A key state committee looks at how to handle wastewater from fracking, plus more news, this week in CIB:
Administrative Watch: MEC Considers Fracking Fluids Disposal
What should be done with used fluids from the fracking process? That’s a critical environmental issue within a controversial drilling technique, and the focus of deliberations in a key state administrative committee last week.
The Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) Water & Waste Management Committee considered a draft rule which could require multiple re-uses of the chemical-laced fracking waters, followed by treatment for discharge or other use. The draft rule does not reference the environmentally dangerous practice of underground injection of wastes, a particular hazard to groundwater resources.
The wastewater committee reviewed a draft white paper on fracking fluids disposal that recommends the above approach. Members of the committee also questioned at length an engineer with an Arkansas-based drilling company, who reported that his company re-uses most fracking fluids and treats the remainder for surface discharge under an NPDES permit (the standard clean water act permits for wastewater discharges).
Content, treatment and disposal of drilling fluids are among the most environmentally critical issues within the arena of the controversial practice of fracking for natural gas. The Water & Waste Management Committee’s 9/5/13 agenda and links to the draft rule and white paper on fracking fluids treatment can be found here.
Judicial Watch: Cooper Proposes Rate Re-Hearing; Riverkeeper Seeks Yadkin Intervention; Group Challenges Cleveland Reservoir
CIB can’t track every environmental permit case, but we try to alert you to a sampling of cases with statewide policy implications. This week, we have a flurry of news briefs on noteworthy legal challenges:
Cooper Proposes Rate Re-Hearing: N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper last week asked the N.C. Utilities Commission to hold new hearings on the Duke Energy rate hike returned to the Commission for further deliberation by the N.C. Supreme Court. The Court found that the Commission had not adequately considered and ruled on all issues in connection with the rate of return (profit) it allowed Duke in its rate hike. Duke and the Commission’s “Public Staff” (which is supposed to represent the public’s interests) want the Commission to just enter new findings into the record and re-approve the rate hike. Cooper says that’s not good enough.
Riverkeeper Seeks Yadkin Intervention: The Yadkin Riverkeeper group last week filed a request with the Wake County Superior Court asking that it be allowed to intervene as an affected party in the dispute between the State of North Carolina and Alcoa Corporation over ownership of the Yadkin River riverbed on which the Alcoa-operated dams are built. The state claims ownership of the riverbed as public trust property, and has asked for a court ruling approving that principle in this instance, as important to its dispute with Alcoa over permit rights to operate the dams. Yadkin Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks said, “Alcoa can no longer dodge the question of who owns the Yadkin. Our organization has always disputed Alcoa’s claims of ownership. We support the State’s efforts to resolve the river bed ownership issue. The Yadkin River is still not fishable as a result of Alcoa’s legacy of toxic waste. Water released from the dam’s tailraces still does not comply with dissolved oxygen standards.”
Group Challenges Cleveland Reservoir: The national environmental group American Rivers last week announced a legal challenge to the N.C. Division of Water Quality’s (DWQ) decision to waive a certification for a controversial proposed reservoir in Cleveland County. American Rivers and its legal counsel, Southern Environmental Law Center, say that DWQ violated its own procedures in checking off on the reservoir project without a permit. They also noted an extraordinary compilation of political clout within the state Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and elsewhere in state government by individuals connected with the Cleveland County Water Authority. (They include the Cleveland County Water manager on the Environmental Management Commission; the attorney for Cleveland County Water in the legislature; and the former co-sponsor of state legislation benefiting the authority as assistant secretary of DENR.) The proposed reservoir would flood 24 miles of streams and 1,500 acres of forest and farmland within the First Broad River basin. Opponents of the project point to other accessible water supply expansion alternatives for the county.
Around the States: Florida Provides Case Study on Abuse of “CWIP”
CIB last month reported on Duke Energy’s cancellation of a proposed $25 billion new nuclear plant in its recently acquired Florida territory. While the decision to cancel the plant was roundly praised as a wise call, the fact remains that Florida electric ratepayers are getting socked with the costs already spent on studying and designing the canceled plant. Why? Because of an ugly utility financing gimmick called “construction work in progress” or CWIP.
CWIP is a utility financing method allowed in some states–including North Carolina–which permits the regulated power company to pass along to its monopoly public customers the costs of planning and building plants even when they’re never completed or used. Critics of CWIP point out that it reduces the incentive for utilities to exercise caution in proposing expensive new power plants that may never be needed, or which may (like many proposed nuclear plants) turn out to be too expensive to complete, or otherwise too problematic to finish.
In the case of the now-canceled Levy nuclear plant in Florida, the citizen clean energy group Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has pointed out how Florida’s CWIP law contributed to the waste of much ratepayer money on an unnecessary and unsuccessful project. SACE criticizes Florida’s equivalent of NC’s Utilities Commission, the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), for inadequate oversight of spending under the CWIP loophole.
For more discussion of the Levy nuclear waste (wasteful spending) debacle, and its implications to another proposed Florida nuclear plant expansion, see SACE’s article here and its PSC brief here.
In North Carolina, CWIP was allowed with little restraint during the 1970’s and helped fuel expansive and speculative nuclear construction plans. The N.C. General Assembly reined in CWIP in 1982, and that decision helped bring utility construction planning back to earth. Unfortunately, the 2007 legislature loosened the state’s grip on CWIP once again, helping set off a surge of new nuclear proposals. Even with CWIP, however, the economics of new nuclear construction are proving so problematic that the much-vaunted nuclear ‘renaissance’ is backsliding into a new nuclear dark age.
Education & Resources: Preview Climate Change Rules
The first regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions from power plants are due out from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by September 20. In a webcast discussion set for Monday, September 16, at 1:30 p.m., representatives from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Duke Law School will preview the legal, political, environmental and economic implications of the expected rules. The webcast can be watched live on YouTube via this link.
That’s our report for this week.
