New dispute
arises over Peabody plant
Nov 8, 2005 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Author(s): Ken Leiser
Nov. 8--Environmentalists have a new bone to pick with Peabody Energy
Corp.
The St. Louis-based company is seeking separate water-discharge
permits to mine coal to feed its proposed power plant in Southern
Illinois and to store the combustion waste produced at the plant on a
separate piece of land.
This is causing environmental groups to again take aim at Peabody's
$2 billion Prairie State Energy Campus. They argue that runoff from the
waste pile could threaten local water supplies. A coalition of
environmental groups already is fighting the coal- fired plant on the
grounds that its emissions will foul the air.
"We think there is a very strong potential for groundwater
contamination," said Kathy Andria, conservation chair of the Sierra Club
Kaskaskia Group and president of American Bottom Conservancy.
"Coal-combustion waste is very toxic because it is concentrated."
Andria said scientific studies have found instances of groundwater
contaminated by toxins contained in combustion waste. This proposed
disposal site, she said, would house fly ash, bottom ash and scrubber
sludge.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is poised to issue the
water permits and Wednesday will hold a hearing.
Larry Crislip of the agency's mine-pollution control program said
Peabody wants to store the coal-combustion waste at the site of its
Randolph Preparation Plant in Randolph and St. Clair counties. As a
result, the company is seeking renewal of an existing discharge permit.
Crislip said the state determined that the material could be taken to
the disposal site without violating state surface or groundwater quality
standards.
Peabody claims the Prairie State facility will be among the cleanest
coal-fired power plants in the country and will create nearly 500 jobs
in Southern Illinois.
Peabody spokeswoman Beth Sutton said the combustion byproduct is
largely calcium sulfate, or gypsum, a benign material that is formed
during the emissions-scrubbing process. Some of the material will be
marketed for use in manufacturing wallboard as well as roofing and
road-building materials, she said.
The disposal site will have a low-permeability liner, a water-
quality monitoring system and a sedimentation pond, Sutton said.
The proposed Lively Grove mine in Washington County would supply coal
to the adjacent power plant and will have a sedimentation pond to
capture storm water. The mine is expected to produce about 6 million
tons of coal a year for use at the power plant.
"These are customary permits for facilities of this kind," Sutton
said.
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