The first trucks of excavated coal ash leaving the site marked the end for ash storage at the retired Riverbend power plant near Charlotte. Duke Energy is transferring the ash to a fully lined landfill.
The excavation of Riverbend will commence with 10 truckloads a day to trial the process and limit the impact upon neighbours. Ash will be transported moist, in covered and washed trucks, to control dust. The ash will be sent to a fully lined landfill in Homer.
This landfill is not the final step however as the company is working with outside assistance to permit two fully lined structural fill projects proposed for North Carolina's Chatham and Lee counties.
The project will remove about 1 million t of ash from the ash stack, a dry storage area on the property. Supplementary permitting and arrangements are required before water can be removed from the primary or secondary ash basins.
The Riverbend site has about 4.5 million t of ash.
Further to ash excavation, decommissioning of the retired coal plant at the Riverbend site is ongoing. Next decommissioning steps include removing remaining soil under the former coal pile, and demolishing buildings and equipment no longer needed.
Adapted from press release by Joseph Green