HomeMy WebLinkAboutNCS000348_Transcription of Oral Comments_20200318NC Department of Environmental Quality
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
November 21, 2019
May:
David May, Hearing Officer
Denard:
Derek Denard, DEQ, Environmental Specialist
Garcia:
Lauren Garcia, DEQ, Environmental Specialist
Kozlowski:
Carol Kozlowski, Participant
Dazewiezri:
Edward Dazewierzi, Participant
North:
William North, Participant
Jimenez:
Nick Jimenez, Participant
Allen:
Kerri Allen, Participant
Ahlers:
Deborah Ahlers, Participant
Key:
Peter Key, Participant
Baker:
Lynn Baker, Participant
Wilkins:
Emily Wilkins, Participant
Hatem:
Joe Hatem, Participant
Mosteller:
Karen Mosteller, Participant
Haddon:
Chap Haddon, Participant
Sharkey:
Lora Sharkey, Participant
Webb:
Tom Webb, Participant
Yarb:
Bud Yarb, Participant
Jakus:
Bob Jakus, Participant
Ward:
Catherine Ward, Participant
Baldwin:
Merle Baldwin, Participant
Parisi:
Donna Parisi, Participant
Ingram:
Jennifer Ingram, Participant
Tomlin:
Tom Tomlin, Participant
M/F:
Male/Female Speaker
[INAUDIBLE]
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
00:05:32 May: Thank you, everybody, for coming out tonight for the hearing.
Before we get started, can everybody hear okay?
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
00:06:16 May: And one other quick comment before we get started. I noted one
sign or poster that we have in the audience. I would ask, if you do
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 2
have signs or posters, if you would, at the conclusion, we'll have a
time period where you could hold those up to have photographed
for the file. But if you would, if you would, kind of refrain from
waving those during the hearing, that would be appreciated. But
there will be an opportunity to display those.
00:06:40 Thank you, again. This public hearing will please come to
order. Before we begin, I ask that everyone turn off or silence all
cell phones and pagers as a courtesy to the speakers. My name is
David May and I have been appointed by the director of the
Division of Water Resources and the director of the Division of
Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources to serve as hearing officer
for this hearing.
00:07:08 I am the regional supervisor for the Division of Water
Resources water quality regional operations session in the
Washington regional office. At this time, I would like to introduce
representatives from the Department of Environmental Quality, as
well as elected officials that are present tonight. And at this time, I
would ask that staff with the Department of Environmental Quality
stand to be recognized.
00:07:34 And among these at the front, there are also several in the
back, as well. And thank you. You may be seated. And we would
also like to recognize any elected officials that might be present
tonight. I believe we have one or two, and I'll apologize if I don't
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 3
say the name correctly, but Ms. Deborah Hallers [ph] and any
others that might be present.
[INAUDIBLE]
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
00:08:16 May: This hearing is being held under the authority of Title 15A of the
North Carolina Administrative Code 2H.0503. A public notice for
this hearing was published in the Star News in Wilmington on
Monday, October 215t, 2019, and posted online and sent by email
to the water quality certification mailing listsery [ph] on October
16th, 2019.
00:08:44 The purpose of the hearing tonight is to obtain public
comments on two draft NPDES permits. CPI USA North Carolina,
LLC has applied to renew NPDES permits to discharge wastewater
and stormwater from the Southport Power Plant at 1281
Powerhouse Drive, Southport, North Carolina, in Brunswick
County. CPI USA North Carolina, LLC holds the subject permits.
The wastewater permit is NCO065099 and the stormwater permit is
NCS000348.
00:09:23 This hearing tonight is not a question -and -answer session
with the Department of Environmental Quality staff. It's an
opportunity for us to obtain community feedback on the
applications. I'll be preparing a written record of these
proceedings. For this reason, the audio of the hearing is being
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 4
recorded tonight. Written comments received by 5:00 p.m. on
December 23rd, 2019 will also be included as part of the record.
Written comments may be submitted to the email address or postal
address found on the handout available at the registration desk.
Equal weight will be given to both written and oral comments.
00:10:04 I will now ask Derek Denard from the Division of Water
Resources to make a short presentation for the draft NPDES
wastewater permit, NC0065099.
[INAUDIBLE]
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
00:10:59 Denard: Okay. My name is Derek Denard with the Division of Water
Resources. I'm an environmental specialist, and I thank you for
coming tonight, and taking some time to be with us. I'm the
permit writer for the wastewater permit. And I wanted to just give
you a little bit of information about NPDES program, the Clean
Water Act in 1972. It's Section 303, classifications [ph] and
standards, and Section 402 of the Clean Water Act. And Congress
assigned responsibility [ph] of implementation into the EPA, and
that was delegated to North Carolina in 1975.
00:11:41 And we operate under the 103 grant [ph]. North Carolina
uses [ph] statutes and rules to administer the program, and EPA
has oversight to our program. The federal Clean Water Act is
under 402, and there's federal regulations [ph] in Part 40 CFR.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 5
And we have our state statutes in our administrative code 2H and
2B-2H is for permitting, 213 is for standards.
00:12:14 Well, who needs a NPDES permit? Well, we've already
mentioned wastewater and stormwater. Then there's also indirect
discharge —pretreatment [ph] programs that fall under that. And
then there's deemed permitted activities to consider [ph].
00:12:30 Permitting process, you get an application, then a draft
permit, and need public notice [ph] for 30 days. And some of you
commented on it in the 30-day period. And then we have a public
hearing, like we're having today. And then there's a final decision
and it must be made within 90 days after the public hearing. And
if approved, the permit will have up to a five-year duration.
00:12:52 Permit —there is permit conditions to consider. There's a
components list, receiving stream characteristics, effluent
limitations and monitoring requirements, special conditions,
standard conditions. So I'm getting in talking about what's an
individual permit. So that's what some of the main sections of the
individual permit.
00:13:12 Talk about —a little about [ph] the history of the power
plant. The power plant started operations in 1987, and the NPDES
permit was issued in June of that year. The facility was acquired
from Primary Energy, and then —formerly Congentrix Southport.
Operates under a purchase agreement with Progress Energy, which
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 6
is now Duke Energy Progress. Southport is a combined heat and
power cogeneration facility providing steam to Archer Daniels
Midland.
00:13:44 And here's a picture of —let me see if this pointer is
working for me. Well, it's not a good pointer. Okay. Well, this
is —down here is Archer Daniels Midland, and there's a steam line
running across. If I had this pointer working. Oh, it does work,
but you can't see it on that screen.
00:14:08 Okay. And so there's a steam line, but they share it with a
neighboring industry. They send their steam there as part of the —
so that's why we call it the cogeneration. And it has two electrical
generating units, 44 megawatt units that total up to 88 megawatts.
And they burn a fuel blend of coal, derived tire fuel, we just call
that TDF, and wood. And you see the percentages for those there:
11, 40, and 49 respectively.
00:14:43 The facility description in the permit —and this is where
you would find it in the supplement to cover page of the permit
[ph]there's a few main parts that are related to which outfall.
And the first part I want to talk about is the fuel pile [ph] runoff,
which is coal, fuel, and the TDF. And then the low -volume
wastewater, which is a lot of different waste streams in the facility,
and that also goes to Outfall 001. Backwash from the boiler
feedwater demineralizer, boiler blowdown in the powerhouse,
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 7
accumulated water in the floors, and you know, miscellaneous [ph]
sump pumps. You know, any groundwater that leaks in, anything
like that, in the turbine building.
00:15:26 We've got wash water. This is new to this permit. It's —
they take a pressure washer —and I'll show you pictures —and
clean the mechanical drag system. Cooling tower blowdown is in
Outfall 002, and reverse osmosis can be found in Outfall 004. This
is an overview of the plant. And if I had a pointer, I could point
out some of the things to you. I'll kind of just do
[INDISCERNIBLE].
00:15:54 So this is the cooling towers. Over here is demineralizer
[ph]. The RO is here [ph]. This is the powerhouse. The fuel piles
are here. This is wood. This is coal. And this is the tire pile. This
is the wastewater plant [ph].
00:16:13 So, hopefully y'all heard me. And so the treatment
components consist of a distribution box and weir. And you can
see the distribution box there. And this is —they have two half -
million gallon settling basins as part of the treatment process. And
this is an aerial view of that, and you can see where Outfall 001—
which is the low -volume wastewater, Outfall 004, the RO water,
and Outfall 002 is the cooling tower blowdown.
00:16:48 And we see a map of the area. You see Duke Progress
Energy's Brunswick steam station is upstream on this canal. They
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 8
divert a large portion of the Cape Fear River for cooling. So CPI
discharges to that canal at Outfall 003, which is the final outfall.
And so all the internal outfalls001, 002, and 004combine to
Outfall 003. And you know, the numbers are out of sequence.
Well, 004 is a later addition for the RO [ph].
00:17:23 And you can see the facility is in red, and the line that is
underground traverses that railroad track in that arc to the canal.
And it discharges within —it's underwater within the canal, so they
take samples at the end of that treatment system that I showed you.
00:17:44 And this is showing some of the more aerial photographs
here. Here's the Cape Fear to the far right. And the nuclear power
plant is up —you can see it up towards the top there. And then the
small triangle at the bottom is CPI.
00:18:03 And this is the discharge from the nuclear power plant, its
1.9 billion gallons per day maximum flow. And they have an
NPDES permit, NC0007064. And you know, comparing the flows
of the two [ph], CPI's dilution is very great [ph] in that canal. The
line should be red, but it's so small, it's actually not showing up as
red. So that's about a little over 400,000 gallons.
