Wealthy Town Fears a Common Building Practice Haunts Them

Wall Street Journal looks at how residents of NC's Mooresville worry over toxic coal ash, cancer rates
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 6, 2024 4:35 PM CDT
Wealthy Town Fears a Common Building Practice Haunts Them
In this 2016 photo, workers excavate soil laden with coal ash from the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C.   (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

For residents of Mooresville, North Carolina, it's a matter of connecting the dots, and the Wall Street Journal lays them out. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, local builders bought tons of coal ash from Duke Energy and used it a cheap substitute for dirt. Last year, the EPA said coal ash—a by-product of burning coal to produce electricity—poses "serious public health risks" because it can contain arsenic, heavy metals, and radioactive elements. Rates of thyroid cancer in the 28117 zip code around Mooresville were triple the statewide rate between 2012 and 2016. Are the dots connected? Some worried residents are sure of it, including Lori Deans, who has begun holding up signs with messages such as "Coal Ash Sacrifice Zone" along Route 150 after her 27-year-old son died of testicular cancer.

But proving a causal connection is a complicated issue, writes Kris Maher, who notes that the National Cancer Institute has said cancer clusters can pop up by chance. Duke Energy and other utilities, meanwhile, dispute the EPA view on coal ash. "It's always challenging when people have health issues and are searching for answers, and there are countless risk factors that can contribute to someone's health condition," says Duke spokesman Bill Norton. At the very least, residents of Mooresville—one of the wealthiest towns in the state—want an EPA investigation of the matter. The story finds that the ash was used in everything from flower beds to home crawl spaces. It also points out that 180 million tons of coal ash have been used as fill around the country since 1980, though records of precise locations are spotty because the EPA and states weren't tracking it. (Read the full story.)

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