Sutton Steam Electric Plant has 126 groundwater monitoring wells, 71 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between March 09, 2010 and September 07, 2017. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of arsenic, molybdenum, lithium, cobalt, manganese, boron, selenium, radium, sulfate, thallium, antimony and lead.
Site descriptionDuke Energy's Sutton Steam Electric Plant began operating in 1954 near Wilmington, North Carolina and at its peak had an operating capacity of 575 MW. Duke Energy retired the plant's three coal-fired units in November 2013, but left three small combustion turbines in operation. At that time, a new gas-fired 625 MW combined cycle unit was brought online. In 2013, groundwater contamination from the site threatened residential drinking water wells in Flemington, North Carolina. Duke Energy agreed to pay for most of the cost of running public drinking water lines out to Flemington.
Three units near the station, CCF Landfill, 1971 and 1984 Ash Basins, are regulated under the CCR rule. Sutton 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 Sutton Steam Electric Plant, see EIP’s 2019 National Coal Ash Report.