00:18:38 Some more slides of show —you know, we're showing
some close-ups of what I talked about earlier, facility boundary
and the discharge location on the canal. And this is the —where it
discharges at the coast. And the canal actually goes under the
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 9
Intracoastal Waterway [ph] at one point. You can see it go back
[ph]. You can see where it —very bottom, where it crosses
underneath the Intracoastal Waterway.
00:19:04 And then you'll see —this shows it better. You can see the
plume [ph] where the discharge is at, as opposed to sediment being
kicked up by the flow. So that's, you know, nearly 2 billion
gallons.
00:19:17 Get into some of the monitoring here. We're monitoring
for flow, pH, TSS, and oil and grease for the coal pile run —fuel
pile runoff and the low -volume wastewaters. We increased [ph]
total suspended solids from —we lowered it from a hundred to 50
for the daily maximum, according to the federal standards.
00:19:46 This is another picture of the facility. And I don't have a
pointer to point everything out. I think I've been over that. And
the thing I want to point out in this diagram here is the green B
[ph] trenches or ditches. And that is how their —all the —so there's
stormwater in this permit, but it's considered a wastewater because
this is a categorical [ph] industry, and this is a —one area of this
categorical industry, it's regulated by 40 CFR 423. So all the fuel
pile runoffs go into that drainage ditch. You can see it better in
this close-up, and they all drain to the wastewater basin.
00:20:30 And this is a close-up of, you know, a lot of the low -
volume waste, the boiler blowdown are in that building, the main
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 10
powerhouse. It's a close-up of the fuel piles. You can see the
difference from the wood and the coal, and the tire -derived fuel.
And you can see those —these are the drainage ditches, and they all
converge down to Outfall 001. And then Outfall 004, this pipe
[ph] around this discharge right into the —and that's the OR [ph].
00:21:05 And this is a good view of the —you know, where the wood
chip pile is, and where it discharge —you know, it flows through
the silt screen [ph] into the V-ditch. And the coal pile, as well.
And this is a —this is where we draw the line between stormwater
and wastewater. So on this side of it, it's covered by the
stormwater permit, and Lauren [ph] is going to talk about coming
up. But the coal pile blows off into this V-ditch and drains to the
wastewater plant.
00:21:31 So they have a —they keep the different waters there
separated. Two different stormwaters, but one's considered a
wastewater for it [ph] —it comes in contact with the coal. This is
the tire -derived fuel pile, and they load it and take it down to the
plant. The rest of them are —you know, see these conveyors [ph].
They get —they convey them straight into the powerhouse. This is
the V-ditch coming in from behind the —so this is the tire pile here.
So that's the backside. So all of that drains into the —and here's a
V-ditch. We've seen this picture earlier on
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 11
00:22:13 I'll talk a little bit about the mechanical drag system. This
is needed in this permit, for this renewal. CPI requested to include
wash water. And what they're doing is, you know, they're taking
mechanical drag chain —drag chain system and washing it with a
pressure washer. And it amounts to a maximum of maybe 17,000
gallons in a given year, or if they have any in one given year at all.
And maybe twice a year, at most. That's a mechanical drag chain,
part of it. That's a new one they have stored in the yard on pallets,
to give you an idea of what we're talking about, a drag chain. So it
just drags the bottom ash out of it [ph].
00:23:00 So this is where —this is inside the building. And I showed
you a diagram of what it looked like. So you have the boilers up
here, and the bottom ash comes out through here, and is quenched
[ph], and the drag chain pulls it out. And as it goes up this
conveyor, it's dewatered, so it's very little water involved. This is
where the bottom ash comes out, and it's scooped up, and put on a
truck, and taken to a landfill.
00:23:31 This is the pressure washer I was talking about. It sits on
the back of a semi -trailer. So it's heavy-duty industrial. So they're
just, you know, doing some maintenance. That's what that 17,000-
gallon addition.
00:23:46 And this diagram shows a little bit of the solids handling,
you know, for the coal ash. So the fly ash is also —is taken to a
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 12
silo by vacuum, and it's handled along with the bottom ash, and
trucked off in a trailer. So there's no coal ash stored at this facility.
It's taken to an approved landfill off site.
00:24:13 Outfall 002 is a cooling tower blowdown, and there's —
we're monitoring for flow, pH, free available chlorine, chromium,
and zinc. Here's the cooling towers. And here's the close-up
picture of them.
00:24:35 Outfall 004 is the RO—yeah, this reverse osmosis, so
there's a lot more parameters we're looking at here, that are
included in our water treatment plant strategy that I applied to this
permit, as well as the limits for TSS, and oil and grease, and pH.
Another [ph] look at the powerhouse. So the RO system is down
at the bottom. You see those two storage tanks at the very bottom,
that building between them, that's where it's located. And another
look at the basin [ph], it comes in at Outfall 004 there. It
discharges to the sediment base.
00:25:13 And this is Outfall 003. This is the final outfall. We've
added some additional monitoring and continuous flow monitoring
to get an idea of what their total flow is. So that's a change for this
permit. We added toxicants, including zinc, copper, nickel,
chromium. A couple of those showed up and we asked them —we
rerated this permit as a major. So they're required to fill out the
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 13
EPA form for a major permit. And that included also doing a
pollutant scan.
00:25:42 And based on that pollutant scan, we added these toxicants,
these metals. And we also added a pollutant scan that's a
requirement once per permit cycle. In previous permit versions,
they were able to waive it based on chemical usage at the plant.
But now we're asking them to be a requirement once per permit
[ph] to monitor any toxicants.
00:26:03 Another look at the overview of the facility, where it's
going. A comment on a few footnotes that are conditions in the
permit, and one [ph], every outfall requires no PCBs be
discharged. PCBs were phased out in the late `70s for
transformers. You see a transformer at this building behind the
powerhouse. So there's no PCBs being stored there. There's no
oil being stored there for transformers. There's active transformers
in use. And that was listed among some of the activities in their
application. And there were some concerns about that.
00:26:48 And then there's another footnote. In the final discharge
there will be no floating solids or foam visible, trace amounts.
And that's out there, their wastewater plant, there's —the pipe is
underneath the channel, remember, so they can't really see what's
coming out there, but they can see what's leaving their treatment
plant, and they can note whether it has solids or foam visible there.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 14
00:27:14 Special conditions. If they want to use biocides to —you
know, anti -scaling [ph] agents, you know, and anything preventing
kind of growth of anything within the piping, within the boilers
[ph], and things like that, then they have to request approval from
us. And there's also electronic reporting requirement for this
permit, and every permit we have now.
00:27:39 A little bit of information about, you know, wrapping up
the public hearing today. Comment period closes on December the
23rd. Then the hearing officer before, maybe in January, we may
have it together, and a final decision sometime before February
19th for this permit, to meet the 90 days.
00:28:01 So, again, my name is Derek Denard. My supervisor is
John Hennessey. And here's our website. And I had —the most
interesting about —the thing about the facility is how they offload
chips [ph]. They have a —it's a lift that lifts the truck up and it
falls off with all the woodchips in the back.
That's it for me. And thank you for coming.
00:28:27 May: Thank you, Derek. Now that we have heard the presentation on
the wastewater permit, I will now ask Lauren Garcia from the
Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources to make a short
presentation for the draft —make a short presentation for the draft
stormwater permit, NCS000348.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 15
00:28:57 Garcia: Okay. So I am Lauren Garcia and I'm an environmental specialist
with the Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources. And
I'm the individual industrial permit writer. And that's my
supervisor, Annette Lucas, right there. Okay.
[TECHNICAL COMMENTS]
00:29:53 Garcia: I'm the environmental specialist with the Division of Energy,
Mineral, and Land Resources. And I'm in the individual industrial
permit writer for this stormwater permit with —at CPI.
00:30:04 And so I'm going to talk about the —well, I'm going to give
a stormwater permitting program overview, and then I'm going to
talk about what's at the facility, even though Derek went over a lot
of it already. And then I'm going to go through the draft
stormwater permit.
00:30:21 So, stormwater is permitted through the Division of
Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources, and we really just say
"DEMLR." But I'm in the stormwater program, which is broken
up into these five programs, and I'm in the industrial program.
And the NPDES is our National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System, and we have three different kinds of permits in that
program, which is the individual permit, the general permits, and a
no exposure certification. And this is an individual permit.
00:30:54 So our NPDES program is federally mandated, and it
covers a pretty wide variety of industrial activities. We determine
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 16
who is permitted by using the SIC Codes, the Standard Industrial
Classification Codes. There are 11 federally regulated categories.
And if the facility's SIC Code fits into one of those categories,
then it has to be permitted for either the general permit, the
individual permit, or the no exposure certification.
00:31:21 So the general permits, we have 21 different industrial
general permits that cover stormwater discharges associated with
industrial activities and construction. And some of those
categories are things like metal fabrication, or food and kindred,
landfills, and ready -mix concrete. The individual permits, which is
what this is, are for the facilities that don't fit into those general
categories. And then the no exposure certifications are for
facilities that have a SIC Code that triggers permitting, but they
don't have industrial materials in operations that are exposed to
stormwater. So it's just supposed to be a building and a parking
lot.
00:32:01 So, some important notes, after a facility is permitted, it is
allowed to discharge stormwater as long as it follows the
conditions of the permit. A stormwater permit is separate from a
wastewater or air quality permit. So these permitsmy
stormwater permits only pertain to stormwater. They are not for
wastewater, or air quality, or other aspects of environmental
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 17
protection. Those are other divisions, like the Division of Air
Quality, or Water Resources.
