From Staff Reports

Two days after the arrests of 16 members of the environmental group Greenpeace  on Feb. 13 at Progress Energy’s Skyland plant, about 150 people met to discuss the next steps at Pasana Café in downtown Asheville.

In the Greenpeace incident, five protesters from the group scaled a 300-foot inactive smokestack and unfurled a banner that stated: “Duke Energy ... The climate needs ... Real Progress.”  Greenpeace leaders later announced from Washington, D.C., that Duke — once it acquires Progress in a pending merger — will be the nation’s largest utility, making it a key player in energy policy.

As noted in the local media, the Greenpeace action also highlighted holes in the plant’s security.

The 16 Greenpeace members entered the plant’s secured perimeter shortly before dawn, using ladders to scramble over a fence, after which five members scaled the smokestack to hang the banner. 

All 16 members were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Several members also were charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering. The group was released from the Buncombe County Detention Facility on the night of Feb. 13, after posting a $1,000 bond each. A Greenpeace representative who posted bail for the group paid the entire amount in cash. Those arrested have a March 6 court date.

Greenpeace is asking Duke to halt its mountaintop removal of coal. It also is asking the utility to set a goal of generating at least a third its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

What’s more, the group wants Duke to quit using coal altogether by 2030, citing harm to environmental and human health.

On Feb. 15, Greenpeace activists still in Asheville followed up with a community meeting to discuss strategies for opposing the use of coal to fuel the Skyland plant.

The Posana Café meeting, which was open to the public, included representatives from area environmental groups, including Appalachian Voice. Also attending and speaking was Hartwell Carson, the French Broad riverkeeper.

At the meeting, several speakers stressed that coal ash is a major issue and urged those present to get actively oppose it.

“Coal ash is a huge priority for us,” Ula Reeves of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy said. “As someone pointed out, we just need to go after coal ... We just need to get rid of coal.”

In the Southeast alone, she said, there are about 175 coal ash ponds, “like the one on the French Broad River” at Skyland.

Carson, the riverkeeper, noted that utilities tend to say that they are meeting all federal and state laws at their coal-burning plants — “and it sounds good. But there basically are no laws!”

He added, We need better laws and the laws on the books need to be enforced.”

Hartwell Carson

Hartwell Carson

The riverkeeper also said that fly ash “used to shoot out of the top of the smokestacks,” but “now, scrubbers magically capture the stuff.” However, he noted, “It doesn’t go away — they put it in the (coal ash) ponds.”

Further, Carson asserted, “Some people say coal ash composition is the same as dirt. It is, but not in these radical amounts,” noting that there were much higher-than-normal concentrations of certain chemicals.

He said Progress has two coal ash ponds behind its Skyland plant, near the section of the French Broad River that runs along I-26 between Asheville and Hendersonville — “and it’s not a safe way to store coal ash ... All of this nasty stuff is sinking into the (area’s) groundwater” and the future consequences will be grim.

“A neighborhood is about 50 feet away from the two coal ash ponds ... The ponds need to be lined” to make them safer. “There is at least one person on a well near the ponds ... There is sediment pollution (going) into the river.”

Worse, Carson said, “They’re trucking this stuff (coal ash) across (I-26) to the airport to use as structural fill ... Without a doubt, the groundwater is migrating to the French Broad River, with a lot of heavy metals in the sediment ... The good thing is, there’s a solution — you can burn less coal. You can line ponds.”

The riverkeeper urged those in the audience to challenge the state to stiffen the requirements in its permits that allow utilities to dump their coal ash.