20150042 Ver 1_Judy Hogan (2)_20150419

Burdette, Jennifer a
From:
judyhogan @mindspring.com
Sent:
Sunday, April 19, 2015 8:59 PM
To:
SVC_DENR.publiccomments
Cc:
Higgins, Karen; Burdette, Jennifer a; Devane, Boyd; Diana Hales; Mike Cross; Jim
Crawford; walter petty; Karen Howard; Robert T. Reives; Rev. Dr. Ricky Frazier; Amy
Dalrymple; Dr. Andre Knecht; doldham @leecountync.gov; tsloan @leecountync.gov;
Kirk Smith
Subject:
Charah /Green Meadows Permits for Structural Fill an Solid Waste
Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Solid Waste and Mining Program Permitting
Raleigh, NC, 27699 -1617
April 19, 2015
Dear DENR officials:
We appreciate your taking into account citizen concerns about the application of Green Meadows (a company
belonging to Charah) for permission to build two solid waste coal ash facilities at their two proposed clay mine
sites and for moving 20 million tons of coal ash from the Sutton plant near Wilmington and the Riverbend
plant near Charlotte to Brickhaven near Moncure in southeast Chatham and to Colon Road in northern Lee
county. Many of us will be writing to you, and we urgently request that you deny the permit for Charah /Green
Meadows. There are many good reasons why we who live in southeast Chatham County and northern Lee
County should not be home to all this extremely toxic coal ash.
I live on Moncure - Pittsboro Rd, near Jordan Lake Dam, and, judging by the maps on the permits, as many as
120 -140 30 -ton dump trucks would be passing my home daily carrying coal ash to the Brickhaven site and
perhaps also to the Colon Road site. I live about one mile from the train track which would carry 3 -6 times a
week, a hundred rail cars filled with coal ash through my community and right past our little post office and
many homes. One of the issues with this coal ash dumping is that citizens and our commissioners have been
shut out of the legislative process. Our Chatham County Commissioners had no legislative say -so about Duke
Energy's plan, although they unanimously approved a resolution to stop this.
Charah is calling this a mine reclamation, but it is actually a coal ash landfill. If it were a mine reclamation, it
wouldn't be raised 50 feet above ground level, it wouldn't dig additional land to make its hole for the coal
ash. It also would have had to go through several years worth of a permitting process, in which our Chatham
County Commissioners would be involved. Charah claims that buildings could be sited on top of this hill, but
the liners, which would eventually leak, would leak faster if any mechanical stress were put on the landfill.
We all know that coal ash contains many toxic chemicals, which would be in any leachate or leaks. An
ordinary waste water treatment plant would not be able to get out the mineral toxins of arsenic, lead,
mercury, cadmium, chromium, selenium, aluminum, antimony, barium, beryllium, boron, bromide, chlorine,
cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, thallium, vanadium, and zinc. Some coal ash also contains
radioactive materials. Despite collection of leachate, some will eventually reach ground waters as the liners
disintegrate over time.

