Belmont Residents Attend Duke Energy Meeting Regarding Water And Coal Ash

BELMONT, NC — “I’m very livid. I have a small child… I expect clean water,” said Belmont resident, Angela Recinella.

Belmont residents living near the Duke Energy Allen plant showed up at city hall to hear Duke Energy’s plan to get them permanent clean water after years of living on bottled water.

“I really don’t think it should have taken as long as it’s taken,” said Belmont resident, Debra Baker, “it’s really been a fight for all of us.”

The plan includes homes only within a half mile radius from the coal ash pond container. Duke Energy will provide and pay for either water connection to the city of Belmont or water filtration to homes. Duke offered a $5000 goodwill payment to families, plus 25 years of paying their water bill, plus a protection plan for families looking to sell their homes.

“I still believe there’s a lot of gray areas,” Baker said, “there’s still a lot of unanswered questions.”

Like what about people living right outside the half mile, but are still impacted.

“My well is contaminated. It’s more contaminated than my neighbors who are inside the half mile radius,” said Baker

Duke energy says they’re out of luck.

“Unfortunately there’s always going to be one person… if it were 5 miles or much more than that there’s always one person outside the line,” said Martha Thompson with Duke Energy.

The general assembly gave Duke an October 2018 deadline, so even for families inside the radius it could be more than a year before Duke Energy actually gets their plan in place.

“We’ll still be cooking with bottled water, we’ll still be brushing our teeth with bottled water, we’ll still be moving the bottled water,” said Baker.