Coal ash. It doesn’t sound appealing and it isn’t. Coal ash is the waste material left behind when coal is burned for electricity. It contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic. It’s the second largest industrial waste stream in the country. It’s not camera friendly. It’s unsightly […]
It doesn’t sound appealing and it isn’t.
Coal ash is the waste material left behind when coal is burned for electricity. It contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic. It’s the second largest industrial waste stream in the country.
It’s not camera friendly. It’s unsightly and when you look at it, it’s kind of boring. So as a news story, coal ash doesn’t exactly get local TV newsrooms excited.
Unless 39,000 tons — 27 million gallons — of it is dumped into a river.
Then it becomes a huge story with repercussions that go on for years and years.
In 2014, a closed power plant owned by Duke Energy, spilled coal ash into the Dan River, resulting in the third worse coal ash spill in US history.
WNCN, Media General’s NBC affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award in the TV News Series category for its coverage of the disaster.
The Coal Ash Dan River Disaster, is a series of investigative reports by WNCN into the cause and effects of the catastrophe.
The reports revealed inspection reports that cited concerns eight years before the environmental disaster.
The series further outlines the toxic mess left behind, the controversial relationships between Duke Energy and its regulators, and the future of coal ash in North Carolina as a possible construction material.
To see all of the reports in the series, click here.
Below is a promo and part 1 of the series.
WNCN: News, Weather, Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville WNCN also won the regional Edward R. Murrow Award in the Hard News category for its #Brake4Buses safety campaign. The campaign addressed the issue of 3,000 North Carolina derivers illegally passing stopped school buses every day.
#Brake4Buses has become a social media phenomenon reaching 30 million people around the world. WNCN, with the help of the North Carolina’s Department of Public Transportation, created a public service announcement that has been shown at local TV stations around the country.
To see all of the reports in the series, click here.
Here is the PSA created by WNCN followed by part 1 of the #Breake4Buses campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YGXi0-kfbEWNCN: News, Weather, Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville
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