impoundment at the  Kingston plant breached and spilled an estimated  5. 4  million cubic yards of ash slurry. The spill flooded 15 homes, covered 300 acres and deposited over 3 million cubic yards of ash in the nearby Emory River, making it one of the largest industrial spills in American history. The cleanup cost $1.1 billion and  took over four years to complete.

In response to the TVA disaster, North Carolina legislators introduced several bills in 2009 to strengthen state regulation of coal ash disposal.  House Bill 1354    may have been  the most comprehensive; the bill  set standards for coal ash disposal,   required groundwater monitoring around  existing ash ponds, and prohibited construction of new wet ponds.  The bill ran into opposition from the major electric generating companies and never got out of committee. The only piece of coal ash legislation enacted in 2009,   Session Law 2009-390 , repealed  the N.C. Dam Safety Act  exemption for coal ash ponds and other utility impoundments.

Although comprehensive state legislation on coal ash disposal failed,  DWQ increased efforts to use existing state laws to  reduce the water pollution risk and  began putting groundwater monitoring requirements in  Clean Water Act  permits for coal ash ponds in 2009-2010.  One of the factors  in  DWQ’s decision: troubling results from  voluntary groundwater monitoring carried out by Duke Energy and Progress Energy as part of an  industry-led program started in 2006.  DWQ also began  work on  stormwater requirements for  coal ash  disposal facilities.   In 2013,  several things happened  to shine a much brighter light on the coal ash ponds in North Carolina:

Clean Water Act citizens’ suits and  DENR enforcement action.  In early 2013,  the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed two  notices of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act  based on water pollution from coal ash ponds. (Under the Clean Water Act, a citizen  can sue to enforce the Act only  if the water quality permitting agency has failed to take effective enforcement action. The 60-day notice  gives the permitting agency  time to show that effective enforcement action has  been taken.)  One notice, filed on behalf of the N.C. Sierra Club, Western N.C. Alliance and the Waterkeeper Alliance,    concerned illegal discharges  into the French Broad River from ash impoundments at the Asheville Steam Electric Generating Plant operated by Duke Energy Progress.  The other notice, filed on behalf of the Catawba Waterkeeper Foundation, attributed contaminants in Mountain Island Lake  – a water supply for the City of Charlotte – to  seeps from coal ash ponds associated with the Riverbend Steam Station in Gaston County operated by Duke Energy Carolinas.

In response to the  two  SELC notices,  DENR filed enforcement actions against Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress  in the spring of 2013 and immediately  began work on a consent order to resolve  the Asheville and Riverbend  violations.   The state enforcement action described  illegal discharges in the form of seeps through the impoundment walls at both facilities and groundwater standard violations near  the Asheville impoundments.  After taking  public comment on a draft consent agreement, DENR filed a revised consent agreement with the court in October 2013.  You can find a copy of the proposed consent agreement  here. The consent agreement would require the companies to pay civil penalties, increase groundwater monitoring  and eliminate unpermitted discharges  to  rivers and lakes. The consent agreement has not yet been approved by the court;   meanwhile, the pending state enforcement action keeps the threatened citizens suits on hold.

Drinking water well  contamination near  the  Asheville  coal ash pond.  In 2012,  the state water quality program   found  high levels of iron and manganese in one of five private drinking water wells located near the Asheville  plant.   When DENR retested the well  in 2013,  the results showed a level of contamination that made the water unsafe for use without filtration and  DENR  ordered  Duke Energy Progress to provide the homeowner with an alternative water supply and increase off-site groundwater monitoring around the  ash pond.   The contaminated drinking water well added another groundwater impact to those  identified in the DENR enforcement action filed earlier in the year.

Duke Energy’s agreement with Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. Last fall, Reporter Bruce Henderson  wrote  an  article  for the Raleigh News and Observer about an  unusual agreement between  Duke Energy Progress and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority.   Cape Fear Public Utility Authority has  two public water supply wells located within 2,000 feet of an impoundment holding coal ash from Duke’s Sutton Electric Generating Plant; one of the two wells supplies water to the Flemington community.  Under the agreement, Duke Energy Progress will pay up to $1.8 million  to extend a water line  to carry treated  Cape Fear River water to Flemington and the Authority will close the water supply well. The agreement is significant for two reasons:

1.  In entering into the agreement, Duke has implicitly acknowledged that  groundwater contamination from  the  coal ash pond  may  move offsite and contaminate  the public water supply wells.

