A Power Company’s Quiet Land-Buying Spree Could Shield It From Coal Ash Cleanup Costs
“The new regulations require utilities to clean up contaminants if they are found at high enough levels beyond the boundaries of their plant sites. By extending those boundaries through land purchases, Georgia Power could push back the day it has to deal with its legacy of pollution”
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“Georgia Power spokesperson John Kraft said in a recent statement that the purchased properties were intended for use as a construction buffer while the company closes its unlined ponds, a lengthy process that includes pumping water out of the disposal site and burying the remaining coal ash in place. He did not respond to direct questions about whether the purchased land would help the company delay cleanup costs.
He noted that the company, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, the nation’s second-largest energy provider, has hired experts to monitor test wells positioned around the ash ponds for signs of groundwater contamination. Based on the results of those tests, he added, the company “has identified no impact to drinking water.””
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“On Dec. 22, 2008, more than a billion gallons of a toxic slurry of coal ash and water breached a dike at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville. The wave — roughly five times the volume of liquid spilled by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico two years later — tore up railways, toppled power lines, knocked a home off its foundation and caked the Emory River in a thick, gray sludge.”
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“Utilities produce over 100 million tons of coal ash annually, according to the EPA, making it the nation’s second-largest source of industrial waste after household garbage.
Coal ash is the fine residue left when coal is burned to produce power. The ash contains contaminants associated with long-term health risks, including damage to the kidney (from mercury), stomach (from boron) and nervous system (from arsenic). To dispose of it, utilities can either transport the waste to a landfill with a protective liner on the bottom or mix it with water in an ash pond without a layer underneath.”