Asheville Steam Electric Power Plant has 34 groundwater monitoring wells, 26 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between November 17, 2010 and August 17, 2017. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of manganese, boron, cobalt, radium, nitrate, arsenic, molybdenum and sulfate.
Site descriptionDuke Energy's Asheville Steam Electric Plant is located east of the French Broad River, 7 miles upstream of Asheville, North Carolina. The plant began commercial operations in 1964 and is capable of generating 376 MW of electricity from coal and 324 MW from combustion turbines. The plant coal-fired units will retire by January 2020 after the new natural gas plant starts operating in late 2019. Two Ash Basins near the plant, 1964 and 1982, are regulated under the CCR rule. Asheville Steam Electric Plant is among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of potential damage cases, indicating that it has potentially polluted groundwater or surface water at levels which threaten human health and the environment. You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information on the Asheville Steam Electric Power Plant, see EIP’s 2019 National Coal Ash Report.