Here you go. I’ve edited the LIVE! feed so that you can view our comments & photos from the start of the meeting until time ran out.
5:55 PM: The presentation is all set up.
6:11 The party’s started. I got Sheila Baynes next to me. Yay!
6:25 Full house and standing room only.
6 30 Showtime.
6:32 Head of DEQ says “we will hold Duke Energy responsible”
6:35 EPA region directors going over the event and timeline.
Leak was sealed by concrete slurry pumped into pipe.
6:42 Introducing all the multiple agency reps.
6:47 Pipe that broke was a 48 incher.
EPA guy is doing a great job on explaining how the fix was made.
6:54 Over 1000 feet of concrete used to seal the broken pipe. Water testing sampling is hard at some places due to no river access.
“The water Is safe to drink” – Now going over drinking water sample process and how to read results
7:03 Water quality is now at the same level before the spill – raw and treated water.
7:12 The river is safe. The Riverwalk Trail is safe.
7:15 Q&A starts. Environmental group starts with leading question about Duke Energy’s history of problems. Oh shut up. This is about the cleanup and what happened now.
7:20 EPA’s first job was to do emergency response. Now comes the modeling of what can happen.
7:30 Email addresses are available on the newly setup website. That site has all testing data.
Questions continue. Nothing big or really important.
7:40 “Lessons learned” from lack of warnings and advisories on Day 1 & 2.
7:50 Fish & Wildlife official : “Just because we don’t know of wildlife Impacts doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
8:00 Another environmental group speaker asking another agenda based question. Odds are they’d never heard of Danville before now.
Finally, a good real question. Dried coal ash on the riverbank will be part of the cleanup.
8:06 EPA is in charge of the incident and is overseeing Duke Energy’s work.
Complaint because EPA can’t answer all the questions. Really? People should be damned glad they’re doing this tonight so quickly.
8:14 Oh yeah, we’re in overtime. Communication delays are “being investigated”.
Sheila Baynes gets a lot better reception than the woman who tried to hold up a dead turtle.
8:25 City’s shutting this down at 8:30
Five more questions and we’re done.
Barry Dunkley responds to a question.
8:30 Time’s up. The city’s kicking us out of here. Looks like there was a 2 hour time limit for the city’s TV system.
Hope you’ve enjoyed it and it really worked well. We’ll do more LIVE! events soon.
Keep us posted! Thanks!
8:11pm…Chuck Vipperman leaves, so the meeting is as good as over.