The Tennessee Valley Authority said today it will move forward with a plan to close and cap 10 coal ash ponds on TVA property at a half dozen of the utility's older coal-fired power plants.
Despite appeals by environmental groups to remove the potentially hazardous coal residues from the riverfront plant sites, TVA said disposing and cleaning up its coal ash ponds is better than digging up and removing the coal wastes. TVA will close and dewater the ash ponds and put a cap on the wastes to prevent any leakage.
"Based on our analyses and decades of available monitoring data, we believe that TVA's coal combustion residuals' management activities are not harming human health or the environment," said John McCormick, TVA vice president of safety, river management and environment. "We also found that digging up the coal ash and moving it someplace else has more potential environmental and safety impacts than closure-in-place and adds significantly more time and costs for our ratepayers."
The decision released today follows a year-long review of the potential environmental impacts detailed in an Environmental Impact Statement, which looked at either closing in place the coal ash ponds or removing the coal ash to other landfills.
TVA decided to phase out its wet storage of coal ash following the 2008 rupture of a coal ash pond at its Kingston Fossil Plant, which spilled 1.1 billion gallons of toxic sludge into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. The Kingston accident was one of the worst environmental spills in U.S. history.
Although TVA is ending future use of coal ash ponds, it still has a number of wet storage facilities where coal ash has built up over more a half century of coal-fired power generation.
TVA said the former coal ash ponds will continue to be monitored for at least 30 years. Studies by TVA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also indicate that the capping system will further reduce potential impacts on groundwater, although environmental groups worry that keeping the coal ash storage on site could cause leaks into nearby groundwater supplies.
"EPA did not identify any deficiencies in the information we provided," McCormick said.
But environmental groups continue to push TVA to dig up and remove the toxic materials.
Amanda Garcia, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Nashville, said earlier this year that TVA's plan would permanently cover up millions of tons of coal ash in leaking, unlined pits in or adjacent to rivers in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
"We're incredulous that TVA, the poster child for coal ash mismanagement thanks to the Kingston disaster, continues to push forward blindly with a plan that ensures ongoing pollution for decades to come," she said. "Coal ash has become one of the most pressing public health and environmental concerns today, and other utilities are responding accordingly - yet TVA continues to claim leadership while refusing to do the responsible thing."
TVA said it received no objections from federal, state or local agencies to its plans to cap and close the coal ash ponds.