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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Oil and Coal Ash Slurry Spills Bring Fines

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Tuesday, February 24, 2015   

RICHMOND, Va. - Federal prosecutors and state environmental officials are penalizing Duke Energy and railway company CSX for violating clean water protections in separate incidents. The combined fines could total more than $450 million.

CSX faces a civil penalty that could top $360 million, after a CSX train carrying crude oil derailed last April, sending oil into the James River and causing an explosion and fire that forced the evacuation of downtown Lynchburg.

Separately, Duke Energy has agreed to pay more than $100 million for a coal ash spill into the Dan River. Attorney D.J. Gerken with the Southern Environmental Law Center says Duke was negligent.

"You have to buy your electricity and they get to sell it to you," says Gerken. "Meanwhile, they've been doing the cheapest thing possible with their coal ash. They've been sluicing it into unlined pits in the ground next to drinking water supplies, and the inevitable happened. They polluted surface water and ground water. That's what these criminal charges reflect."

The Duke settlement has to be approved by a federal judge before it is official. The CSX fine still has to go before the State Water Control Board for approval.

Duke Energy offered a statement posted on the company's website by CEO Lynn Good.

"We have taken the steps necessary in order to improve throughout our system," says Good. "We've used outside engineering experts. We've used outside scientists to help inform smart solutions, and we're working proactively as rapidly and as safely as we can."

Environmental groups say the incidents show how large corporations in the energy sectors are not doing enough to ensure public safety. CSX is also under investigation for a crude oil train derailment and explosion in West Virginia last week. The company says it has voluntarily improved its tank cars, and is cooperating with investigations that may show further change is needed.


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