Owners of southeastern Montana’s Colstrip coal-fired power plant will convert two of the four units to a nonliquid disposal system, which environmental groups called a major step toward ending 30 years of groundwater pollution caused by leaking coal-ash ponds.
The work will be completed as a result of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by environmental groups.
The agreement was filed Thursday in district court in Missoula.
“It’s one of the most significant victories we’ve had in our history when you talk about really trying to protect the environment,” said Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center in Helena.
Coal ash is the waste byproduct of burning coal.
It contains carcinogens and neurotoxins including arsenic, boron, cadmium, lead, selenium and other contaminants.
At Colstrip, the waste has been dumped as a slurry into nine waste ponds that cover approximately 800 acres.
An estimated 200 million gallons a year, nearly an Olympic-size swimming pool each day, has leaked into the groundwater for three decades.
District Judge Robert “Dusty” Deschamps, who is overseeing the case, called the amount “alarming” at a hearing last month.
The lawsuit originally was filed in Rosebud County, where Colstrip is located, but later assigned to Deschamps in Missoula after the Rosebud County judge retired. The agreement was filed Thursday.
The plant’s coal-ash waste is disposed of as wet sludge that is dumped into waste impoundments.
MEIC’s Hedges called the amount of waste that has leaked “mind boggling.”
“This settlement will help us turn off that spigot so the groundwater that’s already contaminated can finally get cleaned up,” Hedges said. “You can’t clean up an overflowing bathtub until you turn off the water and that’s what this does. It’s still going to take decades to clean up.”
Under the agreement, by the end of 2018, a portion of the units’ waste ash called “bottom ash” must be dehydrated before it is disposed of.
And by July 1, 2022, all waste from the units’ scrubbers must be disposed of as a dry waste.
In 2008, Colstrip’s owners paid $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 57 Colstrip residents as a result of the contamination, but Colstrip’s owners did not make operational changes to stop the impoundments from leaking, the environmental groups said. That money went directly to landowners for property value loss, but no funds were earmarked for cleanup.
In 2012, PPL, which owned the plant at the time, entered an “administrative consent order” to address the pollution problem following the $25 million settlement. MEIC, the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation, represented by Earthjustice, sued the DEQ in 2012, arguing that the order provided no certainty on when or how the cleanup would occur, contained no penalty and delayed bonding requirements for years.
“We didn’t think that was a valid enforcement action, and we sued over that,” Hedges said.
Pennsylvania-based Talen Energy operates Colstrip for itself and five other owners: Avista Corp., Puget Sound Energy, Portland General Electric Company, NorthWestern Energy and PacifiCorp.
Todd Martin, a spokesman for Talen Montana, said Talen will enhance its current state-of-the art process for removing water from the coal ash that is placed in its ponds. Talen Montana and the other owners, he said, have invested millions of dollars to minimize the plant’s impact on the environment.
Under the agreement filed Thursday, Colstrip’s largest units — units 3 and 4 — must convert to dry disposal methods.
Currently, the waste is wet because the units have a wet scrubber system that collects pollution before it reaches the air.
The problem is, Hedges said, is that the wet waste more readily leaks into the groundwater. Wet scrubber systems are more inexpensive than dry scrubber systems.
It will be up to the plant operators to decide how to switch from a wet to dry system, said Hedges, adding she suspects it will involve additional employment while the eventual cleanup of the water will result in more economic development for the area.
Since the groundwater was contaminated, operators of the coal-fired power plants have piped groundwater 30 miles from the Yellowstone River to the community of Colstrip.
“In my career, it’s one of the most important decisions we’ve ever reached to actually address a pollution problem,” Hedges said of the agreement. “Last week’s closure of units 1 and 2 were important, but this is about clean water, it’s about cleaning up extensive pollution.”
Earlier this month, owners of the 2,100-megawatt coal plant serving utility customers across the Pacific Northwest agreed to shut down units 1 and 2 by 2022 and limit pollution from the plant until that happens, under a settlement with environmentalists who sued over emission violations.
The Sierra Club and MEIC sued the plant’s six co-owners in 2013 arguing upgrades meant to prolong the life of the plant were made without proper permits.
“This agreement picks up where that leaves off,” Hedges said of the agreement regarding the coal waste. “This agreement only applies to the waste disposal from units 3 and 4, which are the two biggest units. Because we assumed units 1 and 2 will be closed by 2022.”
Talen still must submit a plan to the Montana DEQ to remediate the existing groundwater contamination caused by Colstrip’s waste, with the goal of cleaning up groundwater to meet water quality standards.
Talen already has submitted an application to amend its permit to allow the conversion to dry stacking, and DEQ has approved that certificate amendment, said Kristi Ponozzo, the DEQ’s Public Policy Director.
By 2022, the operators will no longer be disposing of coal combustion residuals mixed with water in the ponds so there will be no new water added that could potentially leach into groundwater or impact surface water, Ponozzo said.
DEQ continues to prioritize and assign appropriate resources to the site including a hydro-geologist, she said. As outlined in the settlement, Talen will provide funding for contractor support allowing DEQ to continue with timely report review and administration requirements of the consent order, Ponozzo said.
Source: GreatFallsTribune