2. The agreement requires  Cape Fear Public Utility Authority to close four existing water supply wells in a 17-square mile area bounded by the Cape Fear and Northeast Cape Fear rivers. The Authority also agrees  not to install new  public water supply wells  in the area.  As a result,  groundwater in the entire 17-square mile area will be off-limits for  public water  supply for the foreseeable future because of the potential for contamination from the coal ash pond. (The agreement does  not affect private water supply wells in the area, but those wells would presumably face the same risk of contamination.)

Total cost of the project has been estimated at $2.25 million and costs above the first $1.8 million will be shared between Duke Energy and  Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. You can find a copy of the agreement (as presented  at the October 2013 meeting of the Cape Fear Public Utility  Authority Board)  here.

National data on environmental harm caused by  coal ash disposal.  A 2007 EPA report   assessed 85 instances of  suspected damage  caused by disposal of coal  ash in  landfills or  in ponds.  In 67 cases,  EPA confirmed  either  “proven”  damage (direct health impacts or documented harm to fish, wildlife, or water quality) or “potential” damage (contamination exceeding  drinking water standards either  beneath or near the waste disposal site).  The 67 cases broke down into 24 proven damage cases and 43 potential damage cases.   In the remaining 18 cases, EPA could not confirm a link between  coal ash disposal and environmental or health risks.

In 2009, EPA  surveyed  electric generating companies  to get  more information specifically on wet ash impoundments and  asked the  companies to report  any known  spills or discharges  that had occurred over the previous ten years (not including groundwater releases).  The 240  companies responding to the survey reported  29  spills, breaches and  discharges.  There was little overlap between the incidents reported in the survey and those assessed in EPA’s 2007 report.  Some of the spills reported in the 2009 survey had occurred since the 2007 assessment; others had never been reported to EPA.

North Carolina in the national data.  Two  of the “proven” damage cases described in the 2007 EPA report involved older incidents at North Carolina facilities.   Permitted releases of  water from a coal ash impoundment  at the Roxboro Steam Electric Generating Plant made  fish in Hyco Lake unsafe to eat for a number of years because of high levels of selenium.  In 1990,  Carolina Power & Light shifted to a dry ash system at the Roxboro plant to meet tighter selenium discharge limits and the fish consumption advisory was lifted in 1994.  In the second “proven” damage case from North Carolina, selenium in  discharges from an impoundment at Duke Energy’s Belews Creek plant entirely eliminated 16 of  20 fish species originally found in Belews Lake, including all of the major sport fish.  Under state orders to reduce the selenium discharge,   Duke Energy changed its method of fly ash disposal in 1985 and the state lifted the  fish consumption advisory for Belews Lake  in 2000.  (Descriptions of the environmental damage at Hyco Lake and Belews Lake come from the 2007 EPA  Coal Combustion Waste Damage Assessment Report; the link is provided  above.)  Duke Energy’s Allen Steam  Generating Plant appears in the EPA list of potential damage cases. The Asheville and Riverbend releases  cited in  DENR’s 2013 enforcement action do not appear in either the 2007 EPA report or in the 2009 survey  responses submitted on behalf of Duke Energy and Progress Energy.

State and federal regulatory action?   In June of 2010, EPA published  a new draft rule on disposal of coal combustion residuals. The rule proposed  two alternative approaches to regulating coal ash disposal –1.  treat the ash as a “special waste” under federal hazardous waste rules, establishing specific standards for disposal; or 2. adopt standards for disposal of coal ash as solid waste (the same broad category that covers other, non-hazardous waste). EPA has not yet decided on  which path to take and in the meantime there have been several efforts to shut down the EPA rulemaking entirely.   In July of 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 2218 (The Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act of 2013)  which would prohibit EPA from adopting enforceable national standards  for  coal ash disposal and leave regulation to the states.  See the Library of Congress bill summary for more on H.R. 2218.  The U.S. Senate has not acted on the bill.

In North Carolina, the Regulatory Reform  Act of 2013 ( Session Law 2013-413) included a provision limiting DENR’s  authority to require steps to contain groundwater contamination at a  permitted waste disposal facility  — including coal ash impoundments.  For more detail, see the  section on groundwater in an earlier post on 2013  water quality legislation.

