After reading Cecil Bothwell’s article [“The Lease of Our Worries,” April 11], I was not surprised that the Woodfin Zoning Board of Adjustment turned down Progress Energy’s request for a conditional permit to proceed. But what did surprise me was information about the lease that has not been discussed in the sunshine—or the Xpress—and should have been.
If, as Bothwell writes, “The lease allows the utility to store coal ash from the Skyland plant on the banks of the French Broad River,” it makes me wonder what potential problems might occur if the river overflows and the ash is dumped into the river. At the rate the ice is melting in the Arctic, water movement in rivers has been increasing rapidly and flooding cannot be dismissed just because it hasn’t happened in the past.
What effect would a flooded French Broad River filled with coal ash have on [the] area and its water table? Perhaps someone with more environmental knowledge than I have could give Xpress readers a more informed explanation of that scenario’s occurring.
— Bert Bass
Weaverville
