Gulf Power is preparing to move coal ash from a retired power plant along the Apalachicola River. The transfer is part of a recent settlement between the company and a coalition of environmentalists.
In April of this year Gulf Power shuttered the Scholz power plant in Sneads, Florida. The company says with the inevitability of new and stronger EPA regulations, keeping the coal-fired plant running just no longer made sense.
“Well we had to look at the plant, and the age of the plant, and whether it would be cost effective to—you know, retrofit the controls needed to comply with future regulations that were coming down the pike, or to retire it,” Gulf Power spokesman Jeff Rogers says.
But closing a power plant isn’t as simple as turning off the lights. Coal plants produce energy but they also produce waste—waste that can be very dangerous if it’s not properly handled, such as coal ash. For example a major 2008 ash spill in Tennessee leveled nearby houses and contaminated water supplies.
The Scholz plant has nowhere near as much coal ash, but environmentalists are worried about where and how Gulf Power is storing it.
“These coal ash ponds have been there since the fifties,” Bradley Marshall says. He’s an attorney with Earthjustice.
“These are old coal ash ponds—unlined—so they just, the water in it the coal ash in it can just go right into the ground water and it can go right out into the Apalachicola River,” Marshall says.
He represented a group of clean water advocates in a 2014 court case against Gulf Power and its coal ash containment at the Scholz plant.
“So, what we had was 40 acres of unlined coal ash ponds next to the Apalachicola River,” Marshall says, “and our clients went out there and found that these ponds were leaking.”
Gulf Power disputes these findings. Rogers says the company has funded studies above and below the site with no noticeable differences in water quality. As part of the newly reached settlement, Gulf Power will be moving the coal ash to a new location, but Rogers argues they would have done that anyway.
“We really think it was an unnecessary lawsuit,” Rogers says. “The plant was retired back in April of 2015—this year. The closure of the ponds is just a natural part of the retirement of the plant, that’s something that’s going to come and it’s and we’ll be working with FDEP to do that.”
Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, or FDEP, has final approval over Gulf Power’s mitigation plan. Under the agreement the company will move the coal ash to a new landfill beyond the river’s floodplain. That area will be covered and walled off below to prevent ground water contamination.