So.   It seems clear that large, unlined coal ash impoundments present  some  risk to groundwater,  surface water  and  fish. Recent  events suggest that the risk may be greater than previously known. There was little or no groundwater monitoring around coal ash ponds  before 2006 and  no state oversight of  groundwater monitoring until 2009-2010.  It is simply a fact that groundwater contamination is much more likely to be found if someone is actually looking for it.  The same is true for discharges to rivers and lakes through the walls of coal ash impoundments. The  Riverbend and Asheville  enforcement cases  only happened after citizens documented  unpermitted discharges and gave notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act.  It is not clear that the state’s water quality program had found the illegal discharges identified in the consent order or has the resources to do adequate inspections of these large  impoundments.  (The Asheville impoundments alone total 91 acres.) So as new information suggests the need for  frequent, careful inspection of coal ash ponds and quick, effective response to groundwater contamination, state budget and environmental policies are moving in the direction of making both  more difficult.

Legislative Wrap-up I: Water Quality

July 30, 2013:  A summary of legislative action on water quality-

Budget-  The final budget directs the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to combine programs in the Division of Water Quality (DWQ)  and the Division of Water Resources DWR) and reduces the budget for the reorganized programs by $2 million.  The $2 million cut amounts to a 12.4% reduction to the combined programs. The budget also make two specific  program cuts  that reduce appropriations for water resource and water quality programs by another $735,257.  Total reductions may go even  higher than $2.7 million if water resource/water quality  programs also share in the  2% department-wide reduction required by  the final budget.   Although both the Division of Water Resources and the Division of Water Quality deal with water, the two have very different responsibilities and little overlap in functions; it  will be  difficult for  the reorganized programs to absorb another 12.4 % cut  without hurting program delivery.

Division of Water Quality (DWQ) has responsibility for preventing and reducing water pollution in the state’s rivers, lake, streams and groundwater supplies.  By delegation of authority from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, DWQ  issues federal Clean Water Act permits to wastewater and stormwater  dischargers. DWQ also issues state water quality permits for animal waste management systems, injection wells, and for land application of waste.

Division of Water Resources monitors water supply – the amount of water in rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers rather than its quality. DWR has responsibility for state and local water supply planning; drought monitoring and drought response; and approval of  water transfers from one river basin to another (for example, taking water from an intake on the Neuse River to provide drinking water to a city  in the Cape Fear River basin).  The Public Water Supply section in DWR enforces the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates drinking water systems to ensure that the water coming out of the tap is safe to drink.

Both divisions have river basin planning programs –  DWR water supply plans  use data on water use to model for future water supply  and DWQ  water quality plans track data on pollutant levels,  identify sources of  pollution and provide a foundation for addressing water  quality  problems.  The two types of planning complement each other, but neither can take the place of the other.  It will be important to continue to have strong water quality and water supply planning programs if the state is to have a scientific and technical basis for good water policy decisions.

The budget will test DENR’s  ability to continue to deliver good science, timely permit reviews, compliance assistance, and enforcement with fewer resources. The department will also have to keep an eye on the effect of reduced state appropriations on  federal grants supporting programs in the two divisions. The state receives a significant amount of  federal grant money to support activities required under the delegated Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act programs.  Those grants require a certain level of state “match” money — which is often provided in the form of state-funded positions in those programs.

Jordan Lake –  Legislation delays further implementation of the Jordan Lake Nutrient Strategy for three years  (Senate Bill 515).  The General Assembly had already delayed  the original Jordan Lake compliance dates for reducing  the amount of  nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater discharges (until 2016) and for implementing new development stormwater programs (until 2014). The practical effect of the bill will be to  push those dates out three more years.  A number of local governments in the Jordan Lake watershed have already started implementing  local stormwater ordinances and can continue with those programs. The purpose of the delay is to allow the state to “[explore]  other measures and technologies to improve the water quality of the Lake”.  A related budget provision  earmarks   $1.35 million from the 2013-2014 appropriation for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund  for a pilot project to test the use of technology to improve water quality in Jordan Lake.   The budget provision describes the technology to be tested very specifically in three pages of bill text and seems  to direct funds to a particular product.  Both in committee and on the floor of the House, legislators identified the technology as SolarBee— a technology used to aerate water tanks and raw water reservoirs.  The bill exempts the pilot project from normal state contract procedures, which means DENR will not be required to advertise for bids.