This is a map of all of the general —well, all of our
industrial permits within our program. So we're all over the place.
00:32:46 And so, the process starts —the facilities are not allowed to
discharge stormwater without a permit. New facilities have to
apply for a permit before they open. And existing facilities have to
reapply [ph] for renewal every five years, because our general —
our permit terms are for five years.
00:33:03 So, first, the facility has to complete an application form
and provide us with very detailed descriptions, like facility
activities, a list of industrial materials, chemicals, products, and
things that will be exposed to rainwater. They also have to provide
us with some pretty detailed maps that show drainage areas, and
outfall, and things like that. So we use that information to create
the permit.
00:33:27 For individual permits, I can require the facility to do extra
things, like to install extra 13MPs [ph], or perform more frequent
monitoring. It's just special things that the facility needs to
monitor for that the general permits don't cover.
00:33:44 So CPI Southport is renewing a permit, which expired in
2015, which is okay. The permit allows them to continue to
discharge under an expired permit if they apply for renewal within
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 18
180 days of the permit expiration. And they have to stay current
with their annual permit fees. So the facility has to continue to
operate under the conditions of the permit during this time.
Because sometimes we just can't get to the renewal in time, and it
just helps us keep everything regulated.
00:34:14 The renewal application asks for similar information to the
EPA forms they have to use to apply for the permit. And the
facility updates us with industrial changes, and they give us new
maps, and information like that.
00:34:31 So, Derek gave you a pretty good overview of the facility
already. But they burn a mixture of coal, tire -derived fuel, and
wood residuals. The coal burning at the power plant has been
reduced 90% because they also burn the tire -derived fuel and the
wood residuals. The tires, they're waste tires, and they keep it out
of the landfill, and then the wood residuals come from old rail ties
that are chipped on site.
00:35:01 So, Derek went over this one, but I just wanted to show it
as an example for the kinds of maps that they have to provide us in
the applications. Because you can see here, the little squiggly
lines, they show where all of the water —the stormwater is
draining, wherever it falls on the site. And you can see also
drainage areas, and there are all kinds of things like this in the
applications.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 19
00:35:27 So, they have Representative Outfall Status. When they
sample for stormwater from Representative Outfall 005, which I
have marked as that red star over there —Representative Outfall
Status is granted to facilities that have a single stormwater outfall
that's representative of discharges from multiple outfalls. They
have six outfalls in total at the site, and I have —so the orange ones
are special because those are internal outfalls.
00:35:57 The facility is surrounded by a man-made ditch. It's
basically a moat. And so all of the internal stormwater drains the
stormwater to this man-made ditch, and it all leaves the site
through Outfall 005. So all stormwater at the site leaves the outfall
through outfall—or the site through Outfall 005.
00:36:21 And then I wanted to do this Price Creek clarification. The
draft permit says that the facility discharges to Price Creek. But it
was discovered during the renewal process that this was a mistake.
Stormwater at the site does not discharge to Price Creek. It
discharges through this Duke Energy effluent channel, which is the
same place that the treated wastewater goes. The Duke Energy
effluent channel, it's —the influent and effluent channel, it's about
9.6 miles long, and it discharges from a pipe that's 2,000 feet
offshore into the Atlantic Ocean.
00:36:57 So, coal on the site. Materials potentially exposed to
stormwater include the coal, wood residuals, the tire -derived duel,
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 20
petroleum products, limestone, and ash. And coal for the boiler
plant is stored outside in the coal pile. The runoff is treated in the
low -volume wastewater system prior to discharge. It does not
drain to the stormwater system. And that's the same wastewater
system that Derek just talked about.
00:37:29 It should be noted that stormwater runoff from the coal, and
the wood, and the TDF files would never be permitted as a
stormwater discharge. The runoff from those areas is wastewater.
00:37:41 Coal is brought in by a rail at the north end of the plant, and
unloaded through a coal chute [ph], and transported by a conveyor
to the coal pile. The risk of the coal dust entering the stormwater
through other —does exist [ph], so they have BMPs, like vegetative
buffers, and they also spray water to get rid of the coal dust. And
then there's a lot of sweeping that goes on at the site.
00:38:04 So, I wanted to cover some —I wanted to show you some
pictures so that you could see the conditions at the site. Oh, I
needed . So the —before we go —limestone at the site,
that is used as a part of their air pollution control system. And the
limestone blowers and piping are sealed. And so it's not there's
not really a risk of it being exposed to stormwater. Yes.
00:38:34 So that —oh, these are the wastewater channels. And I
wanted you to be able to see how they contain all of the product on
the far side. So these —it keeps it out of the wastewater channels
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 21
that take it to the treatment area. And then, like Derek said, on the
other side of that is the stormwater.
00:39:01 So, that's a picture of the inside of the channel. And the
these fencings do a pretty good job of keeping the product out of
the wastewater channels. And then that's the wood chipping.
And, oh, so, that is the silo that they keep the fly ash in. The fly
ash are the light particles that come from combustion that are
carried out with gas fumes and air. And it stays in there. It's
totally enclosed in the ash silos, and they have systems in place to
catch the ash residues. And then the fly ash is trucked off site.
00:39:38 And then this other picture is the bottom ash. And that —
those are the heavy residuals left after the combustion process that
Derek was talking about, where it falls to the bottom, and then it
gets taken out by the drag chain. It doesn't leave this containment
area. It's swept back over the lip, and it's scooped out and
removed by truck.
00:40:04 And then these are two of the transformers that we saw on
site. And their transformer oil is contained in the transformers that
are in service. So there's not any other storage of the oil on site
other than what's being used in the transformers. There's no PCB
oil used on the site. And they have secondary containment, which
is this grating [ph] right here under the transformers. And it's
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 22
supposed to catch —if there were to be a leak, it's supposed to be
able to contain all of the oil that's in the transformer.
00:40:39 They also have a spill prevention control and
countermeasure plan to prevent spills. And it outlines in that plan,
they outline spill response. And they also have spill kits on site.
00:40:54 So, for the tire -derived fuel, that is a picture of where they
have it stored on site. It's burned by those concrete blocks along
the back. And TDF may spill from trucks on paved or gravel
roads, and the truck dumpsters, the conveyors, and the radial
stacker. So stormwater that flows over the access roads, it goes
through a sand filter. And then stormwater from the berm [ph] to
TDF storage area is diverted to the wastewater treatment basins.
00:41:24 The trucks are covered and tarped, or enclosed when not
being loaded or unloaded. And the paved roads are swept. And
then spilled materials are completely cleaned up.
00:41:34 So the switchyard, that's outlined in the red down there.
It's located within the CPI site, but the switchyard is owned and
maintained by Duke Energy. But the runoff from the switchyard
does contribute to the stormwater runoff from the facility. But
those transformers that are there are up in the air. So it's just
running over a parking lot, basically.
00:42:00 So, CPI has contracted out a portion of their facility to
National Salvage, which is a different company. They chip old
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 23
roadway ties on site for CPI to use in their fuel mixture. And
we're in the process of determining the best way to permit this
facility because they're a separate entity.
00:42:21 So, for the draft permit, you can go to our website, and the
short way to get there is just to go to deq.nc.gov/stormwater [ph].
And it will take you to a page that looks a lot like this, and it has
the same blue task bar on the side, and you want to click on
"Stormwater Public Notices," and then you want to click where
you're prompted, where it says "here," like the —right there, that is
circled in the red.
00:42:50 So this will take you to our public hearing event page,
where both the draft wastewater and the stormwater permits are
available. And you'll be able to view the drafts online after the
hearing. This page is also updated because I public —well, I'll talk
about this later, but I public -notice all of my permits. And so
you'll be able to click on them as they're updated.
00:43:15 And so, to issue or renew a permit, I contact the facility
when the renewal process begins. I review the application. I look
at all the monitoring data, the old staff reports, and other
documents in our permit file. And I draft the permit based on the
review. And then the draft permit goes out to the facility and the
applicable regional office for a 30-day comment period.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 24
00:43:43 And Brain Lambe back there is our regional office contact.
So that got sent to him, and then he went to do an inspection. So
then the draft permit gets published in the newspaper and on our
website for a 30-day comment period, which is where everyone
here saw it. And then, if you get enough public interest, then we
hold the public hearing. And then after all of that takes place, and
we make changes to the draft permit based on the inspection and
the comments from the facility, the staff, and the public. And then
that all goes through a final internal review, and then my
supervisor signs it.
00:44:28 So, this is the first page of the permit. And so theI
wanted to take you through what it contains. The first part is the
introduction, which is kind of standard. The meaty parts are in part
two, which goes through monitoring, controls, limitations for
permitted discharges. Part three is the standard conditions for
NPDES stormwater and individual permits. And then part four is
definitions.
00:44:58 So, the SWPPP, or the Stormwater Pollution Prevention
Plan, is exactly like it sounds. It's a pollution prevention plan for
stormwater. And those are —that's broken up into different
sections. The first part is the site overview, where they have to
give us things like facility descriptions. And then there's a
stormwater management strategy, spill prevention and response
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 25
procedures, preventative maintenance and good housekeeping,
facility inspections —because they have to do their own facility
inspections, and on top of the facility inspections that we do.
There's employee training, responsible parties, annual update
requirements, and SWPPP implementation.
