Our Waters at Risk, Part 2 report
The report can be found here online.
Indiana’s plans to clean up coal ash sites are insufficient, leaving toxins that could further poison drinking water and the environment, according to a report.
Long dominated by coal, how Indiana plans to get electricity is expected to shift over time. Several utilities, including NIPSCO, have announced plans to close coal-fired plants and shift to renewable energy and storage.
Even so, Indiana produced 6.8 million tons of coal ash in 2018, compared to 7.3 million tons in 2014. It has the nation’s highest number of coal ash impoundments, said Hoosier Environmental Council’s Indra Frank, the group’s director of environmental health and water policy.
“So, a problem we’re still left with,” she said.
The report, “Our Waters at Risk, Part 2”, looked at 15 coal ash sites including at Michigan City, the former Bailly plant near Burns Harbor, and Schahfer in Wheatfield.
It looked at groundwater samples taken by the U.S. EPA under the 2015 Coal Combustion Residuals Rule, that mandates monitoring at all coal ash sites. It found 14 of 15 had one or more metals present that exceeded drinking water limits.
For example, in Michigan City, 94% of groundwater samples exceeded limits for arsenic, 33% for thalium, 17% for boron.
Near Bailly, 20% of samples showed elevated levels of thalium, 11.9% for arsenic, and molybdenum, while Schahfer saw 37% of samples were high for Sulfate, 32% for boron and 10% for arsenic.
The Michigan City Generating Station is slated for closure, with a plan to move coal ash to a lined landfill in Jasper County. One sticking point for environmentalists has been the coal ash fill mix that was buried on site decades earlier which is largely staying.
Of 15 sites, 11 are on a floodplain, close to Lake Michigan or major rivers, Frank said.
Other states/territories including Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and Puerto Rico, have “water protective” removal plans to dig up old coal ash, move it off floodplains to higher ground, either to be recycled or stored on lined landfills, according to the report. Virginia, for example, passed laws that required removing coal ash from unlined impoundments near a major waterway. Coal ash in leaking sites is being removed in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, it says.
“Several of these states are also conservative-leaning states yet they are ahead of us on this one,” Frank said.
Back in Indiana, around 10 coal ash sites have submitted plans to leave it in place and cap it. That raises concerns over time it could still threaten groundwater and wildlife.
“Coal ash is a ‘forever’ pollutant,” she said. “It doesn’t biodegrade over time.”
“We need to have a permanent solution for it. Leaving coal ash in a flood plain is not a permanent solution,” Frank said. “You can still erode that cap and wind up with contaminated water and spilled coal ash.”
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