Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good is getting a salary bump of $50,000 per year, according to documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on Monday. That raised eyebrows in North Carolina where, in February 2014, a pipe burst at a Duke facility, spewing more than 30 tons of coal ash into the Dan River near Eden, N.C.
The subsequent cleanup effort has been messy and expensive. The river supplies water for some residents of Virginia and North Carolina. A year after the event, an EPA official estimated Duke’s clean-up costs are estimated to be about $20 million. Duke agreed to pay $102 million in a proposed settlement of nine criminal charges filed by the U.S. government. That deal was approved by a federal Judge in May, according to a Duke (DUKH) Energy spokeswoman.
Duke Energy’s board approved the raise which brings Good’s total salary to more than $1.2 million a year, according to the Associated Press. But her salary is just one piece of her pay package. Bigger incentives mean she could take home a total of $10.5 million annually, up from a possible roughly $8 million per year.
Last year, the board of the nation’s largest electric company producer docked the pay of top execs because of the leak. Good, for example, was dinged $600,000 in her 2014 compensation.