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Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009

Plant Scherer holds striking similarities to TVA plant where ash pond contaminated area

No ground water monitoring. No structural inspections by regulators. In many ways, the coal ash ponds at power plants in Georgia are monitored less than the Macon city landfill.

But the ponds contain a mix of water and coal ash laced with toxic heavy metals, the byproduct of burning coal to generate electricity.

Electricity providers have long said these pollutants are safely stored in open, man-made ponds next to power plants, such as the one next to Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer in Monroe County.

“The safety of ash ponds at all our plants is always a top priority,” Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2000 decided not to regulate coal ash as hazardous waste — although this was a reversal of its previous conclusion earlier the same year.

But the recent collapse of an ash pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant has renewed scrutiny of their risks. Last week, plant neighbors and U.S. senators called for greater regulation of the ponds.

When the 40-acre pond at the Kingston Plant spilled in Harriman, Tenn., it covered hundreds of acres with as much as 9 feet of gray muck, destroyed homes and contaminated the Emory River.

Plant Scherer has an ash pond almost 19 times the size of Kingston’s, with the same earthen berm structure. Scherer’s nearest residential neighbors are about half a mile away, Wilson said.

Among U.S. states, Georgia ranks 13th in the amount of coal ash it generates, according to Toxic Release Inventory data.

Plant Scherer alone burns 15 million tons of coal a year and produces about 1,900 tons of ash a day. About 1,033 tons are deposited daily in its ash pond, Wilson said.

The remaining ash from the plant — about 46 percent of the total —- is sold for use in cement or agriculture. That’s in line with the national average for reusing the ash.

GEORGIA POWER’S TRACK RECORD

State regulators and Georgia Power say there have been no notable problems at Plant Scherer’s ash pond.

But pond spills are not alien to Georgia Power.

Plant Bowen near Cartersville spilled more than 2 million gallons in 2002 when a huge sinkhole opened beneath its pond. And in September, Bowen’s pond had a smaller spill into a nearby neighborhood after heavy rains caused ash from a stacking area to slough off and overwhelm a secondary containment area, said Tanya Blalock, environmental manager of water and waste programs for Georgia Power.

She said ash spread to 14 properties, which the company cleaned up under the supervision of state and federal environmental regulators. The company has agreed to pay a $35,000 fine to the state for the accident, she said.

Joella Pipkin, who lives near Plant Scherer, expressed fears last week about whether Scherer’s ash pond is a threat to her health.

“What if the dam gave way here?” asked Pipkin, whose late husband, a boilermaker, helped build Plant Scherer and other Georgia Power plants. “And I’m wondering if that ash pond could get chemicals in my well water. ... I’m very concerned about it.”

Scherer does not have an ash stack like Bowen. And unlike the dam at Kingston, its dam has a good track record. (Before the Kingston spill, TVA debated replacing the pond there and decided it would be too expensive.)

Wilson said the dam at the Scherer pond is visually inspected daily. Georgia Power dam safety engineers inspect it quarterly, Blalock said.

Like those who lived nearest the Kingston plant, those who live near Plant Scherer rely on well water. After the Kingston spill, ground water tests showed very dangerous levels of arsenic and elevated lead, and residents were told not to drink the water.

“Certainly when something like that happens, it makes everyone sit up and take notice and make sure everyone is following procedures and practices at their plants,” said Georgia Power’s Blalock. “At this moment, I don’t know anything I would do differently, but we will watch carefully.”

TOXIC CONTENTS

Democratic senators held a hearing on the TVA spill last week and vowed to increase federal oversight of coal ash ponds. Although found across the country, ash ponds are more concentrated in the Southeast and the Midwest.

Several environmental groups called for a complete phase-out of the ponds because of the potential for heavy metals to seep from the ponds into ground water. Three-quarters of those ponds in the U.S., including those at Plant Scherer and at Plant Branch near Milledgeville, are unlined.

Environmental Protection Agency studies in recent years have shown ground water contamination from coal ash ponds and increasing levels of toxic heavy metals.