Prospects for the success of the pilot project are already in doubt. A  prominent North Carolina scientist, Professor Emeritus Kenneth H. Reckhow of Duke University, has said that aeration technologies are not effective in large water bodies like Jordan Lake.  Even if the  technology can improve in-lake conditions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  has put the state on notice that  in-lake treatment cannot substitute for pollution reductions required under the Clean Water Act (7_10_2013 Letter to Rick Glazier re B Everett Jordan Reservoir TMDL-1).  If EPA holds to that position, the technology  will fail its primary purpose — which is to relieve upstream communities in the Jordan Lake watershed  of the need to  invest in wastewater treatment plant upgrades and stormwater controls on new development.

Groundwater (and possibly coal ash) – Section 46  of  House Bill 74 (Regulatory Reform Act)  seems to narrow DENR’s ability to address groundwater contamination caused by a permitted waste disposal site.  When the state issues a  permit for land application of  waste or for  waste disposal in a landfill, the permit sets a groundwater compliance boundary. Some degree of groundwater contamination will be allowed inside the compliance boundary,   but the permit holder cannot cause groundwater  standards to be violated outside the compliance boundary.   The new language in House Bill 74  continues to allow the Environmental Management Commission (EMC) to set compliance boundaries by rule and by permit, but creates  a presumption that the compliance boundary will be the property line. (By comparison, landfill permits have  generally set the groundwater compliance boundary at 250 feet from the actual waste disposal area.)

The bill then goes on to limit the circumstances in which  DENR can require  “cleanup, recovery, containment, or other response” to groundwater contamination inside the compliance boundary. Before requiring any action inside the compliance boundary, DENR would have to show that the groundwater contamination: 1. has already caused a violation of water quality standards in nearby surface waters or can reasonably be predicted to cause a water quality standard violation; 2. presents an imminent threat to the environment or to public health and safety; or 3.causes a violation of groundwater standards in bedrock (which seems to mean contamination of deep groundwater).

The presumption that the property line will be the compliance boundary  will likely create pressure on the EMC to allow much larger compliance boundaries  than in the past. Expansion of the compliance boundary carries with it the possibility of  larger areas of groundwater contamination. The new law also makes it more difficult for  DENR   to require  a permit holder to take action inside the compliance boundary –even to contain or reduce the flow of contaminated groundwater off site.   DENR could only require steps to contain contaminated groundwater by showing that the groundwater contamination had caused –or will cause — a specific water quality violation or an imminent threat to health, safety or the environment. The fact that the contamination has moved beyond the compliance boundary (and perhaps already migrated off  the property and toward a river or lake) will not be enough. The clear risk will be that  acting only  after a problem already exists will create a larger and more expensive problem to remedy in the future.

The provision appears to be linked to an ongoing controversy and threatened litigation over groundwater contamination and seeps from ponds where coal-fired power plants have disposed of coal ash. The Catawba Riverkeeper has filed a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act over contamination from two coal ash disposal sites — a  Duke Energy  coal ash pond associated with the Riverbend Steam Station and a Progress Energy coal ash pond in Asheville. The Duke Energy coal ash pond is located on the banks of Mountain Island Lake and near a water intake for the City of Charlotte.  Monitoring around the coal ash pond has detected contaminants in groundwater that exceed groundwater standards, but the Division of Water Quality has not yet decided whether corrective action will be necessary. The Riverkeeper’s complaint claims that contaminants from the coal ash are reaching the lake in seepage from the impoundment and through a groundwater connection to the lake. The House Bill 74 language means that groundwater violations alone –even beyond the compliance boundary — would not necessarily require  steps  to  contain  an ongoing flow of contaminated groundwater to the lake.  DENR would first have to show that the groundwater contamination is causing or will cause an actual water quality standard violation in the lake or  an imminent threat to health, safety or the environment.

Regulatory Reform – More on regulatory reform in a later post, but House Bill 74 includes a requirement that agencies review and readopt existing rules of “substantive public interest”   every ten years.  The bill defines “substantive public interest” so broadly that it will  cover  every environmental rule of any real substance. The state’s Rules Review Commission will set the initial schedule for review of rules, but the bill directs the commission to schedule surface water and wetland standards for review in the first round of rule review.

Miscellaneous – This post only covers the most significant water quality legislative. House Bill 74 contains a number of other minor changes, including technical amendments to the laws on permitting animal waste management systems and an exemption from riparian buffer requirements for agricultural ponds.

