SELC coal ash work featured on CBS Evening News

Last night, the CBS Evening News reported on the contamination of wells near Duke Energy’s coal ash pits in North Carolina. The report included comments from SELC Litigation Director John Suttles.

SELC has played a critical role in pushing for the additional testing of the groundwater near the pits, which revealed disturbingly high levels of vanadium, a heavy metal found in coal ash. In fact, until we pushed them to do so, neither North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) nor Duke was going to test for vanadium or hexavalent chromium, the two contaminants responsible for most of the “do-not-drink” letters to residents near the sites.

Now, as CBS outlines, dozens of residents are receiving letters from DENR advising them not to drink the water. “Have I slowly been poisoning myself?” wonders Salisbury resident Deborah Graham in the report.

While DENR suggests more “assessments,” SELC continues to push for an immediate cleanup on behalf of citizens across the state.