From The Citizen-Times: At public hearing, proposed Duke Energy rate hike meets vocal opposition
Legislators in Raleigh had the chance to prevent Duke Energy from raising their rates to pay for their coal ash mess and they didn’t do it. Families in North Carolina who currently have high levels of toxic hexavalent chromium in their water, and still are drinking bottled water years after it’s discovery, are now being told they may be forced to pay MORE for their dirty energy to compensate Duke for their future cleanup. It’s outrageous.
Duke Energy customers turned out in droves Wednesday in opposition to a proposed rate hike to pay for infrastructure upgrades and coal ash cleanup at the utility’s Lake Julian power plant.
“North Carolina has paid a heavy price and now Duke Energy wants to bill us for their negligence and mismanagement,” Judy Maddox, chairman of Sierra Club of Western North Carolina, told the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
“We say no.”
The vast majority of the more than 100 people who packed the Buncombe County Courthouse for a public hearing voiced strong opposition to a potential 16.7 percent rate increase that would affect residential customers across the Carolinas.
With the increase, Duke would collect $447.5 million from all customers in the Carolinas through the duration of the rate hike.
