Minutes - Feb. 2, 2015 Reg, Meeting

Home Browse Search

BK:00027 PG - 0264 Memorandum TO: Lee County Board of Commissioners FROM: John Crumpton, County Manager RE: Colon Road Coal Ash Site DATE: February 2, 2015 Last week Chairman Dalrymple, Vice Chairman Frazier, Staff and Outside Attorneys met with representatives from the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources to review the applications by Green Meadows LCC for the Colon Road Coal Ash Site. The timeline that was discussed was extremely important, so I felt I needed to formally communicate it to the Board. Last week, Green Meadow's application to have the existing mining permit transferred from General Shale into their name was approved. This was the first step in a three step process to get a permit to create a "structural fill" on the site. The second step is getting an amended mining reclamation plan approved by the Department. The third step is to get a landfill permit that allows the structural fill to take place on site. The Department indicated that they would be issuing a draft permit for both the amended reclamation plan and landfill permit at the same time. This will occur within 30 days. Shortly after this time, a public hearing will be held on the landfill permit. Staff indicated that this would probably occur in Lee County. The Coal Ash Bill requires a public hearing for the excavation permit — which occurs in the County where the coal ash will be excavated and sent to either Lee or Chatham Counties. It is important to note that now that the original mining permit is the hands of Green Meadow, Charah may begin excavation work at the site under this permit. The amended permit request will allow them to excavate the other portions of the site that they plan to use for coal ash storage. Based on the amount of ground that needs to be moved and altered they can begin any day. In addition, under the current NPDES permit they can begin draining the main pond on site that will be used to store cell 1 on the site. Discharge from the existing pond will go directly into an adjacent creek on the property that flows to the Cape Fear River. It was confirmed in a side conversation after the meeting that the permit application for the landfill allows Green Meadows to take the site 50 feet over the existing height of the topography. DENR has had discussions with the engineer in charge for Charah on this subject. The engineer says the intent is to go up 10 to 20 feet. No one is sure why the permit application asks to go to 50 feet. Speculation is they aren't really sure how much coal ash they need to bring to the site. Under DENR Landfill permitting rules, going vertical to this height could be allowed. It is apparent that the Department is working between the old Landfill Laws /Rules and the new Coal Ash legislation to evaluate the permits. One major change to the landfill permit is that Charah will now put 6 feet of dirt over the top of the fill, instead of the original 2 feet. This was a concern by area developers who said the site would never be developed with 2 feet of topsoil over the liner. Attached you will find a map showing the adjoining residential property owners and the tax values of their property. Staff was asked to produce this map.