00:45:38 So, the purpose of the SWPPP is for the facility to have an
extensive plan for keeping the site as clean as possible, to prevent
stormwater exposure to contamination. There's a lot of moving
parts involved in keeping the facility clean, like employee training,
the spill response, frequent inspections, and that's what that section
of the permit is for.
00:45 :5 8 And then the permit also requires that the facility —or the
facility has to continue to evaluate the feasibility of the SWPPP,
and then they have to make updates. DEQ assesses compliance
with the SWPPP during our facility inspections.
00:46:17 So, DEQ uses the information provided in the application
and our observations during the site inspections to determine
sampling parameters. And the permitting includes requirements
for when the facility can sample, how and by who. Samples are
taken semi-annually, and the facility turns in those analytical
results to us in a discharge monitoring report.
00:46:40 If there is not a measurable storm event in the six-month
time frame, then the facility can also —they submit a report to us
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 26
where there's no discharge. And I included that because I'm going
to show you the —all of the monitoring data. And if it just doesn't
have two monitoring events for one year, it's because they were
able to put "no discharge."
00:47:01 So, over there —I don't know why it's cut off on the end.
The —so those are all the parameters that this facility has to sample
for every time that they take a stormwater sample. And then those
are our benchmarks that they're measuring those samples against.
00:47:16 The benchmarks are determined by the Division of Water
Resource's planning section. And because of the sporadic nature
of rainfall, acute short-term effects to aquatic organisms are
considered when establishing those benchmarks. They're not
effluent limits [ph] —they're a tool for facilities to assess the
significance of pollutants in the stormwater discharges, and to
assess the effectiveness of the SWPPPs best management
practices.
00:47:42 And you will see here that some of the benchmarks are
listed as "NA." And then this is because we don't have adequate
data available to set benchmarks for these parameters where
these —this place —discharges into saltwater. As new data
becomes available, the benchmarks can be established, and we
allwe have all the data for the facility then to compare. DEQ
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 27
monitors the sampling data also for spikes that would indicate an
issue with the site.
00:48:10 And so this is the sampling data for the entire permit term.
Well, actually, it's more —because it's from 20oh, no, it is.
Okay. 2010 to 2019. And I color -coded it because even though
we have the NA benchmarks for saltwater, I wanted to —you to see
that what our benchmarks for freshwater are, and so that you can
see that they're not really exceeding those.
00:48:38 We're also working right now with DWR to see if we can
update some of these NA benchmarks. And also, some of the
benchmarks anyway since 2013 have been updated. And we have
been able to update a few of them, but the data is still being
reviewed. And, well, I think we —don't we get to make this
PowerPoint available on the —yes. So you'll be able to go online
and see —or it's also in the permit online, where —well, what they
have to sample for.
00:49:09 A lot of it has to do with what's on site, like the coal, and
the TDF, and the zinc. And then there are some other things, like
total suspended solids. But it's so that they can tell if any of that is
in their stormwater.
00:49:22 So, if there is an exceedance, we have a system built into
the permit for the facility to follow, to address and identify and
prevent future benchmark exceedances. So after one, you have —
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 28
you're in a Tier I, where you have to —and this is the shortened
version. It's a lot more extensive in the actual permit. But you
have to basically conduct an inspection, identify the source of the
exceedance, find ways to fix the issue, implement those changes,
and then you have to report it [ph] in the SWPPP.
00:49:53 Tier II, after you have two exceedances, it immediately
triggers monthly monitoring for every outfall, where each
consecutive exceedance occurred. And then you also have to
repeat the steps for Tier I. Monthly monitoring continues until
three consecutive samples are below the benchmark values. And
then if you have more, then you're in Tier III, where the facility
has to report it to the regional office, and then function under the
new requirements of the Tier III, which is things like implementing
stormwater control measures, sampling for additional or substitute
parameters, implementing site modifications, and things like that.
00:50:28 That is the meatiest part of the stormwater permit. So the
remaining parts can be reviewed online. Part III is a lot of standard
language, and it's really similar to our general permits. And then
Part IV is definitions. And then that, again, is the website where
you can go to look at everything. And then that's my contact
information.
00:50:58 May: Thank you, Lauren. That concludes the division's presentation.
At this time, we will hear from audience members who have
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 29
signed up to speak. I will call on those who signed up to speak.
We will make effort to hear from all who have signed up. So
please make your way to the podium as quickly and efficient as
possible to ensure that we are able to hear from as many people as
possible who have signed up within the time allowed.
00:51:26 There will be a three -minute time limit for providing
comments. Again, there will be a three -minute time limit for
providing comments. Staff will keep track of the time and raise a
sign to indicate when you have one minute left, 30 seconds left,
and when your time is up.
00:51:44 Comments should be concluded when your time is up.
Speakers are encouraged to provide a written copy of their
comments. Cross-examination of speakers will not be allowed.
However, I may ask questions for clarification. We ask that
everyone respect the right of others to speak without interruption.
00:52:05 To ensure that everyone has a clear view of the
proceedings, we ask that you refrain from waving signs inside the
meeting area. If anyone has a sign, we ask that you place it along
the wall at the conclusion of the hearing so we can take photos to
include as part of the hearing record.
00:52:23 I will now call speakers in the order that they registered.
To ensure that our records are accurate, please clearly state your
name, and if applicable, the organization you are representing. In
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 30
addition, we ask that you identify other associations you may have
that have bearing on your input tonight. For example, if you are
appearing on your own behalf, but have obtained information from
or provided research to another group that is interested in this
matter, please indicate so. And thank you for your cooperation.
00:52:56 And just a quick safety comment, as speakers come up, just
be mindful of the cords up around the podium, and be careful to
not trip.
00:53:17 May: So our first speaker that we have tonight —and apologies if I
mispronounce anybody's name but —Carol Kozlowski [ph].
00:53:36 Kozlowski: Good evening. My name is Carol Kozlowski. My husband Peter
and I own a home that backs up to Price's Creek and Capital
Power.
00:53:45 I understand that the purpose of this meeting tonight is to
discuss the renewal of CPI's permits to discharge wastewater into
the Atlantic Ocean, and I thought, stormwater into Price's Creek,
but that has been corrected. So everything goes to the Atlantic
Ocean.
00:54:02 I would ask that you strengthen their permit request to
better protect our residents and our water. I feel it is also very
important to discuss the ash that is emitted from the plant. The ash
is a direct result of CPI's burning of tires and railroad ties. The ash
is visible on our outdoor furniture, our pool, the exterior of our
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 31
home, our sidewalks. And I know this is not just an issue
exclusive to our neighborhood, but also in surrounding
neighborhoods. And depending on the way the wind blows, even
residents of other areas in Southport are affected.
00:54:40 In the summer of 2016, the Environmental Management
Commission granted the plant a special order of consent. A
facility can be granted a special order of consent if it is consistently
unable to comply with the terms, conditions, or limitations in a
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. CPI's
Southport plant's special order of consent will expire in December
of 2020.
00:55:15 I cannot imagine that CPI's discharge into the water and air
are safe for us or the environment. In addition to these impacts on
our air and water, operations at CPI make constant noise. When
CPI opens their vents, it sounds like a jet engine taking off, and the
noise can go on for hours. Have you examined the impact that the
sound pollution has on local wildlife populations?
00:55:43 Furthermore, the noise generated [ph] by CPI, in addition
to this visible ash, is detrimental to our property's value. I
respectfully ask that you consider all the ways CPI is polluting our
environment when making your decision on renewal. I personally
believe if CPI cannot meet the standards, the best solution for the
residents of Southport would be closure of this plant. Thank you.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 32
[APPLAUSE]
May: Our next speaker is Mr. Edward Dazewiezri [ph].
M: [INDISCERNIBLE]
00:56:27 Dazewiezri: Hi. My name is Ed Dazewiezri. I live on 128 Northwest Street
[ph] in Oak Island. I'm here because I'm concerned, period. If I
ramble, I apologize. But here we have a plant that is almost like a
third -world country plant. It's burning tires. It's burning coal.
And it's burning wood. The presentation over here is very
representative of how we're trying to control what's going on to be
going on over there. But how do we enforce and how do we
guarantee that all these things are going to be in place?
00:57:06 I worry that if something happens, you know, we could
easily change a time when an effluent is checked or something like
that. And we're measuring total suspended solids, but what are
those total suspended solids? We have 26 areas here —I mean,
areas where we're concerned about 26 pollutants. But in the article
that I read, the item I read, it says —let me see. Hold on. Yeah,
here we go.
00:57:38 Number 18 on a letter from —to David Groves from Derek
Denard. And it's Item 18. It says, "Monitoring for 126 priority
pollutants has been changed from grab sampling to composite
sampling. The frequency for monitoring has been reduced to once
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 33
per permit cycle." Now, to me, that sounds like once every five
years, but I'm not sure.
00:58:07 And also, it says that, you know —it sounds like a lot of the
monitoring is going to have be done by the company itself. And I
don't know what you guys do as far as monitoring them with
audits, or surprise inspections, or things like that. And I'm just
concerned. I just don't have any faith in the system because we get
our water supply from the Cape Fear River. And Chemours [ph]
has promised the world that it's not going to be dumping chemicals
in there. And as a result to that, we have to resort to Brunswick
County to putting in a reverse -osmosis system to eliminate the
pollutants that put —they're putting into the river.
00:58:54 It would seem to me we should be more source -concerned
than end -user -concerned [ph]. And I heavily believe that this has
to be monitored and kept an eye on. And relying on you people to
keep us safe. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Mr. William North.