Failed Water Quality Legislation – One major change did not happen. The N.C. Homebuilders Association had pushed legislation to eliminate state water quality permitting requirements for wetlands that do not fall under federal Clean Water Act permitting jurisdiction. An earlier post provides some background on the difference between federal and state wetlands jurisdiction.  The language first appeared in a Senate farm bill (Senate Bill 638), but was dropped from the bill once it reached the House. The Senate agreed to the change — possibly because farmers already have broad exemptions from wetland permitting requirements. During the last few days of the legislative session, the exemption language popped up again  in a Senate committee substitute for House Bill 938. The House sent the bill to committee and never took it up for a concurrence vote. The bill will still be eligible for consideration next year when the General Assembly reconvenes in May.

Buying Contamination

July 10, 2013:  The Senate version of  House Bill 94 (Amend Environmental Laws) makes so many changes to environmental statutes, that  I just focused on language in Section 16  that requires Council of State approval before any  state agency (including the UNC campuses and community colleges)  can buy property with known contamination.   (Note: The Council of State consists of the Governor and other individually  elected heads of state agencies such as the Attorney General, Commissioner of Labor, Commissioner of Agriculture and State Treasurer.)  Approval would be given only if  the agency  has a plan to use funds other than state General Fund appropriations for the purchase. See  Edition 4 of House Bill 94 for the Senate version of the bill.

The bill has already passed both chambers and is now in conference to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions.  The language on purchase of contaminated sites was not in the House version of the bill, but I do not know whether this is an area of controversy between  House and Senate conferees.

On its face,  the restriction appears to be common sense — why should state funds be used to buy contaminated property that may be expensive to clean up? In practice,  completely avoiding property with contaminated groundwater  may be more difficult  than legislators realize. It also bumps right into the General Assembly’s repeated endorsement of limited, “risk-based” cleanup of groundwater contamination because of the lower remediation cost.

Some background —

Tens of thousands of  properties across the state (urban and rural) have groundwater contamination. Most of the contamination came from past industrial and commercial uses, such as leaking underground petroleum storage tanks at gas stations, solvent contamination from dry-cleaning operations, old dump sites, and miscellaneous chemical spill or disposal sites. Some resulted from agricultural pesticide use. Recent reports from the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources provide some numbers:

372 dry-cleaning sites with known solvent contamination

3,071 chemical spill, chemical disposal and unlined waste dump sites

26,625 reported petroleum releases (17,816 from commercial underground storage  tanks and 8,809 from noncommercial tanks, such as home heating oil or farm tanks)

These kinds of  problems are so common that it  will be difficult for state facilities and university campuses to expand without bumping into some kind of contamination. Groundwater monitoring wells have been installed near several buildings in the state government complex in downtown Raleigh — including the legislative  building —  because of groundwater contamination that most likely came from a dry cleaner that once operated near the current site of the Nature Research Center.  The  numbers provided in DENR’s reports to the General Assembly only represent the sites that state regulators already know about. New reports of contamination  come in  with some frequency as property is developed or redeveloped.

Many of the state’s  remediation  programs do not require complete cleanup of groundwater contamination, allowing some level of contamination to remain as long as it does not affect drinking water supplies or create some other health or environmental hazard. By law, both the underground storage tank and dry-cleaning solvent cleanup programs use a “risk-based” cleanup approach that  often  allows some level of groundwater contamination  to remain after remediation is completed. Cleanup reduces the  groundwater contamination enough to eliminate any immediate hazard.  Risk to drinking water supplies can sometimes be eliminated by abandoning drinking water wells and  connecting  to a local water system. But in the end, the groundwater will continue to have some level of  contamination for many years.

The General Assembly has recently expanded the kind of contaminated sites eligible for “risk-based” cleanup to also include  industrial sites. Although few companies have taken advantage of the opportunity to do a risk-based cleanup yet, adding industrial sites to those eligible for “risk-based” cleanup will likely increase the number of  contaminated sites where  remediation will not completely eliminate groundwater contamination. (Ironically, the definition of “contamination” used in the bill comes out of the risk-based remediation law for industrial sites.)

