12 million tons of coal ash will be stored at Duke Energy's Belews Creek landfills - WXII12 Winston-Salem

North Carolina: Duke Energy storing coal ash at new Belews creek landfills

12 million tons of coal ash will be stored at Duke Energy's Belews Creek landfills

In 2015, Duke Energy pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes after an investigation found the company’s coal ash dumps were leaking into water supplies. Fast forward almost eight years later, and WXII is seeing how the company says it is preventing that from happening again.

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Duke Energy has started the process of placing the first excavated coal ash into a new landfill, but it’s a process that could take another decade to complete. Duke Energy’s coal ash landfill on Belews Creek is now operational after years of construction. It's a process that includes input from the Department of Environmental Quality and environmental groups.

There’ll be four landfills located at Belews Creek, on property shared with the Belews Creek Steam Station. Duke Energy says the landfills will be the final resting place of almost five decades worth of excavated ash.

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"It's a multi-layer liner system with a leak detection system underneath it to ensure that there are no issues," said Duke Energy spokesman Bill Norton. "The Department of Environmental Quality so far has just given us the permit to operate what's called cell two. That was the first one completed. There'll be four at the end of the day that will store all 12 million tons of coal ash."

Nearly a decade ago, Duke Energy pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes for allowing coal ash dumps to leak into the Dan River. The company says the landfill's construction will prevent ash from seeping into the area’s groundwater, which will be continuously monitored. Environmental groups, communities surrounding the property, and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality agreed on this new process.

"One of our existing line landfills is covered with grass, and it just looks like a grassy mound," said Norton. "That's what's gonna be here at the end. We're gonna monitor it for decades, but from a neighbor's perspective, they won't even see it."

Duke Energy also says it’s looking into changing how the Belews Creek Steam Station powers surrounding Stokes County. It plans to transition away from coal to other sources of energy.

"We're looking at a combination of advanced nuclear, hydrogen-capable natural gas storage, so it could be a combination of those," said Norton. "We already have infrastructure here. We have the transmission system here. We have well-trained workers here. So it makes all the sense in the world to replace this plant with something else right here in Stokes County."

Duke Energy expects to announce its plan for a transition to a different energy source later this year.

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