00:59:19 North: First of all, I don't enjoy talking before a group. Mike [ph], could
you bring that up please? My name is William North. I live in
Price's Creek, the Cottages at Price's Creek, with my wife
Penelope. We've been there —thank you —we've been there three
years. When we first came to Southport, we were dealing with a
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 34
the fallout from a fly ash release from the plant in late 2017. It
covered very large areas of our community, well into Southport
itself. The company was not forthcoming in telling us about this
event, or the nature of the contaminant that was falling on our
homes. They said it was fly ash, and then they stuck to their story.
01:00:11 It was greasy. It was adhesive. It was hard to remove with
detergent. It wasn't just fly ash. And it smelled bad. We never
had a determination on what that stuff was.
They said it was a small release. I asked at the meeting
with the mayor, "What do you mean by small release?" I was told,
"Four or five tons of fly ash." We can't trust CPI to be
straightforward with their information.
01:00:42 The noise levels at the plant, as been addressed [ph], are
very bad. It's, like, we live half a mile from the plant. It's like
living near a freeway. It's constant drone of that plant day and
night, punctuated by when they run the chipper. The chipper
sounds like it's in your backyard. It's —you can't have
conversations inside your house or on your porch when the chipper
is running. And worst of all is the release of high-pressure steam.
When they vent this high-pressure steam, it literally sounds like a
jet engine is adjacent to your house. And this has been addressed,
also.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 35
01:01:23 The smell that comes from that plant, it smells like
petrochemical. It could be tire residue. It could be creosote from
the railroad ties. Whatever it is, if you smell something, you ingest
whatever that is. If you can smell it, it's entering your body.
Whatever it is, I have a hunch it's not good for people, or animals,
or plants. It has to be addressed. That smell that comes from the
plant is constant whenever the wind comes from the northeast
toward our house.
01:01:57 The chemicals being released by the plant are worrisome
[ph]. We've had a good presentation of what they are. I'll just say
that if you allow a company, no matter what their resources are, to
monitor themselves, to be in compliance with regulations —look at
Boeing aircraft. [APPLAUSE] One of our best corporations, one
of the most highly respected corporations in this county, maybe in
the world, and look at the mess they're in because the government
let them certify their test results.
01:02:32 The issue about our wastewater runoff into Price's Creek,
I'm glad that was resolved. It is not an issue. I would like to say
that if you go onto Facebook, there are photographs of the area
underneath the filter.
[INAUDIBLE]
May: If you have a bag, you can leave that at the back for a photograph
at the end.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 36
North: Okay.
M: What is it?
01:03:04 North: Okay. This is what gets wiped off our porches every day. It is
fallout from the plant [ph].
M: All right.
F: [INDISCERNIBLE]
[APPLAUSE]
May: Our next speaker is Nick Jimenez.
01:03:26 Jimenez: Hi. Thank you all. I'm Nick Jimenez from the Southern
Environmental Law Center. We've submitted some written
comments on the draft permits on behalf of Cape Fear River
Watch, Coastal Federation, Sierra Club, and Brunswick
Environmental Action Team.
01:03:40 I want to thank you first for having this and for bringing so
many folks down here. ThisI found the presentations incredibly
helpful. I guess I want to cover a couple of highlights from our
concerns, and one that I don't think that we fully covered in our
written comments, that maybe we'll submit in this new comment
period.
01:03:55 The first is the testing. So CPI, in the DMRs that we
reviewed, did not submit a DMR for Outfall 003, based on the
permit filed that —as we saw it. And the permit limits that they
have been testing for, of course, are the old permits, dating from
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 37
2011. We learned from Mr. Denard today that there was a
pollutant scan when the was properly redesignated to
major NPDES [ph], which is great. We didn't understand that
from the permit review until now.
F: Can you speak up?
01:04:27 Jimenez: Sorry about that. I'm trying to get through a lot. But based on that
designation, we believe that the facility needs to retest for primary
industry pollutants under regulations. We believe it's also subject
to whole effluent toxicity testing and that a primary pollutant
analysis should be done before this permit is finalized.
01:04:50 As far as best available technology, as I'm sure you all are
aware, that for steam -electric power generation, the effluent
limitation guidelines are zero discharge, no discharge for bottom
ash transport water. But it appears that some of the water from
the —washing out the drag chain pit is going into the settling
ponds, and then into the canal.
01:05:13 And the new issue that I don't think we really teed up in
our written comments so far is the removed substances provision,
which a standard NPDES provision, and is in the draft permit.
That says pollutants removed in the course of treatment shall be
utilized or disposed of in accordance with NC General Statute 143-
215.1, and in a manner to prevent any pollutants from such
materials from entering the waters of the state, except as
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 38
authorized by the permit. This permit, of course, doesn't authorize
bottom ash solids going into the canal, and it's a little clearer after
these presentations, but it appears that that could be the case. So
we also have that concern.
01:05:51 And I guess the last concern is touching on stormwater. So
it was very helpful to learn that the stormwater is not going into
Price Creek. That's great. We do still have concern about the
depth of those ditches and what happens when you get severe rain
in this area. Our understanding is that the permit limits are based
on a 10-year rainfall event, which is set at about seven -and -a -half
inches, but we're seeing excess of that every year lately.
01:06:19 And —we were a little unsure whether PCBs are in the
existing transformer oil, and it —on the permit review, it appeared
that there was not full secondary containment. It sounds like there
aren't PCBs, and there is full containment, which I'm glad to hear
is the case. There are a lot of other substances stored on site that
are concernmg.
01:06:40 So, given the extent of the rains we've been having, we
are —a review of the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, which
as we understand it, is not submitted to the state. It's kept on site
and is simply supposed to be up to standards, although it is a public
document. So we would urge publicizing that and giving it a good
look. Thank you.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 39
[APPLAUSE]
May: Kerri Allen.
[INAUDIBLE]
01:07:09 Allen: Good evening. My name is Kerri Allen and I am the coastal
advocate for the southeast region of the North Carolina Coastal
Federation. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to
protecting and restoring our coast. And we currently represent
over 16,000 members throughout the state.
01:07:36 We are here tonight asking you to strengthen CPI's permits.
We recognize the significant efforts that have gone into these draft
permits, and the improvements that have been made. However, far
too much is still unknown.
01:07:49 After reviewing the draft wastewater permit, it is clear that
there is not enough information provided to fully evaluate the total
impacts that discharges from CPI have on the natural and
economic health of the region. Before we can protect our
residents, we must fully understand what is being mixed into near -
shore [ph] waters up and down our coast.
01:08:08 As we've learned tonight, CPI produces close to 400,000
gallons of wastewater a day, including nearly three300,000
gallons of processed water. The discharge from the facility
contains contaminants associated with bottom ash transport water,
as well as coal, wood, and tire -derived fuel pile runoff. Coal ash
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 40
contaminants, which include arsenic, mercury, lead, and cadmium,
to name a few, pose serious health risks, as does ash from
adulterated [ph] and creosote -treated wood.
01:08:35 In addition to the fuel piles, a wide variety of materials at
the facility are exposed to precipitation. Of greatest concern is
approximately 20,000 gallons of transformer oil, which often
contains PCBs. I understand tonight, that may or may not be the
case. These materials are harmful if released into the environment,
and the threat of release grows each year as climate change makes
severe storms more frequent and more severe.
01:08:57 In order to strengthen the draft permit, we ask DEQ to
require CPI to test its wastewater and set limits in this permit,
based on test results. As well as prohibit CPI from discharging
bottom ash transport water.
01:09:10 Per the Clean Water Act, polluters must control their
discharges using the best available technology. As shown in
SELC's analysis, better wastewater treatment is technologically
and economically achievable. The burden of providing sufficient
evidence to reasonably ensure that the proposed [ph] system will
comply with all applicable water quality standards falls on the
permit holder, and DEQ, as they are under clear obligation to use
this information to protect public health and the environment.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 41
01:09:36 We thank you for your time and for the opportunity to
present these comments. We are confident that DEQ will continue
to work to strengthen these permits in order to fully address the
environmental and public health concerns to ensure the protection
of our residents and coastal resources.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Thank you. Ms. Deborah Ahlers.
01:10:01 Ahlers: Good evening. I'm Deborah Ahlers and I'm the mayor of the
Town of Caswell Beach. And I have to say one thing that
although we're very happy that Price's Creek is not receiving the
stormwater, it concerns me that now we know that both the
discharge from the wastewater and the stormwater are going in
front of the beaches at Caswell Beach.
01:10:28 The Town of Caswell Beach wishes to thank the staff at the
North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of
Water Resources for allowing the town to submit comments on the
proposed wastewater permit application for CPI USA, North
Carolina. We appreciate the hard work that you and your staff are
doing and providing for the people of North Carolina.
01:10:47 Caswell Beach is located just a short distance from where
the permits states that wastewater, and now we know stormwater,
from CPI will be discharged into the Atlantic Ocean. Healthy
town beaches and good recreational water quality are critical for
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 42
the Town of Caswell Beach. This summer, the population of
Caswell more than quadrupled as tourists vacation in our town to
enjoy our beaches and our clean ocean water.
01:11:10 After reading the draft permit application, Caswell Beach
respects that —respectfully asks that North Carolina Department of
Environmental Quality require that all chemicals that are
reasonably expected in this discharge stream be identified and
monitored as part of the required condition for permit approval.
Caswell Beach also feels that limits should be placed on each
potentially harmful chemical in the stream, and be restricted as
necessary, to preserve the health of our community and of our
environment.
