Update Oct. 2 at 9:48 a.m.: The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality released tests Monday confirming toxin levels at Duke Energy's H.F. Lee coal ash site were below the legal limit.
In the wake of Hurricane Florence, two stories of coal ash spills have surfaced in Eastern North Carolina.
Both Duke Energy's H.F. Lee and L.V. Sutton sites were affected by Florence's floodwaters as the water washed over pits where discarded coal ash is stored. Damage at the Sutton site in Wilmington is still being assessed by environmental regulators, though Duke Energy stands by the effectiveness of its containment dams.
At the H.F. Lee site in Goldsboro, the battle has already begun. Matthew Starr, the Upper Neuse riverkeeper for the environmental nonprofit Sound Rivers, collected samples by boat showing arsenic levels 18 times the allowed limit in the Neuse River.
"We don't know how much coal ash left that site — these ponds were underwater for multiple days actively eroding, spilling, displacing and dumping coal ash into the flooded Neuse River, all of it flowing downstream," Starr said. "What we do know, is at the time it was happening, the Neuse River was being poisoned with arsenic and other heavy metals from the H.F. Lee inactive coal ash pond."
Tests conducted by Duke Energy, though, tell a different story.
"Regulators also agree that only a small amount of coal ash was displaced, similar to the impact in the wake of Hurricane Matthew in 2016," Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton said in an email. "Water tests taken at the site demonstrate that the environment remains well-protected, as was the case in 2016."
Starr has criticized Duke Energy of taking samples six miles downstream from the spill and therefore lowering the numbers on test results.