On March 10, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources fined Duke Energy $25.1 million for the corporation’s pollution of groundwater at the Sutton power plant. And what is the company’s answer to this indictment? Deny, deny, deny. The company plans to “vigorously contest” this fine.
Imagine a child crying because their sibling has a telling bruise, and they know they will get in trouble. If they are crying along with their sibling, they think they will be subject to less punishment.
Duke Energy’s culpability in the charges filed is seemingly undeniable. Evidences of the company’s absurd, almost decadent amounts of contamination have piled up over the last year, and the whole extensiveness of the pollution is still not entirely known. The Dan River coal ash spill of February 2014 drew apparently unwelcome attention to Duke Energy’s many sites of ash pollution, one of which includes Wilmington’s Sutton power plant.
Duke Energy’s suspect actions don’t end here; in addition to the immense magnitude of the contamination, Duke has a certain history of endeavoring to cover up its illegal tracks. The company spent $1.8 million on a new water supply line near Sutton when test wells indicated toxic groundwater was heading toward a neighborhood in late 2013. Though an estimate of 27 million gallons of water were contaminated by various metals in the Dan River spill, Duke Energy did not release a public statement regarding the spill until the next day, according to CatawbaRiverkeeper.com.
Paul Newton, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president, proclaimed the actions by the N.C. DENR to be an example of “regulatory overreach” as well as a “chilling message to the North Carolina business community.”
Note how Newton attempts to ground Duke Energy’s effective monopoly as the “largest electric power holding company in the United States” by pointedly mentioning North Carolina’s “business community,” as though he may rightly lay claim to the troubles confronted by small businesses—troubles that are frequently initiated by corporations like Duke Energy.
How nice! He’s suddenly concerned for us commoners—those whose water his company quite literally poisoned. North Carolina’s business community was likely threatened to a larger extent by the vast amounts of contaminated water than by the N.C. DENR’s charges against a (proven) guilty party that can more than afford it.
It may be hard to assign a monetary value to the various implications of the company’s extensive pollution—the coal ash elements found in testing sites at Duke Energy’s Sutton plant had exceeded state standards for up to five years—but $25.1 million seems like a more than fair amount for the prosperous corporation to pay in reparations. Duke Energy can most definitely afford it.
Though the effectiveness of fining polluting companies (many of which are repeat offenders) is an oft debated topic, I am more concerned with Duke Energy’s posthumous self-positioning as the victim, especially considering that Duke just last month negotiated a $102 million settlement in response to its federal criminal charges concerning six of its power plants.
A business that intentionally disobeys sanctions instituted to help ensure our safety cannot be a victim. Though Duke Energy is eager to claim “community” and play the “We didn’t mean to!” card, we shouldn’t be so eager to go along with the ruse.
Duke Energy is yet another bullying, abusive corporation that dares to contest its own vices contrary to evidence and contrary to the basics of human decency. And why? To preserve an image that they regularly contradict.
Large businesses have behaved like impetuous children for years upon years, and we should at some point stop giving in to their whining. Although they may have poisoned the well, we don’t have to continue to drink from it.
