Barclays is an investor in Duke energy, a company that has been faced with litigation by environmental and civil rights groups in North Carolina for the last eight years. For decades, coal ash had been stored in landfills or in ponds which frequently leaked into rivers used as public drinking water resources. Coal ash is a residual byproduct of the burning of coal at power plants and contains many toxic substances, causing illnesses in people and animals. Now, Duke Energy has agreed to excavate coal ash from unlined impoundments and landfills at all its North Carolina sites and move the ash to dry lined storage or recycle it into cement and concrete. They plan to pay for this by increasing rates for consumers, instead of cutting executive salaries or shareholder dividends.