I think there are heavy metals in the ground water now and there was 20 years ago. It’s just another case of kicking the can down the road just like with nuclear waste
The source of the vanadium is almost certainly Duke’s ash piles. Duke should bear full responsibility for correcting the problem. It may have been there 20 years or more depending on when they started piling it on.
The only way I can think of to correct the problem is to install purge wells to pump the water into the sanitary sewer system. But you can’t fix it for good unless you install some sort of system to keep the ash from leeching into the groundwater. Maybe that’s been done already. I’m inclined to think there are already regulations in place to keep this from happening. Maybe not.
I find it appalling that the state refuses to release information regarding how many wells were contaminated. If I owned one of those wells I’d be sorely pissed.