Sept 21 (Reuters) - A dam containing a large lake at Duke Energy Corp's Wilmington power plant in North Carolina has been breached by floodwaters from the storm Florence, the Associated Press reported here on Friday. Floodwaters were continuing to overtop an earthen dike at the north side of Sutton Lake, a 1,100-acre reservoir at the L.V. Sutton Power Station, the AP reported, citing a company spokeswoman. Floodwaters also had overtopped a steel retaining wall containing one of three large coal ash dumps lining the lakeshore, the company told the AP, adding that it cannot rule out that ash might be escaping and flowing into the Cape Fear river. (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)<doc-sep>A retired coal energy plant in North Carolina could be spilling coal ash into Cape Fear River. One day after Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) - Get Report activated a high-level emergency alert at a retired coal-fired power plant because of rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence possibly breaching a dam nearby, the company said the dam has, in fact, been breached and coal ash could be flowing into nearby Cape Fear River. Duke Energy has shut down the 625-megawatt natural gas plant at the site. North Carolina's Department of Energy Mineral and Land Resources didn't return a request for comment on the situation. Floodwaters overtook an earthen dike on the north side of Sutton Lake, which is a 1,100-acre reservoir at the L.V. Sutton Power Station. Floodwaters also breached a steel retaining wall that contains one of three large coal ash dumps that are on the banks of the lakeshore. The current situation is different from another rupture at a nearby coal ash landfill reported at the site last weekend. That breach spilled enough coal ash to fill 180 dump trucks. At the current breach site, the company said that personnel are supplementing on-site supplies with large stone and other materials. To be a profitable investor and build long-term wealth, you need the right information and techniques. Join TheStreet Oct. 13, 2018 for a special investing event for sophisticated and active traders. Register for "Invest Like the Pros: Jim Cramer's Boot Camp for Investors" here.<doc-sep>Duke Energy said Friday that a dam containing a large lake at a Wilmington, North Carolina, power plant has been breached by floodwaters from Hurricane Florence. They said it's possible coal ash from an adjacent dump is flowing into the Cape Fear River. Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said Friday that floodwaters continue to overtop an earthen dike at the north side of Sutton Lake, a 1,100-acre reservoir at the L.V. Sutton Power Station. That water has caused several breaches in the dam on the south end of the lake, which is flowing back into the river. Company officials said that because the river is already running high after the hurricane, they do not expect the breaches in the dam to affect the water level. The floodwaters had also overtopped a steel retaining wall containing one of three large coal ash dumps lining the lakeshore. Sheehan described the incident as a "developing situation" and said the company can't rule out that ash might be escaping and flowing into the river. Gray material that the company characterized as lightweight coal combustion byproducts could be seen Friday floating on the top of the lake. The ash left over when coal is burned to generate electricity coal ash contains an array of components, including mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxic heavy metals. The inundated basin contains at the plant 400,000 cubic yards of ash. In this photo released Friday, Sept. 21, 2018, by Duke Energy, Gray material that Duke Energy characterized as lightweight coal combustion byproducts could be seen Friday floating on the top of the lake, near Wilmington, N.C. Duke Energy via AP Floodwaters at the site were continuing to rise Friday. The area received more than 30 inches of rain from former Hurricane Florence, with the Cape Fear River expected to crest Saturday. North Carolina's top environmental regulator said Friday that the extent of the potential environmental harm from the breach is not yet known. "What we don't know at this point is if any coal ash has filtered into the Cape Fear River," said Mike Regan, secretary for the state Department of Environmental Quality. "We plan to conduct flyovers ... to see if we can ascertain that." Security personnel for Duke blocked access Friday to Sutton Lake Road, which leads to a public dock on the reservoir, a popular local destination for boating and fishing. Duke denied a request for an Associated Press reporter at the scene Friday to pass the barricade, saying that the situation at the lake "continues to change" and is "not safe." Aerial photos released by the company showed a wide breach in the earthen dam and the affected ash dump largely underwater. Sutton Lake is the former coaling pond for a coal-fired plant Duke retired in 2013 and replaced with a new generating station that runs off natural gas. Duke said that power plant was shut down overnight as it was swamped floodwaters and all employees safely evacuated. The current breach at the Wilmington site is separate from the rupture at a nearby coal ash landfill reported at the site last weekend, spilling enough material to fill 180 dump trucks. Duke's ash waste management has faced intense scrutiny since a drainage pipe collapsed under a waste pit at an old plant in Eden in 2014, triggering a massive spill that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in gray sludge. The utility later agreed to plead guilty to nine Clean Water Act violations and pay $102 million in fines and restitution for illegally discharging pollution from ash dumps at five North Carolina power plants. It plans to close all its ash dumps by 2029. At the separate Duke plant near Goldsboro, three old coal-ash dumps capped with soil were underwater Thursday after the Neuse River flooded. Staff from the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group, visited the flooded dumps at the H.F. Lee Power Plant by boat Wednesday and took photographs and collected samples of gray sludge and water they said was washing into the floodwaters. The group said a private lab would analyze samples. State environmental regulators went to the site Thursday, though they were unable to make a full assessment because of high water levels. Sheehan, the Duke spokeswoman, said that any release of coal ash at the Goldsboro site appeared "minimal." "We'll learn more as flood water recedes," she said.