Dan River Steam Station has 61 groundwater monitoring wells, 58 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between January 04, 2011 and October 12, 2017. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of boron, lithium, barium, cadmium, arsenic, manganese, lead, thallium, molybdenum, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, antimony, selenium and mercury.
Site descriptionDan River Steam Station was a 276 MW coal fired power station owned by Duke Energy. The station is located in Eden, North Carolina. It opened in 1949 and retired in 2012. In February 2014, Duke Energy reported that between 50,000 to 82,000 tons of coal ash was spilled into the Dan River near Eden. A 48-inch storm water pipe beneath Duke's unlined ash pond broke, and water and ash from the 27-acre pond drained into the pipe. According to EcoWatch, the coal ash spill appears to be the third-largest in U.S. history.
The station has three units regulated under the CCR rule: primary ash basin, secondary ash basin and CCP landfill. Dan River Steam Station is among the 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 Dan River Steam Station, see EIP’s 2019 National Coal Ash Report.