Data from the federal Toxic Release Inventory show Plant Scherer and Plant Branch among those in the nation that deposit the most toxic heavy metals in their ash ponds. Scherer ranked fourth in the country for such releases in 2006, according to a TRI analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies.

The coal ash slurry is pumped into Scherer’s pond where the ash settles and the water overflows into another settling pond. It combines with another stream of water from the plant’s cooling towers before being released daily into the Ocmulgee River through a pipeline, Blalock said.

Originally, Plant Scherer released the water to nearby Berry Creek. But in 1993, Georgia Power started piping the discharge to the Ocmulgee River because the creek did not contain enough water to dilute toxic selenium and arsenic, according to Georgia Power and state officials.

Macon activist Susan Hanberry said she fought the permit change at the time, especially because Plant Scherer’s wastewater now enters the Ocmulgee River upstream of the drinking water intake for the city of Macon.

Although some see them as an environmental threat, the ash ponds can also provide environmental benefits. Many support large fish and bird populations.

“It’s ironic that here you’ve got an ash pond that’s become one of the best birding sites in the state,” said Terry Johnson, a retired state wildlife biologist.

Part of Plant Scherer’s pond is surrounded by Rum Creek Wildlife Management Area, which is owned by Georgia Power but open to public hunting. Johnson said he has been counting birds weekly at Rum Creek for more than 20 years and has never seen any negative effects from the pond on the birds.

ASH POND REGULATION

The federal government regulates ash ponds only through their water discharge permits. Such permits are required for any industry releasing wastewater into a public waterway.

But any further regulation is left up to states. Georgia requires nothing additional until the ponds are closed. When that happens – a rare occurrence so far – they are regulated as landfills.

Only then is ground water testing required. Jeff Cown, manager of the solid waste management program for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, said those tests check for toxic metals every six months.

Scherer is one of 11 Georgia Power plants in the state with coal ash ponds. Although Plant Arkwright in Macon has been shut down for several years, it still has three ash ponds. One has been closed and the other two will be closed this year, Wilson said.

Wilson said ground water testing has begun at Plant Arkwright, and the results “do not indicate any adverse impacts on ground water.”

Many coal-fired plants, although not Scherer, have ash piles in addition to their ponds. Cown said his unit inspects ash piles, although staff cutbacks have made those inspections irregular.

Dominic Weatherhill, who manages the EPD’s industrial wastewater unit, said the federal wastewater permits for ash ponds usually focus on limiting the suspended solids, oil and grease in the wastewater.

Plant Scherer consistently has met its permit limits, he said.

Unless the company’s initial tests of its wastewater show high amounts of toxic heavy metals, the permits don’t usually address those pollutants, he said. Plant Scherer’s does not, Weatherhill said.

Weatherhill said heavy metals bind with soils and will remain in the ponds unless a big sinkhole or dam failure releases soils along with the water.

He said the ability of metals to migrate into ground water is largely dependent on the type of soil beneath the pond. Claylike soils probably would hold pollutants better than sandy soils, for instance.

But Weatherhill said state regulators will continue to follow the federal response to the Tennessee coal ash spill.

“EPD and Georgia Power and other folks might be sitting down and discussing these issues,” he said. “And if the federal government now has a knee-jerk reaction and decides to promulgate new rules, Georgia will get the opportunity to comment.”

Blalock said it would not be appropriate to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.

“We have a long history in this country of (coal ash) being managed well,” she said. “That should not change in a moment of emotion.”

Environmental groups disagree. Deborah Sheppard, executive director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper, said the government should at least require dam inspections and ground water monitoring at the ponds. Sheppard said the coal industry will minimize the health risks of ash as long as it is left to police itself.

The Altamaha Riverkeeper is a watchdog organization for the river systems that feed the Altamaha River, including the Ocmulgee.

“The situation with Plant Scherer is especially painful because it has been used primarily to make power for Florida, and now there’s a massive body of waste that could harm people and property for years to come,” Sheppard said.

To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.