2018 Cape Fear River coal ash spill

In September 2018, a dam failure caused by Hurricane Florence led to the leakage of coal ash into the Cape Fear River about five miles northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina.

Clean up efforts were led by Duke Energy and mostly consisted of skimming the coal ash off the top of the water.

[4] Duke Energy does not argue that coal ash has leaked into the water source but the company does argue whether the drinking water supplied by the Cape Fear has reached unsafe levels of heavy metals.

Duke Energy implies that some of the research that is being released by environmental groups is creating uncalled for panic among the citizenry.

[4] The economic impact has yet to be analysed but analysis of similar spills such as the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill shows that even a six month economic impact study is only a short term review of the possible issues.