Draining of Coal ash lagoons

Draining of Northern Virginia coal ash lagoon to begin

Dominion Virginia Power was expected to begin discharging surface water Monday from its Northern Virginia coal ash lagoon into a Potomac River tributary.

The state Department of Environmental Quality posted on its website last week a notice from Dominion that it plans to start drawing down water from the ash impoundment at its Possum Point power plant on Quantico Creek. 

Dominion spokesman Dan Genest said the company anticipates it will take 45 to 60 days to draw surface water from the lagoon. It will then take about a year to pump and treat the water that has comingled with the ash closer to the bottom.

Once the impoundment is drained, the company plans to cover the ash that has settled at the bottom of the pit with drainage-promoting materials, clean dirt and vegetation.

Dominion recently began draining other coal ash lagoons at its Bremo Bluff Power Station near Charlottesville.

Environmental groups, the state of Maryland and local officials have complained that the Virginia DEQ did not impose strict enough treatment standards on the lagoon discharges to protect local water quality from the harmful contaminants in coal ash.

But two of those groups, the Prince William County, VA, Board of Supervisors and the James River Association, dropped lawsuits appealing the state’s decisions after learning about the company’s plans for treating the discharges. Company officials said the treatment technology to be used would reduce levels of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals in the discharged water below what the state’s permit requires. 

Dominion signed agreements with each group that commit the company to the stricter treatment standards and to increased testing, the results of which will be published on a website. Their legal obligation to the state, however, only requires the treated water to meet the less stringent permit limits. 

The Prince William board’s agreement with Dominion, for example, states that the company will amend the treatment plans to include “enhanced treatment triggers” for six heavy metals, including arsenic selenium and lead. These triggers would flag the water for more treatment before it is released into Quantico Creek, where those contaminants are of particular concern in the already-impaired waterway. The limit of 100 micrograms of arsenic per liter of water to be released into Quantico Creek, for example, is 77 percent lower than is mandated by the state permit.

The Potomac Riverkeeper Network and the state of Maryland are continuing their appeals of the permit granted to the Possum Point site. Potomac Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks contends that the permit sets a dangerous precedent for dozens of other plants in the country looking to decommission their coal ash pits by draining them into nearby waterways.

The Potomac River belongs to Maryland, and the state’s environmental agencies have complained that the treatment being required of Dominion is not protective enough of water quality or fish. Neither Maryland nor the Potomac group filed petitions for injunctions to prevent the company from beginning to discharge water on Monday.

Martin Gary, executive secretary of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, also had expressed concerns that discharges from the Possum Point lagoon could affect reproduction of striped bass and other fish that spawn in the spring, as their eggs, larvae and fingerlings could be highly sensitive to contaminants.

Dominion and DEQ have said the discharge standards are such that aquatic resources would not be harmed. Contaminants are expected to be so low in the surface water being drawn down at first that no treatment will be needed, company officials have said.

“I hope they are right,” Gary wrote last week in a Facebook post. He contended the company still should have, as an added precaution, delayed all discharges until the fall, after juvenile fish have had a chance to migrate downriver.

Source: Bay Journal

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