DESPITE BEING INVESTIGATE BY THE FEDS FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES, DUKE ENERGY CONTINUES TO POLLUTE RELEASING TOXIC COAL ASH INTO CAPE FEAR RIVER IN NORTH CAROLINA.
Breaking: Duke Energy Caught Dumping Wastewater from Coal Ash Lagoon Into Local Watershed
Waterkeeper Alliance released aerial surveillance photos taken from a fixed-wing aircraft last week which show Duke Energy workers pumping wastewater from two of Duke Energy’s toxic coal ash lagoons into a canal that drains into the Cape Fear River.
The revelation comes less than two months after the Dan River disaster, where at least 30,000 tons of coal ash spilled from another of Duke Energy’s toxic coal ash lagoons. The pumping also came just days before a federal grand jury convenes in Raleigh to hear evidence in a criminal investigation of Duke Energy, the North Carolina Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the handling of coal ash.
In these revealing stories in Sunday’s New York Times and Monday’s Los Angeles Times, Duke Energy admitted its workers were pumping coal ash wastewater out of a toxic wastewater pond and into a canal which drains into the Cape Fear River. The Cape Fear River is a source of public drinking water for residents in Fayetteville, Sanford, Dunn, Harnett County, Fort Bragg and Wilmington.
Even more startling, Duke Energy described the pumping of coal ash wastewater into a watershed as part of “routine maintenance.” The New York Times quoted Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks as saying: “They’re lowering the water to conduct the maintenance they need to.” According to the New York Times, Duke claims it notified state regulators—a claim that was contradicted by officials with DENR...Duke Energy cannot lawfully discharge any pollutant to a waterway without a proper permit in place.
“To label the secret, unmitigated, intentional discharge of untold amounts of highly toxic wastewater as ‘routine maintenance’ seems ludicrous,” said Peter Harrison of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “Here, Duke Energy has admitted that it deliberately emptied the contents of its ash ponds into the Cape Fear River watershed, just weeks after decimating at least 70 miles of the Dan River with its coal ash, and just days before it will appear in front of a federal grand jury for its suspected criminal activity related to its coal ash.”
DENR has indicated that Duke did not notify the agency prior to pumping the ponds, and that regulators noticed the pumping during a site visit on an unspecified day last week. “If DENR did not authorize Duke’s pumping, it would show an appalling disregard for the law and the welfare of North Carolinians,” Harrison added.
Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette said, “I am gravely concerned that neither Duke nor DENR gave any public notice that untold gallons of concentrated untreated coal ash waste was deliberately dumped into the Cape Fear watershed. Hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians rely on the Cape Fear river for drinking water, fishing and swimming. We do not want heavy metals from coal ash in our river.”
Waterkeeper Alliance Global Coal Campaign Coordinator Donna Lisenby said, “Duke never obtained an official modification of its NPDES permit to allow the discharge the highly concentrated coal ash waste water from the bottom of their ponds into the Cape Fear river watershed—if it had happened through open channels, the public would have had a chance to object. This was either illegal, unilateral action by Duke—or a quiet backroom deal with DENR. There is no evidence that any valid, publicly available permit allows them to discharge untold gallons of untreated concentrated coal ash waste water. Duke Energy should provide the specific language from the permit they claim allowed them to discharge highly concentrated untreated coal ash waste water into a standing body of water with almost no flow to dilute it.”
CONTINUES HERE -
http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/17/duke-energy-coal-ash/
Now the author of this blog would like to pose a question to yet another report of blatant and unlawful corporate terrorism. A question in the irony of what is considered justifiable as counter-terrorism operations:
What would they say if patriots determined to 'defend their country' began engaging in a war of attrition against these 'Terrorists'?
Would the homeland security warriors be declared the terrorists, in a political spin to make the real terrorists appear the innocent victims?
If Al Qaeda was dumping lethal chemicals into our drinking water the military would send counter-terror units to neutralize & assassinate such terrorists...
However a wealthy corporation w/political support bought w/bribes can engage in same terrorism and it's 'legal'. Anyone who opposes them is labeled the 'Terrorists'.
So when is it justifiable to engage in guerrilla warfare tactics the way the European-American colonists did against the British, which so many today propagate as heroism?
When is it justifiable, only after their is so little fresh drinking water left that we must engage in war over water rights in order to survive?Or is it justifiable before it comes to that?
Would they engage in such behavior in Afghanistan where IEDs & Pashtu snipers would await them at every phase of their eco/human rights terrorist activity?
When does it become justifiable for patriotic citizens to follow in the footsteps of the American colonists who raised up arms to liberate themselves from government tyranny and oppression?
When does it become justifiable for patriotic citizens who value their innate human rights and the rights of their children to have protected, life giving, drinking water and healthy, food producing, soil that sustains all life on this planet?
When is it justifiable to take up heroic arms against such terrorism which seriously threatens our survivability and effects everyone who relies upon clean drinking water and soil capable of bearing food?
We hear them claim that their corporate actions provide lucrative jobs to families and thereby is vital to the economy. But can we eat and drink the money which they seem to sow readily in order to facilitate their terrorist activities once the water is undrinkable, the soil will no longer bear fruit, vegetables, grains, or grasses for our livestock to graze?
If their actions are threatening the very existence of 'all' people and future generations then does not this constitute terrorism? Even more so, is it not global terrorism?
Because they have the money to buy political support for their terrorist activities and those political powers have the authority of law enforcement agencies at their disposal does that mean that anyone whom opposes them is 'really' the criminals or the terrorists?
Here is a thought...Had the British defeated the English-American colonists George Washington would not have gone down in history books as a patriotic hero but would have been hanged as a traitor to the British Army and a rebel insurgent leader. And the history books would remember him as nothing more than a leader of a guerilla rebel insurrection against the British crown.
We know that semantics play a huge roll in the way governments write and enforce laws, particularly speaking when we are speaking of a corrupt government involved in machinating schemes for the love of material wealth and the increased political and military might which that affords.
Do such semantics play powerful role in controlling the way the populace views what is morally justifiable and unjustifiable in terms of survival? Do we allow such semantics to control what we deem as justifiable in terms of self-defense, defense of our children, and defense of our countries' life sustaining capabilities? Our land's water and food bearing capabilities?
Are not such things worthy of protecting and fighting, even dying, for? Without them will we not meet death anyway?
And would going to war against such terrorism prevent a more massive civil war in the future when there is not enough suitable drinking water and food bearing land that the people will be forced to engage in horrific civil wars in order to simply survive?
Is it justifiable to engage in asymmetric warfare against the entities and their operations responsible for these terroristic activities earlier on in order to save multitudes of human lives later on when the full fruition of their destructive activities has left the masses at an impasse to survival?
Is it justifiable to act as patriots in the defense of not one's national pride but for the survival of one's country, one's community, one's family, one's children, ones future? All of which whom face immediate threat to their future survival.
Such political powers and their corporate terrorist masters are all too happy to keep the masses distracted with escapism in the form of frivolous television shows, social internet sites, propaganda media, video games, opulent consumerism, and vice.
Just as a clever slight of hand artist or confidence artist distracts his victims into looking one direction while he deceives them in the other, so do these politically backed corporate terrorists who destroy the very life sustaining water and soil that we as the people 'must' protect in order to survive! In order for our children to survive!
So again I ask myself and the people when is it justifiable to fight against such tyranny and terrorism when time and time again we witness that they do not honor the laws of the land, of the courts, and seem to operate above the law? When they thumb their noses at the constitutional rights of the people, the innate rights of all human beings, at the ruling of any reasonable authorities, and demonstrate a blatant disregard for 'Life' itself...
When is it enough and when is it right for the people to act when civil courts have proven impotent against such lawless and politically influential terrorists against the human race?
I ask myself and my fellow conscientious human beings when?
AnDrew*
