In Sherry Gobble’s house, the water runs toxic.
Gobble, who lives alongside Duke Energy’s Buck Steam Station in a Rowan County community called Dukeville, discovered six months ago that water in her family’s well contains the carcinogen hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6. Since then, they have armed themselves with bottled water and a growing pile of empty jugs they fill up across town where they know the water isn’t tainted.
She believes the potentially cancer-causing contaminant is seeping in from the leaking coal ash pond next door. It’s a charge Duke Energy vigorously denies.
It would explain the ailments in Dukeville, which borders the power plant, she says. “We have cancer, birth defects all up and down our road in our community,” she said.
Gobble’s fears highlight what state environmentalists say is a primary flaw of North Carolina’s new law managing coal ash. The law, which went into effect last month after a massive ash spill along the Dan River earlier this year, is groundbreaking in that it is the first state-level attempt to manage the ash impoundments. It prioritizes four of the state’s 14 coal ash sites for immediate cleanup. But cleanup of the remaining sites, such as Buck Steam Station, could take as long as 15 years.
“I don’t understand how you can you say there are four sites that are top priority when there are 14 in the state,” Gobble said.
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