01:11:40 Caswell Beach has no interest in causing our corporate
neighbors any undue regulatory burdens. We do, however, feel
that it is our obligation to know what chemicals are in the
discharge stream, and that those chemicals are regulated and
limited. We trust that CPI and the North Carolina Department of
Environmental Quality will work to assure the residents and
visitors of Caswell Beach that the discharge stream will not pose
any hazards to our town or to our waters. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE] And we thank you for the opportunity.
May: Peter Key.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 43
01:12:23 Key: Good afternoon. My name is Peter Key. I'm the president of
Brunswick Environmental Action Team. Brunswick
Environmental Action Team thanks the staff for the North Carolina
Department of Environmental Quality for allowing comments to be
submitted on the proposed permit application for CPI USA. We
appreciate the hard work that you do, and that your staff provides
for the health and safety for the citizens of North Carolina.
01:12:55 BEAT is a group of Brunswick County residents whose
mission is to embrace and support conservation and protection of
the environment as core values in personal, business, and
governmental decision -making. The objective is to enhance,
preserve, and maintain the Brunswick County living experience.
We have frequently come alongside local government agencies to
bring healthy and safe alternatives to challenging environmental
issues in our county.
01:13:19 Methods such as the methyl bromide situation up in
Columbus County. We worked with the Town of Sunset Beach in
in the Jinks Creek project down there. We're currently working on
this one, and also working with Southport on their wastewater
treatment facility that is planned to be located in a flood zone.
Yes.
01:13:40 Because we support a healthy and safe environment for our
residents, we are very concerned when we learned that CPI USA
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 44
was requesting a permit to dispose of toxic bottom ash in the
ocean, directly off Caswell Beach, where our families and the
families of tens of thousands of North Carolinians recreate each
year. We are also concerned about the impacts these activities may
have on the ocean ecosystems and wildlife.
01:14:01 We have read that the toxic chemicals CPI USA is dumping
are diluted to levels not harmful to humans, and yet, the
vacationing tourists knew that —if vacationing tourists knew that
these chemicals were being dumped at unknown times of the year,
they may be inclined to go elsewhere. This would endanger the
economy we have built from tourism on the southeastern shores of
North Carolina. Therefore, we feel that no level of bottom ash
dumping is acceptable.
01:14:25 After reading the draft permit application, BEAT [ph]
respectfully requests that the North Carolina Department of
Environmental Quality reject the application to discharge these
toxic compounds into the ocean. Instead, since as the permit
states, only 17,000 gallons a year are discharged, and a typical full-
sized tanker truck is 11,000 gallons, CPI USA should be required
to capture the effluent and ship it via tanker truck to a disposal
facility similar to what Duke Energy is doing with their own coal
ash.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 45
01:14:52 Two tanker truck's loads can't be too much of a burden on
a company as large as Capital Power. We believe that none of this
waste product should be allowed to reach the public when such an
easy alternative exists. We believe that ADM and Duke Energy,
our other large corporations [ph] are good neighbors who do a lot
of good in our communities. We support them in the endeavor to
make Brunswick County a great place to live and play.
01:15:15 In light of some of the comments that we have heard
tonight, I would like to add the additional comment. It seems like
we've cleared up and created some other confusion and
incongruencies. And my suggestion would be that CPI USA host a
tour of the facility with local leadership. That includes the towns
of Oak Island, Caswell Beach, Southport, local news agencies, and
any other interested parties, so that they can show people what they
do at the facility, how it works, and how it relates with the permit
process. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Lynn Baker [ph].
01:15:53 Baker: Good evening. I also was an environmental specialist for the New
York Department Environmental Conservation, shellfish division
[ph]. So I'm kind of familiar with what we're talking about
tonight.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 46
01:16:22 First it was GenX toxic compounds that have been
discharged into our river for years. These poison our drinking
water and the health of marine life in our waters. Then they
lowered the standards of the Clean Water Act. And then we have
the threat of drilling off of our shores. Now we find out that a
power plant, CPI, one that very few people even are aware it
exists, is releasing wastewater containing toxic chemicals to the
Atlantic off Caswell Beach.
01:17:02 DEQ is the lead stewardship agency for the protection of
North Carolina environmental resources, including air quality,
water quality, and public health. It states on its website that it
encourages responsible behavior with respect to the environment,
it enhances and ensures our quality of life.
01:17:28 So, how is it that DEQ allows anyone to dump large
quantities of any toxic chemical into our waterways? Only six
football fields off the beach at Caswell, only to be washed up on
the next high tide. How is that okay? Four hundred thousand
gallons of wastewater a day, including bottom ash. This is not an
insufficient amount. Bottom ash is a byproduct of coal combustion
and has beenI'm sorry. I can't read my own writing.
[LAUGHTER] And has been added to the facilities wastewater
since the plant's last permit renewal. Added after the renewal.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 47
01:18:20 DEQ does not know what CPI is emitting [ph]. These
pollutants should be identified before issuing a new permit. Right
now, the Clean Water Act requirements only apply to one waste
stream, and this plant has several.
01:18:37 The new —the North Carolina Senate has made it clear that
they are out to protect the interest of big business, not the health of
constituents of North Carolina. The Southern Environmental
Legal Center has asked for a detailed analysis of the waste before
issuing a permit. Why doesn't DEQ know what is in the
wastewater? And if it does know, why don't we? Is this the
legacy we want to leave behind? A toxic stew of incinerated tires,
creosote -treated lumber, and coal.
01:19:15 Enough. DEQ, do your job. Protect us, don't protect CPI.
No coal ash discharge. No renewal until we know the full scope of
May:
Baker:
[APPLAUSE]
May:
01:19:43 Wilkins:
M/F:
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
what exactly is in the —
Thank you.
wastewater and storm runoff. I'm done [ph].
Emily Wilkins [ph].
I'm Emily Wilkins. I'm representing myself. I am a resident of
Caswell Beach.
Louder [ph].
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 48
01:19:56 Wilkins: Okay. I will. [LAUGHTER] Thank you for providing this forum
so that I have the opportunity to ask you to please protect us from
industrial waste and pollution in our environment. Also, I'm here
to invite you, any of the representatives of DEQ here tonight, to
join me at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning at a site where you will get
a personal feel for life at Caswell Beach, and where the overview
of the map —be in that environment [ph].
01:20:35 Caswell Beach is a small town of 400. It sits on the east
end of Oak Island. And you can see from this vantage point that I
invite you to join me, the beach, the dunes, the maritime forest that
abuts the beach, and the beach road. From this spot, I am
confident that you can make a better informed decision if you see
for yourself the Duke Energy canal, see where it actually —the
discharge pipe goes under the beach road, then under the beach,
and under the sea, to discharge within easy eyesight just off the
shore.
01:21:17 From this vantage point, you can see the disturbance in the
ocean water where the discharge enters the ocean. You may see
boats there, at that warm spot in the water. The fish caught in that
spot have long fed families in Brunswick County. On warm days,
you would surely see children and families on the beach enjoying
wading in the water and fishing.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 49
01:21:43 You can see this and more from the deck of the Tom Hess
crossover. If you cannot come —one of you said your wife
required you to be home tonight. But if you cannot come
tomorrow morning, perhaps you can envision this place, that
counts on you, your expertise, your oversight, and your
monitoring. And your job and decision -making is making so
important. We depend on you for protection from more
environmental damage and dangers to our area.
01:22:22 My name is Emily Wilkins. I will meet you tomorrow at
9:00 a.m. on Caswell Beach Road, at the intersection with
Oceangreens Lane, at the Tom Hess crossover to the beach. Please
join me.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Joe Hatem.
[APPLAUSE]
01:22:57 Hatem: I'm mightily impressed to see all y'all here tonight. Thank you for
being here. And I want to thank DEQ for this presentation. I came
here to learn. So as you speak, I take notes. I've learned so much
in a very short period of time, so I thank you all for that.
01:23:20 I just wanted toI'm just going to read two quotes. One is
from my campaign in 2015. As you know, I ran several times.
[LAUGHTER] But this is from 2015, and the reason I'm reading
this is because my platform was for the health of the city, and this
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 50
was in particular, the health of our environment. "Southport is
blessed with the maritime forest, gorgeous live oaks, the beautiful
Cape Fear River flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. The Intracoastal
Waterway, creeks, and marshes, and all need to be preserved and
protected, allowing these habitats to thrive.
01:23:59 "We will promote public health measures that provide
clean water and clean air, and ally with county, state, and federal
agencies, as well as conservation groups, to enhance our
environmental treasures."
01:24:12 Most people when they read that, they thought that that was
probably the least important part of the platform. But I tried to tell
them, you had to vigilant. No, maybe we didn't know about GenX
in 2015, and we certainly —I didn't know until recently, that
Capital Power was putting that effluent into the Duke canal and it's
going out to Caswell Beach.
01:24:36 The it —the other thing that is so impressive is the
engineering aspect of this. I mean, you think of the power plant
there, you think of ADM, think of CPI. If they have the
technology to have these plants there, they have the technology so
there will be zero emissions from that plant. [APPLAUSE] It's in
our water. It's in our lungs. It's in your children, it's —your pets,
in our plants.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 51
01:25:09 The second quote is from a professor at UNC School of
Public Health. "Everyone is impacted by air pollution. But our
exposure is far more complicated than what we knew before.
