"The federal Environmental Protection Agency will join North Carolina regulators in addressing potential violations of the Clean Water Act at Duke Energy power plants, including a massive spill of toxic coal ash last month in the Dan River, state officials said on Friday.

The secretary of the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, John Skvarla, invited the federal agency’s “participation and coordination” in a March 14 letter to the head of its regional office, the state department said in a statement. The regional administrator, Heather McTeer Toney, accepted the offer on Monday.

The statement left unclear the nature of the cooperation between the two agencies, but said they would “pursue a joint approach to enforceable resolution of violations” by Duke, the nation’s largest electric utility."

Michael Wines reports for the New York Times March 21, 2014. [2]