20080_TrueTextiles_CoalAshSurvey_2015_07_30

· There does not seem to be any environmental or legal/regulatory reason why the historical coal
ash cannot remain in place. Neither EPA’s new coal ash rules nor the North Carolina Coal Ash
Management Act of 2014 applies to the coal ash at the Elkin facility, and I am not aware of any
other current regulatory driver indicating that the coal ash must be removed or otherwise
“cleaned up.”

· The potential environmental concern with coal ash disposal (other than the possible failure of
physical containment, like the Dan River or the TVA Kingston spills, which is not a concern here)
is that coal ash can leach contaminants, generally metals, into groundwater. The 2007 Phase I
says that there are groundwater monitoring wells around the coal ash ponds, and the only
apparent groundwater issue observed in these wells is that one of the wells has a concentration
of arsenic slightly elevated above the North Carolina DENR groundwater standard. Unlike the
historical coal ash, the ash ponds are probably regularly subject to a hydraulic head (that is, a
water layer on top of the ash that serves to “drive” soluble contaminants down into the soil
column toward the groundwater) and are not “capped” with an organic soil layer and
vegetation. It therefore seems likely that if there are no significant groundwater impacts
observed around the ponds where there is an active mechanism that might be contributing to
leaching into groundwater, there are also unlikely to be significant groundwater impacts
associated with the historical coal ash disposal where such mechanisms are absent or
substantially mitigated by the overlying vegetation. Furthermore, since the ash ponds and
historical coal ash disposal sites are essentially adjacent to each other, it seems likely that if
there were groundwater impacts associated with historical coal ash disposal, these impacts
would be seen in the samples collected from the wells in the vicinity of the ash ponds.

· For reasons apparently unrelated to coal ash, the current buyer is insisting that the Elkin
property be enrolled in the North Carolina Brownfields program in conjunction with the
sale. The benefit of the Brownfields program, in addition to the liability protection afforded to
the buyer, is that any environmental “cleanup” that is conducted only has to be performed to a
negotiated standard that allows redevelopment of the property, as opposed to the stricter
standards that apply to environmental cleanups generally, such as the NCDENR groundwater
standards. It seems likely that in conjunction with the Brownfields proceeding, an agreement
with DENR could be negotiated so that the historical coal ash could remain in place indefinitely
with at most only a deed notice or similar “institutional control.”