Local officials are closely monitoring the Dan River coal ash spill to determine its implications on water supply from the Roanoke River.
Halifax County Commissioner Rives Manning, the board's appointee to Lake Gaston Weed Control Council, said Sunday's coal ash spill in Eden is why and he other local politicians supported a uranium mining ban in Virginia.
Manning said the Roanoke River Basin Association is monitoring developments on the spill. “We don't know yet what's going to happen. It's too early.”
The latest news accounts, Manning said, show the city of Danville, Virginia, has been able to filter out the contaminants left in the spill's wake. “We're fortunate we've got Bugg Island Lake, Gaston Lake and even Roanoke Rapids Lake to act as a filter. Even so, it could be a real problem. One of the things we have as a plus is adequate water. We've got a good, sound safe source of water. If it gets contaminated we could lose a big asset.”
Dan Brown, CEO of the Roanoke Rapids Sanitary District said while the water and sewer agency is not worried, it is closely monitoring the situation. “We are preparing. The latest I can tell you is the water quality hasn't changed. We're taking direction from DENR (the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources). They asked us to look for water quality changes.”
Brown said the district will continue to test its water and will look at new test data as it comes in. “It's going to take a couple of months for the water to get down here. Conventional treatment is effective.”
Danville doesn't have the benefit of the buffering lakes, Brown said. “They are treating water that includes the ash spill. Their system is filtering it out. We still need to get results of what they're finding out. It's just physically impossible for anything to be at our plant now. The three lakes being there, that can settle things out.”
DENR said in a news release on its website it expects this week to publicize water sampling results taken from the Dan River near the site of the coal ash spill at the Dan River Steam Station.
“We’re working hard to get all those results back from our state laboratory and analyze them so we can provide the public with useful, timely information about any of the coal ash constituents we’re seeing in the Dan River,” said John Skvarla, secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “Protecting public health and the environment is our No. 1 priority, and the results will hopefully provide us with meaningful information about any effects we’re seeing to water quality.”
On Tuesday, the first round of water samples taken by scientists with DENR were delivered to a lab in Raleigh for further testing for heavy metals, sulfates, nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), and total suspended solids. Here is the list of metals DENR is testing for: potassium, cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, vanadium, silver, aluminum, beryllium, calcium, cobalt, iron, molybdenum, antimony, tin, thallium, titanium, lithium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, arsenic, selenium, mercury, barium and boron.
DENR staff members are continuing to conduct water quality sampling in the Dan River upstream and downstream of the spill site.
Duke Energy is also conducting water sampling near the site of the spill.
DENR staff members continued Wednesday to support Duke Energy’s efforts at finding a permanent solution to seal the broken storm water pipe that released ash to the river. Duke Energy reports that flow of coal ash to the river has significantly decreased since the spill began.