Water supply and water quality both from private wells and from municipal water supplies will be affected . If
a hurricane or other major storm were to damage or destroy the berms and other containment at both sites, it
would have devastating impact to the Cape Fear River and the downstream water users. Downstream water
systems who take their source water from the Cape Fear River include Sanford, southeastern Chatham via
Sanford, Harnett County (which supplies Lillington, Angier, Ft. Bragg, Holly Springs, and Fuquay- Varina), Dunn,
Fayetteville, and Brunswick County (including Wilmington).
Given the very real chance that there will be contamination of both surface waters and ground waters from
these proposed coal ash repositories, the pollution that would flow downstream into the Cape Fear River
would be in addition to the current coal ash wastewater seepage into the Cape Fear River from the ash ponds
at the Duke Energy Cape Fear plant in Moncure in this same stretch of River. Gulf (or Goff) Creek is already on
the EPA 303(d) list and would be further degraded by any increased sedimentation from excavation and
construction at the Brickhaven clay pits, as well as by any coal ash air pollution.
A large number of people live near these sites, including the large Dickens farm near Brickhaven and the
Eleven Bar Ranch near the Colon Road site. Robert F. Helms II is the ranch owner, and he circulated a letter to
the Lee County Commissioners in which he pointed out that he never would have set up his ranch and
"Integrated Training Solutions" in Lee County if he had known that Colon Road would be considered a
dumping site for 8 million tons of coal ash. Of course his property and that of other property owners, not only
near the site but along transportation routes, will be devaluated, with the counties receiving less tax money.
Several people who live next door to the Brickhaven and Colon Road sites have come to our meetings. One
couple lives right at the train track Charah plans to use on Colon Road. They call where they live "ground
zero." A Mansfield family lives next door to the Brickhaven site, and their home has been there for
generations, as has another nearby home owned by the Utley family. All of us who live on Moncure - Pittsboro
Rd., Old #1, and Corinth Road, the likely roads that trucks coming from Charlotte will take to reach the clay pit
on Moncure Flatwood Rd. will be at risk economically, and for our health and safety. We already have on
these roads many large trucks carrying wood, bricks, and chemicals coming to and from the industries on
Corinth Rd. These trucks have accidents sometimes. Last year two log trucks overturned along this route on
the same morning.
The hazardous coal ash flying off the trucks will ruin my home for a place to live in my old age, the only place I
have to live and my only serious asset. This is true for many other elderly people living along these
roads. Who would buy our property with coal ash being spewed all over the roads and nearby
residences? There are several organic farmers living on this road and other roads along this route who would
no longer be able to farm safely. People are going to get sick much more often and require EMT services. Few
jobs will be created for the local people, and we expect lawsuits if this continues to go through. The Mt.
Calvary Baptist Church is sited directly across the street from the Colon Road site, and in Moncure we have
churches all along this route: Mount Olive Missionary Baptist, United Methodist, Liberty Chapel, Baptist are all
on or close to Old #1. The Buckhorn Methodist Church is on Corinth Rd, very close to the Brickhaven site.
There is going to be coal ash in the air, all around where the work is done to move it from trucks and trains
into the pits, and there are no plans for monitoring the air. Coal ash into the lungs takes awhile to kill people,
but it does over time. Little children would get sick first. I wouldn't want to live where I had to breathe coal
ash on a regular basis for the five years or more that it will take to move all this coal ash. Once it's in the air, it
can move anywhere. In Asheville where Charah is moving coal ash a short distance to the Asheville Airport,
their trucks are leaving lots of coal ash along the roads, and some people are wearing gas masks to mow their

lawns. Charah spokespeople said that they would wet down the ash or use chemicals for dust control, but
after a journey of 150 miles, on a hot day, of course coal ash will come off the trucks and rail cars.
The creation of these coal ash dumps will mean that residents will either get sick or have to leave. If we
cannot sell our homes, we will be forced to take even more benefits from the federal government. I now
receive both Medicare and Medicaid, but I also grow food to sell and to provide a healthy diet in my aging. I'm
77 and healthy. I would have to leave, one way or another. That much coal ash would kill me and many other
elderly also depending on Medicare and Medicaid here. Most of us are low- income, and many of us are
African American and Hispanic.
We held a prayer vigil on March 25, a Wednesday afternoon, at the Buckhorn United Methodist Church in
Brickhaven, with 75 people in attendance, including four ministers who offered prayers, and three of us
activists speaking who have been working on this issue. On my drive down Corinth Rd. and then down Hwy 42
to the church, I observed all the six factories and their full parking lots. The particle board plant is especially
large now, and it had hundreds of cars in its parking lot. Apparently all six factories work three shifts in 24
hours, making for a great deal of traffic both going north toward Moncure and Highway #1, and toward
Sanford on NC highway 42. 1 passed 60 homes, and an RV park run by Mr. Dickson, who is also a farmer,
growing deer corn and some other farm crops. I learned from those living in the area that Mr. Dickson's RV
park backs up to the Brickhaven site for the proposed coal ash dump, and that it contains 75 places for RVs to
park. The park looked quite full.
We in our coal ash group, Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump, have had several new folks present who
reside very close to the proposed dump sites, both from Brickhaven and from Colon Road, come to our
meetings. We are urging them to write to you. They are very disturbed. A woman farmer who lives next
door to the Colon Road site said she had helped birth 10 kids from her goats one week. I believe she'll write to
you. She also has horses. She has been especially sad and worried. Every time I see her she looks about to
cry. She spoke at both hearings. She lives on land that has springs and creeks, and all that will be poisoned if
the coal ash dump on Colon Road is sited next to her. By the way, as you must know, both coal ash dump
sites, as planned, are in the Cape Fear flood plain.
I asked my agricultural agent, Debbie Roos, out of the Agriculture Extension Service in Chatham to tell me the
names of the farms along the proposed truck route, which we found on the Charah permit: from Charlotte,
trucks would take 421 from Greensboro, then from Siler City, 64, then through Pittsboro (perhaps the 87 link
which goes south and connects to Moncure - Pittsboro Rd.) They could go through the circle in Pittsboro, but I
would guess not, although it is only a few blocks away, and many people live on the 87 link. The town traffic
circle has steady traffic and is in the heart of the downtown. Here are the names of farms along that
route. On 64 into Pittsboro (the by -pass 64 becomes a narrow two -lane road, Business 64), there are
Howard's Farm (peaches, apples, and blaeberries), Oakmont Nursery, Huckleberry Trail Farm, and there's the
new Alpaca farm. On Moncure - Pittsboro Rd, there is an organic farm right next to our two -lane road called
Edible Earthscapes. They grow vegetables all year long and sell to local restaurants.
The Charah people have told us at the open houses sponsored by Duke back in December 2014 that the coal
ash would not come out of the trucks, but we saw films from a Charlotte TV station of Charah moving coal ash
only a short distance in Asheville to the airport, and those living on that road were suffering from coal ash
coming off the trucks. One man was wearing a gas mask to mow his lawn. We understand it also comes off the
rail cars, and that the railroads do very little oversight. Our post office in Moncure is maybe 100 yards or less
from the CSX railroad line. There are two mail delivery routes to outlying areas around Moncure, but about
400 people get their mail in the post office, and many of us drive there every day to get our mail. Those who

