Dominion, James River group settle over Bremo coal ash pond discharges

Mar 10 - McClatchy-Tribune Content Agency, LLC - Tamara Dietrich Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)

Amid growing public concerns over plans to discharge coal ash pond water into Virginia waterways, Dominion Virginia Power has agreed to treat the wastewater at one site more thoroughly before it's discharged into the James River, and monitor fish for adverse health effects.

Monitoring results must be made public by Dominion and the state Department of Environmental Quality throughout the process.

These are the terms of a settlement agreement announced Monday by Dominion along with the James River Association and the Southern Environmental Law Center regarding the company's Bremo Power Station in Fluvanna County.

The agreement applies only to the Bremo site, and not three others -- including one in Chesapeake -- where Dominion also has received or is applying for pond discharge permits.

"We thank Dominion for engaging with us in a cooperative manner to address our concerns," Bill Street, head of the James River Association, said in a joint statement with the utility company.

Dominion's chief environmental officer, Pam Faggert, said the agreement will enable the company "to move ahead with this important environmental project."

"The James River Association has helped us create a plan that reflects the commitment of both of our organizations to maintain the quality of the James River," Faggert said.

The settlement comes two days after students at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg joined others with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition to stage a sit-in at DEQ headquarters in Richmond to protest the discharge permits. Harrisonburg native Aaron Stapel was one of them.

"It was based on a sense of urgency," said Stapel, who's studying sustainable design at William and Mary.

The James River Association has been challenging the Bremo permit since it was issued in January, arguing the state should require Dominion to use best available treatment technologies to keep unhealthy levels of heavy metals out of the discharge water.

But DEQ director David K. Paylor says the permit meets state and federal standards, and requires the same treatment protocols as wastewater treatment plants or permitted industrial discharges into the river.

"We require them to treat that water so that it's at or below those standards that are safe for aquatic life," Paylor said Tuesday.

Dominion is pushing to drain 11 coal ash ponds to comply with new rules imposed last spring by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to close inactive ponds around the country.

Along with Bremo, the company plans to close ponds at Possum Point Power Plant on Quantico Creek near the Potomac, Chesterfield Power Station along the James south of Richmond and Chesapeake Energy Center.

Permits have been issued for Bremo and Possum Point, but no discharges have begun. When they do, it's estimated they'll last for many months.

Ponds were built decades ago to hold the coal ash produced by coal-burning power plants. The ash was sluiced in, but the ponds were often unlined, which posed a threat to groundwater from the toxic chemicals and heavy metals they contained, including lead, arsenic and mercury.

In 2012, a coal ash impoundment in Tennessee breached and spilled a toxic stew over 300 acres. Two years later, a drainage pipe running under an inactive coal ash pond in North Carolina broke, spilling thousands of tons of coal ash and millions of gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River, which flows into Virginia.

Those disasters fed a growing sense of alarm over inactive ponds, prompting the EPA's action to close them.

Paylor suspects they're also fueling public opposition to draining pond water -- not coal ash, itself -- into Virginia rivers.

"Coal ash has a stigma about it because of what happened in North Carolina," Paylor said. "That's scary. That scares people. (But) one of the reasons this is being done under an EPA rule is to get the water out of those lagoons and close them off. Cap them and get the water out of them, so that we can drastically reduce the risk that there would be the same sort of thing here in Virginia."

The specter of toxic discharges in Virginia rivers is part of what spurred the 35 VSEC students who demonstrated at DEQ Monday.

After several hours, VSEC says, 17 students occupying the building's lobby refused city police warnings to leave and were handcuffed and led off. According to Stapel, who was not one of the 17, the students were taken a short distance away and released with summonses.

On Tuesday, during an appearance at a marine debris summit at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, Paylor said the VSEC students had made no attempt to arrange to meet with him beforehand.

"I would have been happy to have a rational, fact-based discussion with them," Paylor said. "But that was not the forum that was chosen.

"They obviously believe that they're doing the right thing for the environment. So it distresses me because they've only heard one side of the story."

As it happens, Stapel was also at the VIMS summit Tuesday, where he had the chance to speak with Paylor.

"We actually had a really great talk about the issues and why the issues were being dealt with the way that they were," Stapel said.

He said VSEC leaders are now planning to meet with Paylor, as well.

"We're all fighting for the same stuff," Stapel said.

Dietrich can be reached by phone at 757-247-7892.