A state judge has ordered Duke to clean up its coal ash pits “immediately”, plus other news, this week in CIB:

Judicial Watch: Duke Ordered to Clean Up Coal Ash Pollution

Cutting through the tangled knot of state/utility negotiations, a State Superior Court judge last week ordered Duke Energy to “take immediate action to eliminate sources of contamination” of groundwater at 14 coal-fired power plants around the state. Those sources include coal ash pits like the one which spilled into disaster for the Dan River.

Unless the order is appealed by Duke or the N.C. Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and put on interim hold by a higher court, the Superior Court’s cleanup order supersedes the continuing waffling by the Governor and negotiations between Duke and DENR. Both Duke and DENR representatives last week told reporters that they were considering their legal options. The litigation in which the cleanup order was issued was the lawsuit filed by citizen conservation groups. They challenged a 2012 N.C. Environmental Management Commission (EMC) decision that Duke did not have to clean up immediately.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) represents the citizen conservation groups in the case, the Cape Fear River Watch, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, and Western North Carolina Alliance. Conservationists believe that Duke should address the continuing toxic pollution of groundwater resources at the coal ash sites in part by removing the ash from the unlined pits and transferring it to safer lined landfills. SELC senior attorney Frank Holleman says the court order means that should be done right away–“Immediately means what the English language dictionary says–today, now.” More here.

Executive Watch: Heat on McCrory

One effect of the strong court order directing immediate action to deal with with coal ash pollution is to make Gov. McCrory’s indecisiveness look worse in comparison.

McCrory was already being hammered in the media and outside the Governor’s Mansion for his inaction. Washington-based environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has made a major TV ad buy pointing at McCrory for the coal ash spill into the Dan River. “Pat McCrory has coal ash on his hands,” the ad says, noting that state regulators knew about the danger, but that McCrory signed a bill easing off on groundwater pollution restrictions.The ad can be seen here.

Media including the Winston-Salem Journal are editorially calling on McCrory to act. More here.

Environmentalists and other advocates of social responsibility gathered outside the Governor’s Mansion last week to call for McCrory to “Come Clean” on coal ash. Groups ranging from Democracy NC, to Clean Water NC, to the NC NAACP participated in the event, and NAACP state president Rev. William Barber was widely quoted calling the unabated coal ash pollution not just irresponsible but a “sin”.

NCLCV released the results of a new statewide poll showing that more than 80% of North Carolina voters want lawmakers to make Duke clean up all its coal ash sites and to do it now, and over three-quarters of voters are more likely to vote for a legislative candidate who “gets tough with corporate polluters like Duke Energy.”

NCLCV’s governmental relations director Dan Crawford said, “The people have spoken and they demand swift and forceful action from our state lawmakers to require Duke Energy to clean up its mess. While another disaster is just waiting to happen, Gov. McCrory and state legislators should not wait any longer to take the necessary steps to ensure these coal ash sites are cleaned up immediately.”

The full press release and complete poll results are available here.

A new article recently posted on National Geographic’s website reports more description of the unlined coal ash pits and the risks they present. More here.

Even DENR itself continued to pile up the evidence of a serious threat to environmental health from multiple coal ash facilities. CIB reported last week that DENR staff had gone out to other coal ash pits hunting corrugated pipes like the one which failed at the Dan River plant. Since then, DENR revealed that they found them at eight other plants. More here.

Will the Governor hear and act on this all-channels message? It’s late for him to be considered a real leader, but will he at least run to the head of the parade already moving in the right direction? We’ll see.

Administrative Watch: Plenty of Blame to Share

If there’s anything to save Pat McCrory from being the goat of the coal ash disaster, it may be the fact that there’s plenty of blame to share.

After all, state regulators knew about some of the unpermitted discharges from coal ash pits for years. The current mess has a history of bipartisan failure attributable in part to weak executive determination to enforce the law against known unpermitted sources of water pollution, when faced by intransigence from one of the state’s biggest and wealthiest corporations. There was a stuttering start to acting on this problem under the Perdue Administration, only to stall out when Duke barked back. More here.

Then, the state legislature slashed DENR’s budget–and began to systematically strangle its ability to regulate the problem. See former DENR Deputy Secretary Robin Smith’s careful analysis of how these cutbacks helped lay the basis for DENR’s current impotence here.

However, Governor McCrory himself shares the blames for those moves as well. His budget cut DENR, and he signed the so-called “regulatory reform” measures that helped hamstring it even further. He may have partners in negligence, but Pat McCrory is the one holding the bag now that the vultures are coming home to roost. He should keep that in mind when considering how to act going forward.

Conservationists: Martin Nesbitt

Last week saw the sudden passing of a long-time legislative leader from the mountains, State Senator Martin Nesbitt (D-Buncombe). Sen. Nesbitt served as a legislator since 1979, in both the House and Senate, as both Majority Leader and (most recently) Senate Minority Leader. Best known as a populist who championed the “little guy” and spoke for the interests of working people and the poor, Nesbitt also stood for the rights of women and disadvantaged minorities. Conservationists will remember Nesbitt for his leadership in passage of the Clean Smokestacks Act, a major milestone in the cleanup of North Carolina’s air quality.

“North Carolina has lost a great public servant who dedicated his life to being a voice for the voiceless,” said NCLCV’s Dan Crawford. “He made me a better advocate by making me think outside the box. We will miss our friend, but his legacy will live on in the good work he did and the people he influenced along the way.”

That’s our report for this week.