Through the  Brownfields Redevelopment Program, state law actually encourages redevelopment of contaminated sites and can allow the new owner/developer to avoid  some cleanup costs. If the person  who caused the contamination has the financial ability  to do a clean up,  that person continues to be responsible for most remediation. Even if the original polluter does not have the financial ability to cleanup the contamination (or cannot be found), the brownfields redevelopment laws provide liability protection to the new owner and allow  a “risk-based” cleanup of any contamination. A number of local governments and developers have used the brownfields program to make idle, blighted industrial sites productive again.

Without modification, the Senate language may be too restrictive to allow for necessary expansion of state facilities and community college/university campuses.  It also causes the General Assembly to bump  into its own policies on cleanup of environmental contamination.  On the one hand,  the General Assembly has consistently moved to increase use of risk-based cleanups that allow some level of groundwater contamination to remain for many years after  remediation is done. On the other hand,  the proposed Senate language tries to avoid state purchase of property with any contamination at all. Those two policies may not be reconcilable.

Weakening Environmental Standards for Landfills

June 8, 2013:  On Thursday, the Senate’s Agriculture and Environment Committee approved a radically rewritten version of  Senate Bill 328 (Solid Waste Management Reform of 2013) in very short order.  The bill undoes  a number of environmental standards adopted in a  2007 rewrite of the state’s landfill permitting laws, weakening protections for  parks, wildlife refuges, wetlands,  endangered species habitat and sensitive or high quality surface waters. It also changes some longstanding environmental standards for landfill operation that predate the 2007 law.

A little history first. In 2006, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) received  several  permit applications from private waste management companies proposing construction  of  new and  very large landfills in the coastal area of the state.  Reacting to the controversy over those landfill proposals, the N.C. General Assembly put a one-year moratorium on landfill permitting to allow time for a study of permitting standards.   After the study, the General Assembly adopted a major piece of legislation,  Session Law 2007-550, that set new landfill permitting standards, including setbacks from wildlife refuges, parks and gamelands;  increased   bonding requirements for landfill operators; and  stronger standards for leak prevention and detection. The bill also, for the first time, created a state solid waste disposal tax and dedicated the tax revenues to recycling programs and cleanup of contamination from old,  unlined landfills.

Waste management companies fought the solid waste disposal tax and opposed some of the new environmental standards.  A  Raleigh-based company, Waste Industries, U.S.A.,  sued to challenge the final law. (Some of the new landfill standards affected plans for a large Waste Industries landfill  near Dismal Swamp State Park and Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Camden County.)   In 2012, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled against Waste Industries and upheld the law. Senate Bill 328  appears to be a new  effort by landfill developers and operators to legislatively undo many of the standards adopted in 2007 and change some  requirements that were in place long before  2007.

Senate Bill 328 changes specific to landfill design, construction and operation are described in more detail below.  Among the most important  would be repeal of several standards for denial of a landfill permit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would no longer be able to deny a  permit because construction or operation of the landfill would cause significant damage to parks, wilderness areas, habitat for threatened and endangered species, critical fisheries habitat or other natural and historic areas of regional and statewide significance. (See Sec. 2). Instead,  a permit could be denied only if  the landfill would  be located in critical habitat for threatened or endangered species; in a historically or archaeologically sensitive site of more than local significance; or within 1500 feet of a national or state park, forest, wilderness area, recreation area, a segment of the Natural and Scenic Rivers system, a  National Wildlife Refuge, a wildlife preserve or management area, critical fisheries habitat, or other high quality waters. (See Section 3 of the bill).

The changes mean that DENR could  only consider location of the landfill itself and not impacts from construction and operation in making a permit decision. Removing those grounds for permit denial will also make it difficult for DENR to put conditions on construction and operation of the landfill to protect those natural resources.  As a result, the bill would leave some very sensitive   resources  vulnerable to damage from landfill construction and operation. With respect to habitat for threatened and endangered species,   failure to consider damage from construction and operation may make the bill inconsistent with requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act.

The bill also:

—  Repeals the requirement for  an environmental impact statement (EIS) for  new landfills.  (Section 3).   Repeal of this language would remove the EIS requirement in the solid waste statutes, but does not exempt local government landfill projects from the  State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).  SEPA requires an EIS for any state-permitted project that  involves expenditure of public funds or use of public lands and may have a significant impact on the environment.  The odd result could be  an EIS for public projects, but not for commercial landfill projects that may be as large or larger.

