A broken pipe funneled 30,000 tons of toxic coal ash into the Dan River in North Carolina earlier this month, turning it gray. The pipe has been plugged, but has reignited a fight over storage of coal ash, and scrutiny of the state regulators responsible for monitoring it.

The U.S. Justice Department began a criminal investigation into North Carolina’s coal ash ponds and the state’s environmental officials last week. The inquiry , The Associated Press reports, as federal prosecutors called for 20 state employees to testify before a grand jury.

A Statewide Concern

One-hundred-thirty miles south of the Dan River spill, Mark Levi walks to a dock at the back of his house in Charlotte, on the bank of a different river, the Catawba. About a mile away is the Allen steam plant. Its coal ash ponds are six times the size of the ones that leaked at the Dan River plant.

“To us, the worst-case scenario is the dams on those ash ponds break, and it all dumps in the river right here. And, our backyards – what we chose to live on the lake for – is dead,” he says.
Jonathan Steele, owner of Bluegrass Kitchen, fills a jug with bottled water […]