Dan River coal-ash spill vs Washington Works (PFOA / C8)

Two real, published enforcement settlements, lined up. Every figure below is public record; the head-to-head is computed at build time over those real numbers. Penalty bars share one log scale, so they read across the gutter.

Head to head · real figures only
  • Larger settlement Duke Energy $102 million vs $16.5 million
  • More recent case Duke Energy 2015 vs 2005
  • Regulatory program differ Clean Water Act vs Toxic Substances (TSCA)
Clean Water Act · 2015 Public record

Dan River coal-ash spill

Duke Energy · North Carolina
$102 million
settlement · log scale, $16.5M to $14.7B

A pipe under a coal-ash pond let go into a drinking-water river.

Duke Energy subsidiaries pleaded guilty to nine Clean Water Act violations across North Carolina plants and paid $102 million in fines, restitution, and community service after the 2014 Dan River release.

Source: U.S. DOJ, 2015

Toxic Substances (TSCA) · 2005 Public record

Washington Works (PFOA / C8)

E.I. DuPont de Nemours · West Virginia
$16.5 million
settlement · log scale, $16.5M to $14.7B

The largest civil administrative penalty EPA had ever obtained, at the time.

DuPont settled claims that it withheld health and environmental information about PFOA ("C8") used to make Teflon, paying a $10.25 million penalty plus $6.25 million in supplemental environmental projects.

Source: EPA administrative settlement, 2005

Both cases, in numbers
Field Duke Energy E.I. DuPont de Nemours
Program Clean Water Act Toxic Substances (TSCA)
Operator Duke Energy E.I. DuPont de Nemours
Location North Carolina West Virginia
Year 2015 2005
Settlement / penalty $102 million $16.5 million
Source U.S. DOJ, 2015 EPA administrative settlement, 2005

⇆ Swap sides · All cases & states

These are landmark settlements, not live ECHO facility records. Day-to-day compliance metrics - quarters in noncompliance, formal-action counts, last inspection - are not part of a settlement figure; they join per facility from the ECHO Exporter (loadFacilities() in src/lib/source.ts). See the Methodology for what is real versus illustrative on this site.