News

Actions

Local officials say our water is safe after NC coal ash spill

Posted at 7:34 PM, Feb 06, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-06 19:34:36-05

Local officials are moving quickly to reassure us that our water is safe to drink after coal ash spilled into North Carolina's Dan River.

The spill site is upstream from the reservoir where Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and Norfolk get their water.

Officials have stopped the flow of water until things are safe again while investigators work to figure out what happened.

They say a break in a stormwater pipe caused the leak at a closed steam station near Eden, North Carolina.

The City of Virginia Beach released a statement saying that because of the time it takes for the contaminated water to reach Lake Gaston, "there is no conceivable way that anything released in the last few days or few weeks could have reached the Gaston intake."