but laura tench is surrounded by cancer.t her husband jack to the disease last year, and many of her neighbors have similar stories. >> they call the street in front of me, cancer street. john died first and he is gone. my husband died from cancer. mary ann next door died from cancer. you can't tell me that these people, just because they're past 50 it's normal for them get cancer and die. and there's too many people they're ing on my little reet. they're killing us. >> duke energy responded with the highest level of c. we offered to provide bottled water for those folks while we were continuing too more testin >> reporter: coal ash and its consequences burst into public consciousness in 2008, when an earthen dam at a power plant in kingston, tennessee collapsed - sending more than a billion gallons of ash-tainted waterr into a riv. this caught attorney frank holleman's attention. >> we're using 21st century technology to take pollutants out of the smoke stack, and ther using 14th century technology to dispose of the ash and