YouCentral: Gary Miller talks about pollution spills.

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In this YouCentral article, Danville City Councilman & Vice Mayor Dr. Gary Miller compares & contrasts the recent oil spill from Robert Woodall Chevrolet and the Duke Energy coal ash spill.

From: Dr. Gary Miller

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the site of two hazardous waste spills into our beautiful Dan River.

Last week, in the early morning hours of 9/21/2015, a valve failed on a motor oil storage tank in the back of Woodall’s on Riverside Drive spewing 400 gallons of waste motor oil onto the floor, into a drain and subsequently to a rain water run off pipe that emptied into the Dan River. Mr. Woodall and employees quickly recognize the seriousness of any toxic substance and the importance of immediate response. Once discovered the employees of Robert Woodall, who had been properly trained on how to respond and limit the spill, acted swiftly to curb the amount of oil that actually reached the Dan River by about 75%. Hazmat agencies were contacted and equipment put in place on the river which contained the contamination. Downstream cities were alerted.

Contrast the above incident at a locally owned family business with the incident in Feb. 2, 2014 of Duke Energy, a fortune 250 company, the largest power holding company in the United States with interest in several other countries, and over 120 billion dollars in assets. The size of the spill was much greater but the reaction time was also much slower. Hours passed after the original spill was detected, downstream cities were not made aware of the potential size of the spill until much later. There seemed to be no coordinated plan in place on the part of Duke Energy to rapidly contain a spill. That’s interesting because they had a similar spill a few years prior to this one at another location.

Also in 2014, downstream communities (including Danville) were not ready to rapidly limit contamination of water systems. When the water began to turn gray for the ash Danville water system employees began to take action. Danville now has a plan in place incorporating more effective communications with Duke Energy.

Eventually, at best, only 8-10% of the ash was removed from the river. Now, one and a half years later I revisited the site in Eden. Duke Energy is beginning to remove or attempt to contain about 3 million tons of accumulated fly ash produced over 63 years ago as a byproduct of the coal fed power plant and stored beside the Dan River.

1.3 million tons of the toxic ash will be shipped out by rail to an Amelia County Virginia waste storage site. The other 1.7 million tons will be stored on-site, although several hundred yards farther from the river. It will have two layers of plastic liners with sensors to detect any leakage. I did ask the life expectancy of the liners, but no one at the presentation could even specify a range. However, I was reassured that monitoring would be “very thorough”.

At least Duke Energy is beginning the removal of the ash from right beside the Dan River. I am cautiously optimistic that future spills will be prevented or at least be acted on more swiftly.