North Carolina regulators on Thursday cited Duke Energy for illegally and deliberately dumping 61 million gallons of toxic coal ash waste into a tributary of the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water for several cities and towns in the state.
Without knowing much if anything about Duke Energy or the local officials who will Make Them Pay for What They've Done, I can get a good idea about how the spill a little over a month ago will affect them - and how local officials will REALLY respond - by seeing what the experts think. That is, by looking at what their stock has done since the spill.
Duke Energy Corp - NYSE: DUK
Here's the six month view.
The spill happened half-way between 2 and 3. For context, here's the five-year view:
North Carolina regulators are joining with Duke Energy in appealing a judge's ruling on cleaning up groundwater pollution leeching from the company's coal ash dumps.
The state Environmental Management Commission filed notice Monday that it intends to appeal a March 6 ruling by Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway.
The commission and Duke contend North Carolina law does not give the state the authority to order an immediate cleanup. Ridgeway ruled the state had been misinterpreting the law for years.
Environmentalists say the decision to file an appeal directly conflicts with public statements from Gov. Pat McCrory suggesting his administration is getting tough with his former employer after a Feb. 2 coal ash spill that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in toxic gray sludge.
McCrory, a Republican, worked for Duke more than 28 years prior to retiring to run for governor. The nation's largest electricity company and its employees have remained generous political supporters to McCrory's campaign and GOP-aligned groups that support him, providing more than $1.1 million in support since 2008.
Though the governor directly appointed eight of the commission's 15 members, McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis said the panel operates independently of the administration. The remaining seven members were appointed by state House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate leader Phil Berger, both Republicans...
"Just a week after the state publicly abandoned its sweetheart deal with Duke and promised to 'enforce' the law, it has appealed a judicial ruling that confirmed the state's legal authority to enforce a real solution for coal ash contamination," said D.J. Gerken, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center. "We're disappointed that this administration remains so determined to delay through litigation rather than move forward to stop ongoing pollution of North Carolina's rivers, lakes and groundwater."
Federal prosecutors have filed at least 23 grand jury subpoenas as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the relationship between state regulators and the company prior to the spill.
illegally and deliberately dumping.....not been proved to be "deliberate"...unless of course you're one of those "de-liberals" who whine about big business and are ready to jump up and accuse at every wingnut blink of the eye.
Vrede wrote:Fair enough. You know that you're an asshole company when even North Carolina regulators are forced to say so.
Like accidents don't happen, huh?...."The best laid plans of mice and men" and all that.
Maybe you'd be happy if they would just pull the plug and we could go back to kerosene lanterns and gas lights....?
Opps.. ..can't do that! That's still using fossil fuels!!
I know!!! Solar cells!!! Opps.. .. there's those spent rechargeable batteries to dispose of!!
Guess you'll have to whine on.
(now I'm gonna get accused of favoring, advocating, legislating....whatever)
Mr.B wrote:illegally and deliberately dumping.....not been proved to be "deliberate"...unless of course you're one of those "de-liberals" who whine about big business and are ready to jump up and accuse at every wingnut blink of the eye.
Vrede wrote:Fair enough. You know that you're an asshole company when even North Carolina regulators are forced to say so.
Like accidents don't happen, huh?...."The best laid plans of mice and men" and all that.
Maybe you'd be happy if they would just pull the plug and we could go back to kerosene lanterns and gas lights....?
Opps.. ..can't do that! That's still using fossil fuels!!
I know!!! Solar cells!!! Opps.. .. there's those spent rechargeable batteries to dispose of!!
Guess you'll have to whine on.
(now I'm gonna get accused of favoring, advocating, legislating....whatever)
Bullshit. You wanna call it an "accident" and just let bygones be bygones? You go out and have an "accident" while driving your car and damage someone else's vehicle or cause injury, then cry "Accident! I shouldn't be held responsible 'cause accidents happen, and 'cause, well, Amurka!" Let us know how it works out for you.
People are crazy and times are strange. I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range.
I used to care, but, things have changed.
Mr.B wrote:I know!!! Solar cells!!! Opps.. .. there's those spent rechargeable batteries to dispose of!!
Nothing about solar cells dictates that batteries be involved. Many large-scale solar and wind power applications store power for the off-hours or for mobile use without using batteries.
And if you're just BS'ing about rechargeable batteries in electric cars:
First, when those batteries have only 70 percent of capacity left - too little to serve in a car - they may have about 10 years of useful life left as storage devices on the grid. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE) are both talking about plans to use them for backup and load leveling purposes.
Second, those rechargeable batteries are recyclable. Especially since they're full of nickel and other valuable materials.
Mr.B wrote:illegally and deliberately dumping.....not been proved to be "deliberate"...unless of course you're one of those "de-liberals" who whine about big business and are ready to jump up and accuse at every wingnut blink of the eye.
Vrede wrote:Fair enough. You know that you're an asshole company when even North Carolina regulators are forced to say so.
