— Water quality tests from the Neuse River released by state environmental regulators Monday evening indicate that levels of heavy metals didn't increase immediately after a coal ash spill caused by Hurricane Florence's torrential rainfall.

The sample results, published by the state Department of Environmental Quality, conflict with other results from environmental groups, which last week showed levels of arsenic in nearby floodwaters 18 times the state standard.

Staff at the agency's Division of Water Resources sampled three locations upstream and downstream from Duke Energy's H.F. Lee Plant in Wayne County. The facility's inactive, vegetation-covered coal ash basins were inundated by flooding from the adjacent Neuse in the days after Florence dumped more than 20 inches of rain over parts of the river basin.

DEQ staff sampled the river on Sept. 23, four days after environmental advocates from the Waterkeeper Alliance documented the flooding and did their own sampling.

Results from the state show that all three of the sites tested below state water quality standards for arsenic and mercury, as well as other heavy metals. In some cases, the results were below detection limits.

Duke Energy has maintained that its own results show "very little difference" from water quality upstream of the plant and accused environmental groups last week of inciting panic.

DEQ has not yet released sampling results from the site of a second coal ash spill at the energy company's Sutton plant near Wilmington.

An uncompleted coal ash landfill there failed during heavy rains, sloughing off what Duke Energy estimated to be 2,000 cubic yards of soil, water and ash into a perimeter ditch. The company said it couldn't be sure whether any reached the adjacent Lake Sutton, a cooling pond and public recreation area that days later overtopped and breached its dam, flowing into the Cape Fear River.