— Eliminates the requirement for any buffer between a waste disposal unit (the actual landfill cell where solid waste is deposited) and wetlands.   The change could allow  waste disposal immediately adjacent to wetlands that are directly connected to surface waters.  (Section 3)

— Reduces the buffer required between landfills and national wildlife refuges, state parks, and gamelands managed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to 1500 feet. (Section 3).  The 2007 law required a buffer of five  miles from a National Wildlife Refuge, two miles from a state park, and one mile from state gamelands. Those buffer requirements reflected the recommendations of parks and wildlife officials,  but waste management companies saw the 2007 buffers as a legislative  attempt to kill specific landfill projects.

— Allows construction of a landfill in wetlands that fall outside federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction. (Section 3). Many court cases and law review articles have tried to clarify the line between federal and state wetland jurisdiction, but one possible result of the bill would be to allow  landfill construction in “isolated” wetlands  that  may not have a direct connection to surface waters,  but have a connection to groundwater.

— Eliminates the requirement for regular cleaning of leachate collection lines.  (Section 3).

— Raises the maximum landfill height from 250 feet to 300 feet, but creates additional closure and vegetative cover requirements for landfills of greater than 100 feet in height.  (Section 3).

—  Limits the landfill operator’s responsibility to assess  a release of landfill leachate  and take corrective action unless  leachate reaches the compliance boundary. (Section  5).   Leachate is water that  percolates through the  landfill, picking up contaminants from the waste material. Permits for waste disposal sites often allow  groundwater standards to be exceeded immediately  under a waste  disposal site as long as the groundwater meets all standards at a designated compliance boundary. For  landfills  permitted since 1983, the compliance boundary is generally 250 feet from the waste disposal site or 50 feet inside the property line (whichever is closer).  Corrective action requirements for landfills have been in place for many years and  always required the landfill operator to take steps to stop an ongoing leak or spill. The Senate Bill 328 language is so broad that it could be interpreted to excuse the operator from doing even that unless leachate actually reaches the compliance boundary. Excusing a landfill operator from corrective action to stop an ongoing  release of leachate  under any circumstances would likely be inconsistent with federal solid waste rules.

— Eliminates a requirement that vehicles carrying solid waste must be leak proof and instead requires only that  vehicles be “designed to be leak resistant”, changing a standard for transport of solid waste that has been in place for 25 years. (Section 7).

— Removes the minimum financial assurance requirement. Senate Bill 328 would still require financial assurance to cover closure of the landfill as well as assessment and cleanup of any spills or leak, but  removes the statutory floor of $2 million and gives DENR complete discretion to set the amount of the financial assurance.

One  part of the bill has impacts beyond landfill construction and operation. Section 6   would prevent  the Environmental Management Commission from reviewing state groundwater standards more often than every five years. Groundwater standards guide permitting of many  activities  that present a risk of groundwater contamination and provide the benchmark for  groundwater remediation.  Slowing the revision of groundwater standards may have unintended consequences for industry generally, since new research on health impacts sometimes provides support for a less stringent groundwater standard.

The bill makes other changes, but I will stop there. Senate Bill 328 will be on the Senate calendar for June 11.

Halliburton, Fracking and the N.C. Public Records Act

May 3, 2013: The Raleigh News and Observer  reports today on Halliburton’s opposition to a draft North Carolina rule on disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. The Mining and Energy Commission’s Environmental Standards Committee had approved the draft rule for consideration by the full commission today. Commission chair, Jim Womack, told committee members yesterday that the rule would not be taken up by the commission as planned because of objections from Halliburton lawyers.

State law (G.S. 113-391)  specifically directs the  Mining and Energy Commission  to adopt rules for:

“Disclosure of chemicals and constituents used in oil and gas exploration, drilling, and production, including hydraulic fracturing fluids, to State regulatory agencies and to local government emergency response officials, and, with the exception of those items constituting trade secrets, as defined in G.S. 66‑152(3), and that are designated as confidential or as a trade secret under G.S. 132‑1.2, requirements for disclosure of those chemicals and constituents to the public.” G.S. 113-391(a)(5)(h).

You can find more here  on protection of  trade secret information under the  confidentiality provisions of the N.C. Public Records Act.

The draft rule approved by the MEC’s Environmental Standards Committee would have required oil and gas operations to disclose all chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluid to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources soon after fracturing the well.  Under the draft rule, information considered to be a “trade secret” under the state’s Public Records Acts would not be disclosed to the public. Based on the news story and other accounts of the committee meeting on Thursday, Halliburton objects to disclosure of trade secret information even to state regulatory staff except in response to actual environmental harm or a specific health concern.

