Regarding the July 28 column on coal ash, there’s something I’d like to point out about perspective and positioning that the author seems to merely gloss over.

Any government departments that focus on environmental issues have two interests: protecting the public health vis-à-vis our air and water, and ensuring environmental quality. That’s about it. Any reports they release and any recommendations they make are based on these two objectives. Duke Energy, on the other hand, also has two interests: maximizing their profits and pacifying rate-payers. These are the interests that inform every statement they release and every bit of scientific evidence they fund.

The Department of Environmental Quality — again, with only public health and environmental quality in mind — classified even the least dangerous coal ash dumps as intermediate risk, meaning they’d have to be excavated and moved to safe impoundments. The process behind the Coal Ash Commission’s work and these classifications included public comment periods and were otherwise properly democratic. There was a lot of work done on behalf of the people of our state to assess the risk, make pro-public choices, and ultimately make sure the coal ash was cleaned up.

Then suddenly, Duke representatives share some of their own assessments — again, with profit and pacification in mind — and are allowed by their legislative friends (and Gov. Pat McCrory, their former employee) to merely cap pits that had been previously been labeled dangerous to the public health? This isn’t just some technical disagreement. This is a breach of democracy. A powerful company shouldn’t be able to undo over a year of democratic process in one fell swoop. Nor can they be justified in tying the hands of accountable government bodies for the sake of minimizing their costs.

There may be two sides to every story, but it’s important to recognize that one side has an incentive to deceive you while the other doesn’t.

Jeremiah Prince

Currently living in Wolf Village Intern Housing

This Letter to the Editor is a response to the column “The costs and benefits of hauling ash,” published July 28.