What we are trying to investigate and highlight is what are the true
drivers of toxicity in the atmosphere. Not only the atmosphere, but
in our water, in the ground." I mean, we still don't know the full
ramifications of what we're being exposed to. The stuff that
you're wiping off your cars, you can't wipe it out of your lungs.
So we have to be vigilant.
01:25:58 The other thing that I just want to say briefly, I did not
realize, is 1.9 billion gallons a day coming out of Duke power
plant, including that effluent. That's pretty impressive. And
Karen [ph], we thought we had an issue with 750,000 in the sewer
plant. So we —that really pales compared to that.
01:26:20 But I'm here as a physician. I'm here as mayor -elect. I
want to hear from you at the next board of alderman meeting. We
want to look into this. I'm happy to go out to the plant and look
around and inspect [ph]. And anything I can do as mayor and as a
physician, we will do to protect our environment and protect our
citizens. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Karen Mosteller [ph].
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 52
01:27:00 Mosteller: Thank you so much for being here and having this forum. A lot of
well -learned people have spoken about the science, and I just
wanted to make just a couple of comments.
01:27:15 One, I just, from a stormwater perspective, I just wanted to
make sure that y'all were aware that a couple years ago we had a
fire there, and so our fire department responded, and it took about
14 hours to put it out. And it was woodchips and creosote mixed.
And they ultimately had to sort of spread it out away from the
chopped -up tires so they didn't catch on fire.
01:27:39 So water —of course, a lot of water was in that process of
putting out that fire. And so I know that becomes stormwater-ish
runoff. And so I just want to make sure that sort of —kind of the
conversation is also factored in because that is something besides
just the toxicity of what goes into the air.
01:27:58 And then, I —one thing I also wanted to say was —and I
have —I think this is the air quality report, or study, but in it, it
talks about —one of the things it says is that our area is classified
as rural. And with all these people here, we're not really what
rural —rural conjures up it's out where no people live. These
people live right up against where this is. And I just want to make
sure that as guidelines are being applied, that in `87, when this
plant was built, none of us lived that close to that. And it's a very
different environment.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 53
01:28:41 So I just wanted to also mention that. And again, thank
you. Thank you for being here.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Chap Haddon [ph].
01:29:02 Haddon: Good evening. My name is Chap Haddon. I'm a resident of the
City of Southport and live in the Turtlewood subdivision, which is
a neighbor to CPI, right next door. I'm here tonight to first thank
you for taking the time to open up and allow us to speak to you
about this, but also, to express some concerns for not only today,
which this permits attests to, but tomorrow. I think we've asked
some of the questions that are pertinent to what we need to
understand today.
01:29:37 But what is the impact for tomorrow? And to understand
that, you need to really look back into the past. Now, I've asked
the question is [ph], what is in the cooling canal today? This
permit addresses how much goes out. And if I add up 32 years'
worth of bottom ash, that would be about 544,000 gallons, if I
understand, if my math is correct. That's a significant amount of
material that could still be in the bottom of that canal.
01:30:02 Although it was pointed out to me tonight that that swift
water going through there, the accumulation and the biology of
that area, it could be fairly significant, and we really need to
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 54
understand that to make a significant decision on what we do going
forward.
01:30:17 The plant was also built in 1987. And with that in mind, it
was built with 1987 standards for pollution control. And as the
time goes on, have we updated those standards to what we can do
today in both processes, and procedures, and equipment?
01:30:33 I ask you to clearly take a look at that for the future of our
children, our grandchildren that will be living here. I do agree with
Karen, as she states that this is no longer a rural area. We set
closer than Price's Creek, closer than Arbor Oaks. And I will
attest to the fact that we do have to clean our houses fairly
frequently. Our cars are coated in materials. I've even been in the
City of Southport and seen it there. And we need to understand
what is in the materials. Not in —only the water, but also in the air.
01:31:09 As Dr. Hatem pointed out, what we breathe into our lungs
can clearly impact us, and could be significant to both the elderly
population, and also to the young people.
01:31:20 Again, I thank you for your time and taking the time to be
here, to listen to us, and allow us to express our concerns, as well
as to look at what we need to do in the future. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Lora Sharkey.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 55
01:31:42 Sharkey: Good evening. I'm Lora Sharkey. And first, I want to say thank
you to Lauren and Annette [ph] for the very productive
conversation we had last Friday. I appreciate it. You answered
some of the questions that you've addressed here tonight, but I got
it first-hand, about discharges, and PCBs, and other concerns that I
had. So thank you very much for that conversation.
01:32:12 I am Lora Sharkey. I am a resident of Southport, North
Carolina, and I'm an elected official for the City of Southport. I
am here on behalf of the Southport Board of Aldermen to provide
feedback on the proposed NPDES stormwater permit for Capital
Power.
01:32:28 While the CPI power plant does not sit within Southport
city limits, there are city neighborhoods and an assisted living
facility in close proximity to CPI, and we feel it is our
responsibility to participate in this public hearing.
01:32:45 The plant —these comments are not indicative of any
dislike for CPI or its employees. The plant has been supportive
[ph] of Southport in the face of hardship, particularly dealing with
hurricanes, and most particularly, Hurricane Florence. These
comments are simply intended to express the desire to see the best
practices adopted, to protect the well-being of our residents, the
waters we swim in, collect food from, and simply appreciate.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 56
01:33:13 It is public knowledge that CPI plant is permitted to burn a
variety of materials as fuel in the creation of steam and electricity.
These materials include shredded tires, woodchips, railroad ties,
and some coal. Combustion of these materials result in ash that
contains contaminants that will be hazardous to the water and soil
if not adequately treated or removed from the wastewater before
disposal.
01:33:40 The City of Southport requests that CPI be required to
monitor contaminant levels and treat their stormwater and
wastewater discharges in a manner that meets or exceeds water
quality standards set forth in the Clean Water Act.
01:33:54 Additionally, the city requests that CPI be tasked with
improving containment of contaminated stormwater during flood
conditions. There's a statewide effort to direct and guide all
municipalities in flood -prone areas to become more resilient in the
face of climate change and increased rainfall amounts during storm
events. This proactive stance should also be applied to industry to
safeguard [ph] human health. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
01:34:33 May: Well, at this time, we've heard from those that have registered to
speak. I would ask at this time if there's anybody else that did not
register who wishes to provide comment? Yes, sir? And if you
would, please state your name when you speak.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 57
01:34:53 Webb: My name is Tom Webb [ph]. I am a —new kids on the block.
Peggy and I are new residents here. We've been here about two
months. And I just want to say that we live a little bit farther away
than we've heard from some other folks. But I've still been woken
up during the night when the grinding is going on. And clean my
car on a regular basis.
01:35:24 And it's disturbing. We came here because Southport
offered something totally unique. And I'm up here now because
I'm on to put my mouth where my money is. And I've been
contributing to environmental action groups all my life. And I
finally have to get up and say enough is enough.
01:35:50 So, the two things that stood out to me were the stormwater
collection. It doesn't seem like it would take a whole lot to figure
out how much of a storm would have [ph] for it to overflow. And
I've heard about Florence. I was wondering whether there's been
any looking at what really happened at the plant when we received
35, 40 inches of rain. And that chance is increasing all the time,
from what we hear.
01:36:20 The other thing that got my attention, time and time again,
from what I saw —at least this is how I interpreted it —that a lot of
the information comes from CPI itself. [LAUGHTER] And I don't
know what —it doesn't seem like the energy companies in this
country are all that honest these days. So if, in fact, we are getting
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 58
our information from them, and basing a permit on what they're
telling us, can we be proactive and do testing to find out whether
they're facts are, in fact, facts, not made up? So. Thanks for the
opportunity, and we have a lot of trust in you, so please honor it.
Okay. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
M: question, comment [ph].
May: If there's another speaker, you're welcome to come. And again—
M: [INDISCERNIBLE]
May: If you would, please state your name and who you might be
affiliated with.
01:37:39 Yarb: My name is Bud Yarb and I'm a resident of the Landing [ph]. I'm
affiliated with myself and my family. [LAUGHTER] And I just
have a couple of comments.
01:37:48 One, and this goes probably to Dr. Hatem back there [ph].
I'd be very interested in looking at the statistics for upper
respiratory infections in the Southport region. I'd also be very
interested in looking at the number of brain tumors in the
Southport area because we have some friends that have come down
with brain tumors, and there's one location within the city that has
a preponderance for brain tumors.
01:38:13 And thirdly, I'd like to know if CPI and the organizations
ever submitted a risk assessment to your organization or anyone
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 59
else. Or if you have a risk assessment for CPI and ADM. Are you
familiar with the required risk assess —requirements for these
companies?
01:38:37 May: Right now I would apologize, but we're —this isn't a question -and -
answer session.
Yarb: [INDISCERNIBLE]
May: But that's something that we could follow up on [ph].
Yarb: It's not a question. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much then.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Does anybody else wish to speak or provide comment? This
gentleman on the front.
01:39:02 Jakus: Hi. My name is Bob J-A-K-U-S, Jakus. And I'm a citizen of Oak
Island. And I'm also a person who works with the Brunswick
Environmental Action Team. I've also served with the Beach
Preservation Society of Oak Island for numerous years, though I'm
not —I was their treasurer, and I'm not on that group any longer.
But I support and love everything that they do.
01:39:37 I worked for years as an educator. I'm a retired teacher. I
was a middle school, and high school, and community college
teacher. And I even in years past taught here and had some
students, math here [ph]. So primarily though I'm a math teacher,
I've written some really exciting project -based curriculum, and I
love working with children. And the project -based activities
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 60
involve aquatic ecosystems, an understanding of our one world,
one ocean.