An earlier post talked about the implications of only requiring  disclosure of trade secret information to  regulators after environmental damage or health effects have occurred.  There are at least two potential problems: 1.  in the aftermath of an emergency (such as a spill, leak or fire),  it would take more time to get information to state and local emergency responders;  and 2. groundwater contamination may not be discovered for years after an undetected  leak or spill occurs and lack of complete state records on the chemicals used to fracture wells  will  make it difficult to identify the contamination source.

The current controversy over the chemical disclosure rule raises several legal and policy questions for DENR and the Mining and Energy Commission:

●   Would a rule allowing the operator to withhold trade secret information from state regulators be consistent with G.S. 113-391? The law clearly protects trade secret information from disclosure to the public, but seems to intend disclosure to state regulators and in some circumstances to local emergency response agencies.

●   Is there reason to protect oil and gas industry trade secrets to a greater degree than trade secret information from other industries? Many state agencies receive trade secret information  and the Public Records Act allows that  information to be protected from public disclosure. The Public Records Act does not allow other industries to withhold information  needed by  state regulators on the grounds that the information is a trade secret.

● What is the right balance between the industry’s interest in holding information on hydraulic fracturing chemicals very close and the state’s need to understand and address risks to surface water, groundwater and public health?

● Can the state meet its responsibilities with something less than full disclosure of the chemicals used to fracture oil and gas wells?

Update on Injection of Drilling Waste in North Carolina

On Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a new version of Senate Bill 76 (the Domestic Energy Jobs Act) after adopting several amendments.  One amendment  somewhat narrowed  language in Section 4 of the bill that would for the first time allow underground disposal of waste in North Carolina.  The official amendment text is not yet  on the General Assembly website, but as it was read in committee  the amendment would allow  injection of  hydraulic fracturing fluid “and water produced from subsurface extraction” of natural gas resources.   The new phrase refers to water  that flows back out of the well after fracturing and continues to be produced (in smaller amounts) as long as the well  produces gas. It is a mixture of hydraulic fracturing fluid and groundwater; the quality of the water depends on the makeup of the fracturing fluid and groundwater conditions.

Underground  disposal of  flowback water from a natural gas well requires a federal Underground Injection Control (UIC)  permit under the Safe Drinking Water Act.  (Injection of  fluid to fracture an oil or gas well is exempt from UIC permitting.)  Like many other states,  North Carolina has  received a delegation of authority  from EPA to issue injection well  permits.  Under N.C. G.S. 87-88(j), injection must be approved by the state’s Environmental Management Commission (EMC), which also has the authority to  adopt rules for well construction and injection.   Since state law   prohibits underground injection of  waste, the EMC has not adopted  standards for waste disposal wells.

To  keep  the delegated injection well permitting program,  North Carolina will have to assure EPA  that the change in state law will not allow contamination of underground drinking water supplies.  States that  permit  injection of flowback water from oil and gas operations (or other types of waste)  usually adopt some version of the  federal rule language  that prohibits injection into an underground source of drinking water if  it  could cause a violation of  federal drinking water standards or  health  problems. Those states  also  adopt specific rules on  location, construction and use of waste injection wells to make sure the general standard can be met.  For one example, see the  Texas rules for underground injection of water from drilling operations.

Questions that arose in committee discussion (with my additional comment in italics below):

Does the law require the water from a drilling operation to be reinjected on the same site?  Response  in committee – No.

     SmithEnvironment: Water from a drilling operation would not be injected into  an area that could produce gas; injection wells either go into an area off-site that doesn’t have a gas resource or  in some cases an old gas well that is no longer producing will  be converted to a disposal well.

Would the language allow injection of water from drilling operations in other states?  Response in committee — That is not the intent, but the language may need to be clarified.

Can the Mining and Energy Commission adopt rules on injection of water from drilling operations? Response in committee — Yes,  the Mining and Energy Commission has the authority to adopt rules.

     SmithEnvironment:   Under the state’s federally delegated injection well permitting program, the Environmental Management Commission  adopts rules for injection wells and also has permitting responsibility.  That hasn’t changed. The 2012 hydraulic fracturing legislation  gave the Mining and Energy Commission authority to regulate  production wells, but not waste disposal wells (which were still prohibited).