RALEIGH -- A Wake County superior court judge ruled Friday that Duke Energy cannot have a blanket order keeping its coal ash records out of the hands of environmental groups that are suing it over water pollution violations.

Frank Holleman, Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, says there has been a year's worth of work in the lead-up to this decision.

"Duke had attempted to use the fact that it was having to provide materials to a federal criminal grand jury as an excuse not to provide them to us in the Civil Enforcement Action to try to clean up the pollution,but today in court the judge denied that motion."

Judge Paul Ridgeway said he will consider the utility’s concerns over specific kinds of documents as the case progresses, and might permit them to be filed under seal but still shared with attorneys for the environmentalists.