A judge has allowed environmental groups to join a state lawsuit against Duke Energy over water pollution from coal plants. The judge granted the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, which will be represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the ability to intervene in the case today, essentially making the organization a second plaintiff. In the lawsuit, the state accuses Duke of allowing coal ash ponds to leak contamination into groundwater, including at the G.G. Allen and Marshall Steam Stations in the Charlotte region.
The Riverkeeper and other organizations are already part of a similar lawsuit about coal ash pollution at the Riverbend Steam Station in Gastonia and the Asheville Steam Station. In that case, the state has tried to settlewith Duke, but the environmental groups are opposing the settlement, which they say requires years of study but little action.