<doc-sep>Duke Energy says they cannot be sure but don't believe ash has been released. Duke Energy says a dam at a power plant in Wilmington, North Carolina has been breached, raising concerns that water contaminated with byproducts of burning coal could flow into the Cape Fear River. Duke says ponds that store solid byproducts of burning coal that can contaminate waterways with substances like mercury and arsenic, known as coal ash, are submerged but they believe stable and not releasing ash into the river. But a spokeswoman also said they cannot rule out that coal ash was released and will continue to monitor the situation. Duke says flooding at the Sutton Power Plant in Wilmington caused breaches in a dam on a lake to store water for cooling the facility and that the water is overflowing into the Cape Fear River. The water from the cooling lake also overflowed into a natural gas plant, which has been shut down. The company says another byproduct of burning coal- hollow spheres of silica or aluminum called cenospheres - are flowing into the river. A spokeswoman said they don't yet know how many of the spheres were released. But Lisa Evans, a senior attorney specializing in hazardous waste for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, said cenospheres are part of coal ash and that its unlikely that part of coal byproducts would spill but not other potentially harmful substances. She said Earthjustice is concerned the floodwaters have risen above the level of the coal ash ponds which means any water in the lake and flowing into the river could also be contaminated. "What we're concerned about is that the floodwaters of the Cape Fear have raised the level of the lake and thus breached or overtopped the dike flooding the ash pond which causes the release of coal ash and cenospheres into the cooling pond or lake which is now being released into the Cape Fear," Evans said. A wall around one of the coal ash basins is underwater but they believe the ash is still in place, Paige Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Duke said. She also said they are not aware of a public health risk associated with cenospheres. The small, hollow spheres created as a byproduct of burning coal are used in manufacturing for plastics like kayaks and bowling balls. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said safety officials were notified of the breach Friday morning and that there are no structural issues with the dam. They said in a statement that water from the Cape Fear River was flowing into Sutton lake and then back into the river and that water was close to both coal ash basins on the property but there doesn't appear to be any structural issues. "DEQ’s dam safety engineers are now coordinating with NCDOT to conduct drone inspections to determine real-time site conditions. While the state is currently in emergency response mode, a thorough investigation of events will soon follow to ensure that Duke Energy is held responsible for any environmental impacts caused by their coal ash facilities," the department said in a statement. EPA Region 4 Administrator Trey Glenn said in a statement that EPA is monitoring the Sutton site and other sites around the state for potential impacts to the environment and human health. The Cape Fear River is a source of drinking water in Wilmington, NC. The state has been looking into levels of a chemical used to make non-stick products in the water after it was released into the river last year, according to The News and Observer.<doc-sep>
Floodwaters on Friday breached a dam that contains a man-made lake connected to a Duke Energy power plant in North Carolina, possibly causing coal ash to flow into the nearby Cape Fear River, the company said. The floodwaters flowed from Cape Fear River into the northern side of Sutton Lake, an 1,100-acre reservoir built in 1972 to cool the L.V. Sutton Power Station. That water caused breaches in the dam on the south end of the lake, which was flowing back into the river, Duke Energy said in a press release. The 200-mile Cape Fear River flows into the Atlantic at Wilmington, North Carolina. The Sutton site in Wilmington was home to a coal-fired power plant until 2013, when Duke replaced it with a natural gas power station. Duke dismantled the coal-fired plant by 2017, but the grounds contained about 7 million tons of coal ash in waste pits at the time of its closure. There are still two coal ash basins on site. The flooding forced Duke to shut down the 625-megawatt natural gas plant, and the company is monitoring the coal ash pits. Coal ash is a byproduct produced primarily at coal-fired power plants. It contains contaminants harmful to human health including mercury, cadmium and arsenic. Heavy rain from Florence caused one of the coal ash landfills to partially collapse, Duke reported on Saturday. The incident likely caused coal ash to run off into Sutton Lake, a Duke spokesperson told the AP. On Friday, Duke said it believes coal ash contained in one of the basins remains in place behind a steel wall that separates Sutton Lake from a site where the waste is still being excavated. That steel wall was under water, the company said, but an earthen part of the dam setting off the basin remained 2 feet above the surface. Another type of coal combustion byproduct, cenospheres composed mostly of alumni and silica, has flowed from that basin into Sutton Lake and Cape Fear River, Duke said. The second basin, which contains most of the sites ash, is about 10 feet from the floodwater and has not been affected, Duke said. Shares of Duke Energy, which were higher before the news hit, rolled over and were down less than 1 percent Friday afternoon. Hurricane Florence packed high wind and rain measured in feet to the Carolinas, followed by rising rivers and standing water in fields.