01:40:06 And we start to think that there are walls everywhere.
There are seven different oceans. There are different continents.
There —but really, we're connected. And the ocean that's right
outside our door in Caswell Beach, right outside my door, when I
walk out —I can walk there in 10 minutes —it's just magnificent.
And to share that enthusiasm and excitement with the youth, with
the kids, and get them to interact with reality the —of life, and
loving life, and loving nature, is very scary when —every time I go
to Southport from Oak Island, I drive over that canal. And I look
at the canal and I go, "Oh, who would even want to put their toe in
that, that nasty -looking canal?" And I lived here in 1999, and I
saw the canal then, and it was nasty. And it's nasty now. And I'm
just like, I know that we're talking about maybe the specific
property itself, but we're connected.
01:41:10 And that canal that flows underneath Caswell Beach and
dumps water into our ocean, and our dolphins, and our whales.
And I saw a whale, you know, beaching, you know, dying on the —
on our beach a couple years ago. And who knows? We just don't
know. The knowledge isn't there. But that's what we want our
kids to have the enthusiasm and excitement to learn, and to
explore, and to study. What's going on with our chemistry, our
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 61
biochemistry, our microbiology, our —the statistics, the analysis,
the thinking. What's best? Let's get some love. Let's get some —
who said it best, maybe George Harrison, huh? Hare Krishna.
Thank you very much. We love you [ph].
[APPLAUSE]
May: Are there any other speakers that wish to comment on the two
permits? Yes, ma'am? And again, if you would state your name,
please.
01:42:10 Ward: Hey. I'm Catherine Ward and I live in Harbor Oaks, which is in
Southport. We are right outside of where Capital Power is. And
my husband and I really weren't aware of any of the pollutants
Capital Power put out until we moved into our neighborhood. And
not long after we moved into our neighborhood, we noticed that we
had a constant [ph] ash on our front porches, our fans, our back
porch. And we recently had plants on our back porch. We have
herbs and we can't use any of them because they are constantly
covered in black soot.
01:42:47 And we're here tonight because we are concerned parents.
I'm actually from the area and I grew up here, but I didn't grow up
within a mile of Capital Power, and my little boy does. He's three
years old, and we have another one soon to be. So we're raising
kids here. And I ask you to look into this permit as if your kids
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 62
were living within a mile of Capital Power. And that's really my
only comment.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Are there any other comments on the stormwater permit and
wastewater permit? Yes, sir?
01:43:28 Baldwin: My name is Merle Baldwin. I live in Oak Island. For over 26
years, I cleaned —did remediation and hazardous waste cleanup all
over the country. Mainly based here out of North Carolina. When
I look at some —some of the things I've learned over the years is,
you can't get something clean without getting something else dirty.
And it's possible to get everything dirty and nothing clean.
[LAUGHTER]
01:44:05 But —and when I look at this, I don't look at it as much of
aas a human standpoint. I look at it more regulatory and how to
clean it up. So when I look at some of these —and somebody else
brought this up, which I had written down here in the slides [ph]
that Derek had, on the priority pollutants, where they had a grab
sample instead of a composite sample. And again, that was one
sample per permit period, which we're saying that the permit could
be a five-year period.
01:44:38 So, for doing all the heavy metals, and VOCs [ph], and
everything else, I think that's something that really needs to be
done, I would say, at least on a semi-annual basis. And especially
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 63
for doing a grab sample, I don't think that that would be something
that would —I don't think is very over —you know, a composite.
It's not a representative sample.
01:45:04 With all the technologies out there now, they can put auto -
samplers in. And also, to make sure that where the sampling
points are, not in the canal, not in the ocean, but right there before
it goes into that number three discharge. I have cleaned out —you
know, I don't what the temperature —their burn temperatures are. I
know it's not —probably not incineration temperature, but when
you burn creosote and some of the other things like that,
pentachlorophenol, you get byproducts of those when you don't
burn those at an incineration temp —but just a burning temperature.
01:45:43 So you may have something left over from the creosote.
I'm assuming that's in there as well, in the bottom ash. And I
don't know if they use dewatering plates, or a dewater—belt
dewatering, however they use that for when the ash comes out.
But again, as someone else said, all that stuff can go to Pinewood,
South Carolina for hazardous waste facility. And the same thing
with the liquids. They don't —those things [ph] should not be
discharged. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
01:46:18 May: Is there anybody else that wishes to comment on either the
stormwater or wastewater permit?
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 64
[INAUDIBLE]
01:46:28 Parisi: Hi. My name in Donna Parisi [ph]. I live in Turtlewood, resident,
right in Southport. My backyard literally is CPI and ADM. So my
question to you would be, in the environmental impact, I've dealt
with fracking, I've dealt with offshore drilling, as a fighter. So you
got me [ph]. My thing is, the brain tumor situation, which people
are explaining in the lands —Landings [ph], I found that. I lost a
son to cancer with a brain tumor because of chemicals. Primary
tumor [ph] .
01:47:03 So it is something that really needs to be followed up on,
and needs to be checked directly, because we have a lot of
children. We have a lot of adults who have come here to live and
enjoy their retirement. And quite honestly, if I didn't see it for
myself, on a boat, the water out by Caswell Beach, I wouldn't have
believed it. But I saw it. The temperature of the water is quite a
bit different than the regular part of the water, when you come up
to that part.
01:47:30 And it really needs to be not regulated by CPI, but by
people that really care about the environment. And so that's my
piece. Bye.
[APPLAUSE]
May: Are there any other comments on the stormwater and wastewater
permit? In the back.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 65
01:47:53 Ingram: Hi. My name is Jennifer Ingram and I didn't come in here tonight
to talk, but as I listen to what all of my neighbors say, I —and I
think that we've been very cordial, and very understanding, and
tried to make sense of this.
01:48:21 But I come from the nuclear industry. I was employed by
Duke Energy for 10 years, and am an auditor by trade. Basically,
I've been —dealt with many inspections with Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, and conducted many audits. The nuclear industry
knows where their improvement opportunities are. They can tell
you exactly where everything is in their plant. They know exactly
what they have to work on, and they know exactly who they owe
action items to. They know who they answer to.
01:49:00 And what I'm —what I want you guys to understand is that
in the nuclear industry —and I'm assuming that most of your career
opportunities —you're held accountable. You're held to a
standard. You acknowledge your ownership. And then people
hold you accountable if you fail.
01:49:22 And what I'd like to put on notice here, tonight, is that you
guys are on notice that if you fail, you will have to come back here,
and you'll have to look everyone here in the face, and explain why,
when you had a very good opportunity to fix what's broken.
01:49:40 So, I have not heard any statistics about what the maximum
allowable parts in the water are. I don'tI haven't heard anything
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 66
about where CPI measures up to what the maximum amount
legally is. We've heard none of that. We've seen pretty pictures.
We've heard a lot of statistics thrown out as far as —not statistics,
but processes, and how you do stormwater writing.
01:50:10 And that's all great, but it doesn't answer this young lady's
question about her herbs that she can't use. And it doesn't answer
the issue about water and drinking. You all have bottles of water
sitting here. You're not drinking our water. [LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
May: Are there any other comments from folks who have not had an
opportunity to speak?
M: Okay. I'll do it. [LAUGHTER]
May: And if you could, remind us of your name.
01:50:58 Tomlin: My name is Tom Tomlin [ph]. I live in Turtlewood. At night
when the lights on the smokestacks blink, my wife says, "Is it
lightning out there?" We're that far from the plant. And people
have been talking like you can specify the limitations of what the
plant can emit or allow to leave, whether you have some control
over that.
01:51:26 And I know it's really common among businesses to say,
"Well, gee, regulation is terrible. We can't afford it. It's going to
impact our ability to make a profit." Now, let's not talk about how
much we pay the people at the top, and let's not concern ourselves
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 67
with anything other than profits for stockholders. What I want to
suggest is that if you get feedback from CPI saying, "Well, that's a
good idea in theory, but we can't really afford to do that. It's not
practical," I would not accept that as a good argument against
following best practices and protecting this area for our spouses,
and our kids, and our grandkids, and our neighbors' babies, and
people like that. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
01:52:26 May: Is there anybody else that has not spoken who wishes to provide
comment on the stormwater permit or wastewater permit? Well, at
this time, seeing no hands, we will move on through the hearing
here.
01:52:43 So, if you did not speak tonight, but would like to submit
written comments, they will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. on
December 23rd, 2019. Written comments should be submitted to
the email address or postal address found on the handout available
at the registration desk. For reference, and if you didn't have an
opportunity to pick up a handout, the email address is
publiccomments@NCDENR.gov. Include CPI in the email subject
line.
01:53:20 Also, comments submitted by postal mail should be
addressed to Derek Denard, NC Division of Water Resources,
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com
NCDEQ
Brunswick Community College, Bolivia, NC
Public Hearing 11-21-19
Page 68
Water Quality Permitting Section, 1617 Mail Service Center,
Raleigh, NC 27699-1617.
01:53:40 Based on public comments received and information
submitted in the application, I will make a recommendation to the
director of the Division of Water Resources and the director of the
Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources for their
consideration in making a final decision on whether to issue or
deny this application.
01:54:00 At this time, I would like to thank all of you for your
attendance tonight, your feedback, and comments. This hearing at
this time is adjourned. Thank you.
M: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
[INAUDIBLE]
[END RECORDING]
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000
www.rogersword.com