INSTITUTE INDEX: North Carolina's weak new coal ash law draws protest

Date on which the North Carolina legislature overwhelmingly approved the Coal Ash Management Act, a response to a massive February spill from a shuttered Duke Energy power plant into the Dan River: 8/20/2014

Number of other states that have similar laws governing coal ash disposal: 0

Of Duke Energy's 14 coal ash disposal sites across the state, number where impoundments are leaking contaminants to the environment: 14

Number of those 14 coal ash sites where the new law requires all the coal ash to be removed from impoundments and transferred to lined landfills: 4

Of the 10 sites not designated for immediate cleanup under the law, number where serious threats have been documented in recent news reports: 3

Date by which new construction or expansion of coal ash impoundments is banned under the law: 10/1/2014

Year by which the contents of coal ash dumpsites determined to be high risk must be excavated and placed in lined landfills: 2019

Number of years that coal ash dumpsite owners can delay closure under the law: 3

Month in which the bill lifts a moratorium forbidding Duke from raising customer rates to finance the coal ash cleanup: 1/2015

Month in which a judge in Wake County, North Carolina issued a ruling requiring groundwater pollution at nearly all of the state's coal ash dumpsites to be fixed immediately -- a ruling that the law overturns: 3/2014

Number of seats on the Coal Ash Management Commission that the bill sets up within the Department of Public Safety to oversee disposal and cleanup of the toxic waste: 9

Percent of those seats that will be filled through political appointments: 100

Number of those appointments that will be made by Gov. Pat McCrory, a longtime Duke Energy employee who is embroiled in controversy over misreporting his holdings in the company on his latest financial disclosure form: 3

Total amount of Duke Energy's direct contributions to McCrory's two gubernatorial campaigns through the end of 2012: $332,836

Total amount Duke Energy's political action committee has contributed to North Carolina politics since 1996: over $2.1 million

Date on which protesters with Greenpeace, Charlotte NAACP Action, and Charlotte Environmental Action protested against the bill outside Duke Energy's Charlotte headquarters: 8/21/2014

Date by which the Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to release federal rules governing coal ash disposal, an effort to create some consistency in oversight: 12/19/2014

(Click on figure to go to source.)