HARTSVILLE, SC – The Coastal Conservation League is sponsoring a public meeting Thursday April 30, 5:30pm at the Lawton Park Pavilion 716 Prestwood Drive in Hartsville.
The meeting will educate citizens on the dangers of groundwater contamination from over 4 million tons of toxic coal ash at the closed Robinson coal-fired electric generation plant on Lake Robinson in Hartsville. The coal ash sits in unlined pits 18 feet into the groundwater.
Results from recent tests show that arsenic contamination in the groundwater that flows into Lake Robinson, exceeds 1000 parts per billion, over 100 times the state standard.
In the 1980s and 90s low level radio-active waste was dumped into an unlined pit, further contaminating the ash and water. Participants will call on Duke Energy for a common sense solution to the toxic contamination; remove the coal ash to lined, dry storage away from public waters, as South Carolina utilities are doing at every single one of their coal ash sites in our state – except Duke Energy’s Robinson site in Darlington County.
Speakers include Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, recently on 60 Minutes speaking on coal ash sites.
—Information provide courtesy of a Press Release from the Coastal Conservation League