Two Birmingham-area coal plants among nation's top three for amounts of arsenic in ash ponds

Two coal-fired power plants in metro Birmingham - the Gaston Steam Plant in Shelby County and the Gorgas Steam Plant in Walker County - rank No. 2 and No. 3 in the country in the amount of arsenic deposited in on-site ash ponds and landfills from 2000 to 2006, according to a report released today by the Environmental Integrity Project.

Environmental groups are calling for stricter regulation of the waste generated by burning coal after last month's disaster at a plant near Knoxville. The dike on an ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant ruptured, sending more than a billion gallons of toxic sludge cascading over the countryside.

The ashy sludge wrecked a dozen homes and covered 300 acres. Costs to clean up the disaster could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, by some estimates.

Environmental groups say that coal ash, which contains a host of toxic chemicals and heavy metals, should be treated as a hazardous waste and should be deposited dry in lined landfills.

At most coal-fired plants, the waste is instead stacked in piles or fed into ponds where the toxins are allowed to settle out of the water. Alabama has nine coal-fired plants. All have ash ponds. None of the ponds or landfills is lined.

Alabama doesn't require liners. It requires water being released from the ponds to be monitored for contaminants but doesn't require wells to detect whether the contaminants are moving out of the site in groundwater.

Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said Wednesday, "The Tennessee eco-disaster has cast a spotlight on what is a very serious national problem - the existence of underregulated toxic pollution coal dump sites near coal-fired power plants that pose a serious threat to drinking water supplies, rivers and streams."

Environmental control:

About 300 impoundments around the country receive coal ash, and about three-quarters of impoundments are unlined.

Alabama Power says the ash ponds at its six coal-fired plants are environmental control measures, receiving and safely storing the pollutants that would otherwise have escaped into the air. The ponds and their dams are constantly monitored and are engineered to keep the toxic materials on the power plant site, according to spokesman Michael Sznajderman.

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