With a governor, Pat McCrory, who was employed by Duke for 28 years, and a Legislature rife with members who have accepted contributions from Duke and other energy companies throughout their careers, it’s no surprise that our state government has shown little interest in forcing Duke to clean up the mess it has made of our state.

In fact, even as North Carolina faces the worst threat to its waterways in a generation, state politicians have started a process to eliminate dozens of environmental protections that have kept our water safe and clean for decades.

Last year, the General Assembly mandated that every single safeguard on our state’s waterways and drinking water be allowed to expire, unless regulators went through a burdensome process to readopt each one. To further stack the deck, legislators have simultaneously slashed 40 percent from the budget of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the agency charged with ensuring these safeguards are in place and enforced.

Nearly four months after the Dan River spill was discovered, Duke Energy has barely begun to clean up the river (though it reached a deal with the Environmental Protection Agency to do so last month), and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has yet to force Duke to begin a comprehensive cleanup in its 13 other coal ash sites across North Carolina — all of which are slowly leaking pollutants into our rivers, groundwater and drinking water. The site on the Dan River is the smallest one in the state; if the coal ash ponds near Asheville or Charlotte or another community were to fail, it would make the Dan River spill look like a mere prelude to a truly national disaster.

It’s hard to overstate the seriousness of the crisis that would ensue if our politicians allowed the safeguards that protect our water to expire. These are the laws that allow us to feel confident that when we turn on our taps and pour a glass of water, that water is going to be clean and free of toxins. These are the safeguards that stand between us and corporations that have demonstrated, with every single leaking coal ash pit, that what they care most about is profit, not the health and safety of North Carolina’s families.