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Duke Energy: Making It Right***

***  = Right for Duke Energy, that is.

Duke Energy pumps money into Dan River projects

(Register & Bee article. Paywall may apply unless you break through it.)

Then take a look at Lee Vogler’s Facebook post about Duke Energy’s “gift” to Danville. (No Facebook account required)

I tried to get my point across. I really did. Let’s do a Big Board of thoughts.

  • Duke Energy is throwing this $10,000,000 at the Dan River Region to try to build up goodwill. They’re also trying to make people forget what happened.
  • Duke Energy makes ZERO dollars from Virginia customers. Once this coal ash settlement is reached, you won’t see them “caring” about anything north of the state line again.
  • This “settlement over the impact to the river and the city” isn’t going to be much at all. Danville is going to be reimbursed for what expenses they incurred, they’ll get a small amount for “pain and suffering” and enough to cover the hired gun attorney’s big legal bills. The guy will know exactly he can get from Duke and will bring that home.
  • Neither Danville nor Duke Energy want this to go to a courtroom trial because anything can happen. The attorney knows that very well.
  • Those ideas about expanding Danville’s river themes and working from the River District will come out of Duke Energy’s goodwill and not as any part of a settlement. They may get wrapped up in the settlement, but it will all be part of lip service.
  • I was wondering why the Community Foundation of the Dan River region created that “RiverBank Fund”. Gee, how convenient that Duke Energy just happened to drive by and drop $250,000 into that bucket? Anybody else contributed to it? Me neither.

Let’s get real. There were no short-term environmental impacts, and there appears to be no medium-term environmental impacts to the Dan River. Based on that, the probability for long-term environmental impacts is very low as well. The remaining coal ash has been dispersed throughout the entire river system by over 350 trillion gallons of Dan River water since the problem occurred. The river is clearly back to where it was before the coal ash spill. Numbers don’t lie. This is making the environmental groups hide and go silent.

Duke Energy is doing this because it’s the right thing for Duke Energy to do. This is a perfectly planned public relations operation.

Duke Energy knows exactly what they’re doing.

sclogo

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