So in this case, those seeps had been allowed to flow into the channels that carry them into the river. LANA PETTUS: The crux of the charges here in the Duke case was once you’ve discovered a seep or once a seep occurs, what you do when you find it. Pettus says the problem with coal ash is that it contains a plethora of toxic heavy metals that if leaked into local water sources can contaminate the drinking water for miles downstream. Pettus is a Harrisonburg native and has been working on a variety of environmental law cases for the Justice Department since she first started working there in 2004. Lana Pettus is one of the senior Justice Department lawyers who brought the criminal charges against Duke in the 2015 case. Although it has been amended several times since then, the Clean Water Act is still the primary federal law governing water pollution in the United States. The Clean Water Act was originally passed in 1972. While the Duke spill doesn’t directly affect central and western Virginia, the law Duke violated in North Carolina, the Clean Water Act, most definitely does. The company was investigated after a massive North Carolina coal ash spill into the Dan River in February of 2014 and now faces $102 million dollars in fines. ![]() In May, Duke Energy Corporation pleaded guilty to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. But what effect does that dependency have on the world around us? And what is being done to prevent contamination of the resources we need to survive? In Part 3 of our series " Clean Virginia," WMRA’s Kara Lofton reports. With rare exceptions, we are all dependent on power plants to generate electricity for all facets of American life - plants owned and operated by large companies such as Duke Energy Corporation and Dominion Virginia Power.
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