EDEN, N.C. -- An information session regarding Duke Energy's proposed coal ash landfill in Eden only brings out a handful of people.
The Department of Environmental Quality held the informal meeting at city hall, but more officials than residents showed up.
“If it’s not a public hearing, most of the time people won’t come because they have to come around and they have to look at the totals, pick up the information, especially if things are going well, people are not going to complain a lot,” Eden Mayor Wayne Tuggle Sr. said. “I think they’re main concerns about safety, contamination and ground water and those type of things.”
Duke Energy wants to build and operate a newly double lined landfill on the Dan River Steam Station Property.
The company is in the process of closing coal ash basins around the state. In Eden, about half of the 3 million tons of coal ash on site is being moved by rail to a landfill in central Virginia.
“We moved nearly 500,000 tons of ash since we started work at the end of 2015,” Jeff Brooks with Duke Energy said.
Once excavation of the dry coal ash stacks is complete, plans show a new double lined landfill to be built on the property to store coal ash from basins along with other waste from the Dan River facility.
“We can't move forward with the actual construction of the lined landfill without the permits,” Brooks said.
DEQ is completing an environmental justice analysis to determine potential impacts the proposed landfill would have on people living within a mile of the project.
"We're looking at a lot of things that are already contained in the proposed, applied for permit,” Jamie Kritzer with DEQ said. “Those include things that will control for dust, those include things that will control for waste."
DEQ plans to decide on whether Duke Energy gets a permit or not for the project within the next 30 days.