Transcript Sheds Light on Deceptive North Carolina Do-not-drink Advisories
By: Pete Harrison
McCrory Administration ignored and overruled advice of State Epidemiologist on coal ash toxin, put interests of polluters over public health
RALEIGH, NC — May 12, 2016 — Dozens of families living just a few hundred feet away from Duke Energy’s leaking coal ash dumps in North Carolina learned last year that the well water they had been drinking contained dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium, a potent carcinogen associated with coal ash. When the contamination was discovered last year, the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) advised these families not to drink their water because the contaminants posed a risk of cancer greater than widely-accepted acceptable risk levels.
However, the McCrory administration sidelined the State Toxicologist who issued the advisories and replaced him with Randall Williams, a friend of the governor who is a gynecologist – not a toxicologist. Relying on blatant lies comparing the amount of contamination in the wells to that in municipal water supplies, Williams recently retracted the do-not-drink advisories and began telling people their water is safe to drink, regardless of the amount of contamination it contains.
Today, a transcript of a deposition of the North Carolina State Epidemiologist, Dr. Megan Davies, sheds new light on how officials in the McCrory administration shut down their own public health experts and ignored critical public health information to justify rescinding the do-not-drink advisories issued by DHHS. The deposition was taken last week as part of ongoing enforcement litigation by Waterkeeper Alliance and other groups against Duke Energy for its illegal coal ash pollution.
“Dr. Davies’ testimony confirms that high-level officials in the McCrory administration ignored the State Epidemiologist when they recklessly advised families that their water was safe to drink even though it had extremely dangerous levels of a potent carcinogen,” said Pete Harrison, an attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance. “Dr. Davies is essentially saying that her superiors went against her own expert advice and started making up justifications to convince people their water is safe, when in fact it poses serious health risks. This is yet another demonstration of the McCrory administration putting the interests of polluters like Duke Energy ahead of the health and safety of real people.”
One of the principal justifications for the reversal was the claim that the “water is as safe to drink as water in most cities and towns across the state and country.” Dr. Davies said she researched this claim by looking at the levels of contaminants in Raleigh and Charlotte, and found that the hexavalent chromium levels in those cities were actually much lower than those in wells near coal ash dumps.
Here are links to a transcript of the deposition and notes from the Southern Environmental Law Center highlighting significant parts of the deposition.
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Contact: Pete Harrison, [email protected], 828-582-0422