The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality will host two upcoming events in Cleveland County - both centered around issues concerning Duke Energy coal ash basins at the Cliffside Steam Station/Rogers Energy Complex near the Broad River.

At 6 p.m. on March 14, NCDEQ will host a public meeting at the Boiling Springs Town Hall, 114 East College Ave., Shelby. The meeting will focus on the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's recent proposal to rank the two Duke Energy inactive coal ash basins in Cleveland County at the Cliffside power plant as "low priority," according to the event's Facebook page,

A separate hearing is planned on March 14 in Rutherford County at the Isothermal Community College Auditorium, 286 ICC Loop Rd, Spindale.

These meetings are part of the Coal Ash Management Act.

On Feb. 24 at Cleveland Memorial Library, 104 Howie Dr., Shelby, there will be a screening for "Coal Ash Stories," a series of short films, which will provide background on issues related to the Cliffside station and its effects on groundwater, especially near the Broad River.

The program is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. Local co-sponsors include Clean Water for North Carolina, the Broad Riverkeeper and the French Broad Riverkeeper, according to the event's Facebook page.

The Cliffside coal ash ponds were declared "low" and "low/intermediate" risk by the NCDEQ on Dec. 31, 2015. Low-risk ponds must be closed by December 2029, while intermediate-risk must be excavated and closed by December 2024, according to the NCDEQ press release. High-risk ponds must be excavated and closed by December 2019.

“Thanks to Governor McCrory’s leadership and the hard work of dedicated DEQ staff, North Carolina is well on its way to permanently eliminating the decades-old threat of improperly stored coal ash,” DEQ Secretary Donald R. van der Vaart said. “DEQ’s draft classifications are the result of months of review of scientific information about each coal ash pond’s impact to the environment and public health.”

Those results are disputed by the conservation group, MountainTrue, which states on its website: "Of the 32 coal ash pits in North Carolina, only four are rated low risk and two of those are at Cliffside. The third dumpsite at Cliffside is rated “low/intermediate risk,” which is a classification that doesn’t exist under state law.

The Coal Ash Management Act specifies three classifications: “High” and “intermediate risk pits” are to be excavated with the ash moved to a safer location, and “low risk” are to be drained and capped in place. The DEQ has made up a fourth designation, “low/intermediate”, and it is unclear if these would be treated any differently than “low risk” pits, which would be allowed to continue to pollute our river and groundwater indefinitely.

"The DEQ has classified two of the Cliffside coal ash pits as “low” and one as “low/intermediate” risk, despite testing that shows high levels of toxic arsenic, chromium, cobalt, hexavalent chromium, thallium and vanadium contaminating groundwater and flowing into the Broad River."

For more information on the upcoming events in Cleveland County, visit Clean Water for North Carolina's Facebook page.