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State environmental agency opens public comment period on coal ash reuse permits
Story Date: 3/24/2015
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Source: NCDENR, 3/23/15
State officials announced Monday that drafts of several of the environmental permits needed by two companies to reuse coal ash in clay mines in central North Carolina are complete and available for public comment.
The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources posted drafts of structural fill permits and drafts of modified mine reclamation permits to the agency’s website on March 23. Notification about the availability of the draft permits will be published in newspapers of record in Lee, Chatham and Wake counties. The public has until May 16 to comment on the draft permits.
Green Meadow, LLC and Charah, Inc. applied in November to take coal ash now stored at Duke Energy facilities and use it to reclaim open-pit clay mines in Lee and Chatham counties. The goal of mine reclamation is to restore the mining site so it can be used for other purposes in the future. The companies have announced plans to install engineered, protective liners in the pits designed to create a barrier between the coal ash and groundwater, and then capture leachate for disposal. Under the plan, the companies would fill the pits with coal ash before installing a cap over the coal ash and covering it with layers of soil and seeding to establish permanent vegetation. To proceed with the projects, the two companies need engineered structural fill permits at the Brickhaven No. 2 Mine Tract “A” in Chatham County near Moncure and at the Colon Mine Site in Sanford in Lee County.
Another set of required permits that were drafted and made public March 23 include requests by Green Meadow LLC to modify the existing mining permits at both sites to allow the construction of engineered structural fills within the existing mining permit boundaries.
The two projects must also obtain 401 water quality certifications from the state. The company’s 401 certification applications were made available for public comment on March 12. The certifications are required when a project will impact streams or wetlands.
Copies of permit applications, draft structural fill permits and draft modified mine reclamation permits are available on the DENR website at: http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/guest/coal-ash-disposal.
Public comments on the structural fill permits should be mailed to: Solid Waste Section Permitting, N.C. Division of Waste Management, 1646 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1646. Public comments on the modified mining permits should be mailed to: Mining Program, N.C. Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources, 1612 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1612.
Public comments may also be submitted via email to: publiccomments@ncdenr.gov. Please be sure to include “DWM” and the name of the mine in the subject line for comments on the structural fill permits. Please be sure to include “DEMLR” and the name of the mine in the subject line for comments on the modified mine reclamation permits. During the comment period, public hearings will be held from 6-9 p.m. April 13 at the Dennis A. Wicker Center, 1801 Nash St., Sanford, and 6-9 p.m. April 16 at the Chatham County Historic Courthouse, 9 Hillsboro St., Pittsboro. Speaker registration for both hearings will begin at 5 p.m.
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