- Reached an agreement with North Carolina regulators and community groups to permanently close all remaining ash basins in North Carolina. The plan:
- Relies heavily on excavation with ash placed in lined landfills
- Lowers estimated closure cost by approximately $1.5 billion while ensuring that people, communities and environment are well-protected
- Resolves pending environmental litigation related to basin closure methods
- Completed the excavation of 12 ash basins, with nearly 28 million tons of ash moved to fully lined facilities or recycled.
- Completed ash basin excavation at three North Carolina facilities: Dan River Steam Station in Eden, Sutton Plant in Wilmington and Riverbend Steam Station in Mount Holly; additionally, completed excavation at East Bend Station in Kentucky and excavation of the second of three basins at W.S. Lee Steam Station in South Carolina.
- Construction well underway at three new coal ash recycling units at three plant sites in North Carolina to reprocess ash for use in the construction industry: Buck in Salisbury, H.F. Lee in Goldsboro and Cape Fear in Moncure. Once the units come online in 2020 and 2021, the company will recycle more ash than it produces each year.
- Completed ash handling technology upgrades at operating coal plants to take ash basins permanently out of service. This includes new dry ash handling systems, wastewater treatment and stormwater management systems. All production ash is now being handled dry in lined landfills or being recycled, with no ash going to basins (other than at Asheville and Gallagher, which are being retired).
- Ongoing removal of water from basins across the system, a necessary step regardless of the closure method.
- Received approval from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for the closure and post-closure plans for several basins at Wabash River Station.