Like accidents don't happen, huh?...."The best laid plans of mice and men" and all that.
Maybe you'd be happy if they would just pull the plug and we could go back to kerosene lanterns and gas lights....?
Opps.. ..can't do that! That's still using fossil fuels!!
I know!!! Solar cells!!! Opps.. .. there's those spent rechargeable batteries to dispose of!!
Guess you'll have to whine on.
(now I'm gonna get accused of favoring, advocating, legislating....whatever)
Bullshit. You wanna call it an "accident" and just let bygones be bygones? You go out and have an "accident" while driving your car and damage someone else's vehicle or cause injury, then cry "Accident! I shouldn't be held responsible 'cause accidents happen, and 'cause, well, Amurka!" Let us know how it works out for you.
Mr. B apparently doesn't believe in personal responsibility. Duke Power should just pray for forgiveness, and we should all be happy. Who cares about contaminated water anyway!?
I asked the question, not to defend Duke Power, but perhaps our esteemed counsellor can explain whether this amounts to civil or criminal negligence, and in either situation, would the punishment be incarceration? The Gulf Oil spill was a far greater environmental disaster, but I do not believe there was any jail time meted out, only fines. Link
Wneglia wrote:I asked the question, not to defend Duke Power, but perhaps our esteemed counsellor can explain whether this amounts to civil or criminal negligence, and in either situation, would the punishment be incarceration? The Gulf Oil spill was a far greater environmental disaster, but I do not believe there was any jail time meted out, only fines. Link
I'd be ok with civil, it's just that the fines are not remotely enough. Compare the % of income you or I have to pay if caught doing environmental damage compared to the percent that oil companies had to pay. It's a joke.
That being said, with Duke Power pretty obviously colluding with government.... I think that should be made illegal with criminal penalties if proven.
Then again, I think "donations" by corporations to political movements should be made illegal as well. It's the government for the people, not corporations.
Vrede wrote:If jail is out for whatever reason in a particular situation maybe civil judgments or settlements could include banning execs deemed responsible from ever working in the industry again, kinda like banning pedophiles from schools, parks and any other contact with children. That would get their attention. There needs to be more personal accountability and more certain protection for the public.
Vrede wrote:It may only be possible in settlements, I don't know whether it's a punishment/protection order that judges can mete out in civil cases.
Assuming there are applicable laws on the books, which the state and feds seem to think there are, do you oppose jail for deliberate dumping as Duke did in the Cape Fear River, or for illegal relationships between state regulators and companies as the feds are investigating?
If it is shown that it was company policy to dump the coal ash in the Cape Fear tributaries, and it caused harm, then jail time is not unreasonable.
Vrede wrote:It may only be possible in settlements, I don't know whether it's a punishment/protection order that judges can mete out in civil cases.
Assuming there are applicable laws on the books, which the state and feds seem to think there are, do you oppose jail for deliberate dumping as Duke did in the Cape Fear River, or for illegal relationships between state regulators and companies as the feds are investigating?
If it is shown that it was company policy to dump the coal ash in the Cape Fear tributaries, and it caused harm, then jail time is not unreasonable.
If we pour oil down a storm drain they don't have to show we caused harm. Just pointing out a whopper of a double standard. -- We can get jail time as well.
Even taking political connections and campaign donations out of the picture, consider:
After the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, an Anchorage jury awarded $287 million for actual damages and $5 billion for punitive damages. The punitive damages amount was equal to a single year's profit by Exxon at that time.
Exxon appealed the decision again and again and again over the next 15 years. The punitive damages award was cut from $5 billion to $4 billion to $2.5 billion to $507.5 million before any of the fishermen received their pittance.
The courts in India were of little help to the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster. The settlement was whittled down from $3.3 Billion to $470 million. The courts in the US - when survivors went after Union Carbide - were of no help at all. A few Union Carbide employees, by then in their 70s, were finally charged in 2010. They were released bail while the appeal process starts. Check back in a couple more decades.
When HSBC was caught knowingly laundering at least $1.4 Billion for drug smugglers and US sanctioned countries like Iran - just through the US system alone - they were fined about five weeks' profit.
This is why Duke's stock prices were unaffected by the disaster. The bigger the demanded damage settlement, the more decades they'll spend whittling it down to a pittance. Any charges would be against low-level employees.
Boatrocker wrote: "You wanna call it an "accident" and just let bygones be bygones? You go out and have an "accident" while driving your car and damage someone else's vehicle or cause injury, then cry "Accident! I shouldn't be held responsible 'cause accidents happen, and 'cause, well, Amurka!" Let us know how it works out for you."
bannination wrote: "Mr. B apparently doesn't believe in personal responsibility. Duke Power should just pray for forgiveness, and we should all be happy. Who cares about contaminated water anyway!?"
I didn't say they shouldn't be held accountable. The posts above insinuated that Duke's accident was an intentional act. Comprehend much?
..can't do that! That's still using fossil fuels!!