live in "downtown" Moncure are between old #1 and the railroad line. Only a few blocks separate the rail line
from Old #1. Many of the folks who live in Moncure live either along Moncure - Pittsboro Rd.,along Old #1, and
or along Corinth Rd. I would expect the trucks coming from Charlotte to the Colon Road site would also use
the same route down Moncure - Pittsboro Rd, and then down five miles on new #1 to Colon road. From
Wilmington, since those trucks would come around Raleigh on 1 -40 and then down new #1 probably to either
Pea Ridge Road (exits 81 (off #1) or to Moncure - Flatwood Rd, (exit 84 off #1) and then down Corinth Rd to
Brickhaven, more Moncure folks would be affected. There are homes on both Pea Ridge and Moncure-
Flatwood roads. Our fire department is located at the corner of Old #1 and Pea Ridge Road. Duke and Charah
are asking a lot of our volunteer fire department who are called out whenever traffic accidents occur or
hazardous spills.
Another issue which has many folks concerned is how EMT and fire department personnel will get to the
people who live anywhere near this dump with all the train cars and especially at crossings. We have lots of
people commuting and school buses, but if a coal ash train blocked the crossings by the post office or near the
Recycle center, how would the EMTs get to the people? At one of the Duke open houses when Mr. Charles
Price, the owner of Charah and Green Meadows, was asked this question back in December, he merely
shrugged.
Duke Energy likes to tout itself as a "good neighbor." We know better. Right now it seems to me that Duke
and Charah, and the limited liability company, Green Meadows, have set it up so that they can do whatever
they want without concern for the people whose lives they will affect. This much coal ash from those
hundreds of trucks and train cars over the years to come, will, in effect, be like genocide. We can't live here in
a healthy way if there is coal ash in our air and getting into our ground water and eventually into the Cape
Fear. We know that Duke has a big coal ash problem, but they shouldn't be moving it around, and they
shouldn't be storing in "land fills." It is toxic, it does harm and sickens human beings. We need to slow this
process down. Both Duke and you DENR folks are rushing things. We attended the open hearings for April 13
and April 16, in Lee and Chatham, for three permits. This taking up three permits in one hearing is
unprecedented.
Please use your authority to protect the environment to keep us from being the recipient in Lee and Chatham
of 20 million tons of coal ash. The liners will leak. The leachate, I hear, can go through the liners. We know
that the toxic selenium does. Nothing serious could be built on top of these coal ash dumps, and the whole
area would suffer economically and harm so many people's lives not only here but all along these roads and
rail lines. Plus, it would be a precedent, and North Carolina has a lot more clay pits.
Recently it was announced in the News and Observer as well as by WRAL TV that a crocodile skeleton from the
Late Triassic period was found in a clay mine near Gulf, in Chatham County, not far from both these sites,
which are also in the Triassic Basin. This crocodile, named Carnufex Carolinensis, or the Carolina butcher, is
estimated to be about 231 million years old. Some of the bones and teeth from this or other prehistoric
creatures were found during the era in the early 1900s when coal mining occurred in that area, and this find is
getting international attention. We believe that the two sites Charah bought under the name of Green
Meadows are likely to contain other prehistoric remains.
In short, we here in southeastern Chatham and northern Lee Counties are frightened by this move on Duke
Energy's part to dump all this coal ash on people and land which will be harmed in the ways I have listed, at
the least. Coal ash, good scientists assert over and over, should not be moved. Please reject Charah /Green
Meadows' 401 permit.

Sincerely,
Judy Hogan, Chair of the Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump
PO Box 253, Moncure, NC 27559 -0253. 919 - 545 -9932. Judyhogan @mindspring.com
cc: Ms. Karen Higgins, 401 and Buffer Permitting Unit, Jennifer Burdette and Boyd Devane, Division of
Environment and Natural Resources. Lee County Commissioners; Chatham County Commissioners; members
of Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump.