{"id":2376,"date":"2016-03-15T16:47:08","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2016-03-15T16:47:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:47:08","slug":"citizens-concerned-about-water-safety-d-e-q-holds-meeting-in-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=2376","title":{"rendered":"Citizens concerned about water safety, D.E.Q. holds meeting in Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Travis Archie<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday, March 14 at the Boiling Springs Town Hall, a meeting was held in regards to how the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, D.E.Q, would handle the Duke Power coal ash ponds that are in the local area. This has been a hot topic within N.C. after the coal ash spilled into the Dan River in February 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two D.E.Q. representatives, Zahid Khan, right, and Shane Cook, left, ran the meeting.
Photo by Madison Weavil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Power plants like Cliffside use coal to heat up the water which creates steam that turns the turbines, producing electricity. The remaining material is called coal ash and has detrimental effects on the environment. There are six coal ash ponds and one land field of coal ash in Cleveland County. The meeting held at town hall was to inform the local community of the future plans the state government will take toward cleaning up the coal ash ponds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntermediate level coal ash ponds will be cleaned up by Dec. 31, 2024 while low level ponds will be cleaned up by Dec.31, 2029,\u201d said Zahid Khan, attorney of the N.C. D.E.Q. Various levels of ponds exist in N.C.<\/p>\n

Khan also mentioned that, \u201cthere has been no contamination in local community\u2019s water supply which have been proven by our experts and outside experts.\u201d The water tests were conducted 15 feet below the ground and 1500 feet downstream from the ponds and landfill.<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland<\/a>
Cleveland County resident, Rodger Harris, voicing his concerns about how the proposed solution is going to effect his home.
Photo by Madison Weavil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, not everyone in the community agrees with the findings. Rodger Harris, a local who spoke at the meeting, talked about \u201cthe forgotten part of Cleveland county\u201d a few miles east of Gardner-Webb. Harris said, \u201cIn this area, we have 11 ground water wells that are deemed unsafe to drink from and wash in.\u201d He said this was told to him by Duke Power and claimed they have delivered bottled water to the residents of the community.<\/p>\n

Another speaker from the community was Representative Katie Hicks from Clean Water for N.C. Hicks also criticized the gaps in the D.E.Q. findings. \u201cI do not believe the results done by the D.E.Q. are accurate because they only show the findings of the water quality that is [downhill] from the coal ash ponds, not the quality of the water around the affected areas,\u201d said Hicks.<\/p>\n

The D.E.Q. said they will continue to take comments from the public through email at deq.nc.gov until April<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The meeting was a packed house. Concerned citizens stood outside open doors just to hear.
Photo by Madison Weavil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

18, 2016 in which all comments will result in the final decision of what actions will be taken to eliminate this environmental threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Travis Archie On Monday, March 14 at the Boiling Springs Town Hall, a meeting was held in regards to how the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, D.E.Q, would handle the Duke Power coal ash […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[210,673,672,667,671,535,668,670,674,540,669],"class_list":{"0":"post-2376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-boiling-springs","9":"tag-boiling-springs-town-hall","10":"tag-clean-water-for-nc","11":"tag-deq","12":"tag-katie-hicks","13":"tag-madison-weavil","14":"tag-nc-deq","15":"tag-rodger-harris","16":"tag-town-hall-meeting","17":"tag-travis-archie","18":"tag-zihad-khan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}