Water and Power - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 147

all of the region's major river basins. The attendees also controlled what the public would
learn; they did not want “any P.R.” regarding the meeting. 3
Messaging is important for any institution. The nation's two largest utility holding com-
panies have a far-flung family of current and former employees who remain close to the
region's political structure. Duke Energy (the nation's largest utility) and the Southern
Company (and its Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power
subsidiaries) do more than generate energy for residential, commercial, and industrial
consumers. They lobby state capitols and the Capitol in Washington on a variety of is-
sues—environmental legislation, climate change science, federal subsidies for clean en-
ergy—by spending millions of dollars every year to enlist super-lobbyists such as Haley
Barbour (who was a Southern Company lobbyist before he became Mississippi's governor
from 2004 to 2012) to bend the ears of elected representatives and regulators from Mis-
sissippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Southern Company reportedly spent $13
million in 2013 lobbying federal and elected officials. 4 Without cheap and reliable energy
sources and unfettered access to water with minimal regulations, the utilities are apt to ar-
gue, their home states cannot lure industry and stimulate economic development.
This closeness among the regulators and the regulated community at the energy-water
nexus carries significant risk for energy companies and communities. In early 2014, North
Carolina governor Pat McCrory—a former Duke Energy executive of almost thirty years
who also accepted more than $1.1 million in campaign contributions from the com-
pany—was implicated in the state's failure to regulate Duke's thirty coal ash storage ponds
after the one pond at a retired steam station failed and sent almost 40,000 tons of ash in-
to the Dan River. Coal ash is generated when coal is burned to boil water and generate
steam for electrical production. Coal ash is highly toxic and contains heavy metals. Sub-
sequent coal ash pond investigations at other Duke facilities in North Carolina revealed
violations to the federal Clean Water Act as well as state regulations. Furthermore, a fed-
eral grand jury has since opened a criminal investigation and subpoenaed Duke's execut-
ives and McCrory's agency staff. As one editorialist noted, Duke has not faced this much
public or regulatory attention since the 1930s when populists and New Dealers targeted
utility monopolies nationwide for their resistance to rural electrification. A full analysis of
the coal ash situation in North Carolina is a long way off. What is evident now is how
coal ash storage along major southern waterways illustrates the intertwined legacy of water
and energy choices and the long-term economic and environmental consequences of those
choices for communities tied to southern rivers. Furthermore, the relationship between the
regulators and regulated communities needs additional scrutiny and oversight. 5
In Georgia, water and energy relationships among decision makers are not secret. Two
years after the Atlanta airport water and energy meeting in 2007, Governor Sonny Perdue
appointed Georgia Power's former CEO Michael Garrett to manage the state's response to