Duke to pay for damage to Arden roads from ash hauling

ARDEN – Duke Energy has agreed in principle to pay the state to repave and possibly improve about two miles of roadway damaged by trucks hauling coal ash from the utility's generating plant at Lake Julian to Asheville Regional Airport.

About 200 dump trucks a day carry the ash over parts of New Rockwood Road, Glenn Bridge Road and Pinner Road and a state Department of Transportation engineer says the roads are deteriorating as a result.

"You'll see places where there are some potholes that are showing up. There are some places that are pretty severely cracked," said Mark Gibbs, DOT division maintenance engineer.

DOT and Duke have been discussing the situation since last fall, Gibbs said, and a Duke official says the company accepts responsibility for the problems. Gibbs and Jason Walls, Duke's district manager, said they hope to have a formal agreement finalized shortly.

A contractor for Duke has been transporting ash from the plant south of Long Shoals Road to the airport since 2007. The ash is being placed in a lined landfill to create more flat land at the airport.

Cracks and potholes are indeed visible at several places along the route.

Gibbs said the trucks are within the legal weight limit for the roads, meaning DOT cannot directly force Duke to pay for the damage. But, he said, if Duke did not cooperate, DOT could restrict use of the roads by heavy trucks.

"We don't want to do that. We've not gotten to that point," he said.

Walls said Duke and DOT "recognized that the daily hauling of coal ash between the Asheville airport and the Lake Julian plant has caused damage."

The agenda for the Feb. 5 meeting of the state Board of Transportation contained an item informing the board that DOT and Duke had agreed to pay an estimated $97,699 for the work. However, Gibbs said that notice is premature and the two sides are still working out final terms of an agreement, including how much Duke would pay.

The current ash removal project is scheduled to be completed sometime before the end of the year, but Duke has asked state approval of a plan it submitted last year to remove additional coal ash from the Lake Julian property over the next two or three years, Wall said.

DOT hopes to repave the roads this summer and may include some steps to improve them in the job, Gibbs said. It would assess their condition after the hauling work is completed to see if additional work is needed, he said.