Environmental report: Dallman's coal-ash dumps are contaminating groundwater

City Water, Light & Power's Dallman power plant is among 16 plants in Illinois with coal-ash dumps that are contaminating groundwater at dangerous levels, according to a new report.

Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice, two environmental nonprofits, released, “Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps,” which evaluated sites across the country. An analysis of groundwater monitors found Dallman responsible for arsenic in the groundwater at 14 times safe levels and boron at 10 times safe levels.

The worst site in Illinois is the Southern Illinois Power Cooperative Marion Power Plant in Marion, where groundwater monitors found cobalt in the groundwater at 63 times safe levels, thallium at 46 times safe levels and arsenic at five times safe levels.

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Kincaid Power Plant in Christian County had two times the safe level of boron, the report concluded.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring substance that can be found in air, water, and soil and is known to cause cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, boron is a pollutant found in the ash and exposure to large amounts of it over short periods of time can affect the stomach, intestines, liver, kidney and brain.

Dallman Unit 4 went online in 2009 and is the city's only operable coal-fired unit with the early retirement of Dallman 33 in 2021 and the decommissioning of Units 31 and 32.

Coal ash is produced primarily from the burning of coal in coal-fired power plants.

The report stated that the failure of the vast majority of companies to follow the 2015 Coal Ash Rule has serious consequences for the nation's water quality and public health.

Monitoring data showed that 91% of U.S. coal-fired plants have ash landfills or waste ponds leaking arsenic, lead, mercury, and other metals into groundwater at dangerous levels, often threatening streams, rivers and drinking water aquifers.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected CWLP’s November 2020 request to extend the use of its 35-acre ash ponds, both of which sit across East Lake Shore Drive from the Spaulding Dam on the north side of the road.

CWLP held hearings in the fall of 2021 about alternatives to closing the ash ponds by either capping them or transporting the ash to offsite landfills.

Under federal coal ash regulations finalized in 2015, coal plant operators were required to close coal ash ponds that were not in compliance with the updated standards by April 2021.

CWLP requested additional time to close the ponds, stating that it was unable to meet the EPA’s required standards due to a lack of alternate capacity to dispose of waste.

CWLP stopped sending ash to the ponds in the summer of 2021 with the retirement of the older Dallman plants. Dallman 4 uses a dry ash handling system and none of its ash is landfilled, said CWLP's chief utility engineer, Doug Brown.

In a written statement, Sierra Club Illinois Chapter director Jack Darin said the latest report offers "the difficult but unsurprising news that Illinois still has work to do to ensure Illinoisans are protected from groundwater contamination caused by coal ash.

"From the shores of Lake Michigan at the Waukegan coal plant, to the CWLP Dallman plant that powers much of our state capital, too many of these sites have inadequate closure plans for their coal ash impoundments. Despite federal and state coal ash rules that require safeguards against coal ash pollution, companies like NRG, Vistra, and even the publicly owned CWLP have worked to undermine these rules by seeking exemptions and delays.

“The evidence is clear. The only way to ensure that coal ash contamination does not continue to negatively impact groundwater is by removing the coal ash and putting it in a property permitted landfill significantly above groundwater."

Brown, who has headed CWLP since 2015, said the utility will continue to follow federal and state regulations awaiting approval to begin the formal closure process for the ash ponds.

"As a first step ahead of those closures, we have a $17M project underway to relocate our lime lagoon, to move that water treatment byproduct away from one of the ash pond sites," Brown said. He expected that to be completed by October 2023.

"Since the adoption of the first Coal Combustion Residual (CCR) rules in 2015, we have been proactive and transparent about our ash pond closure plans.  Those plans were vetted with the public in various meetings before being submitted to the state EPA as a permit application in February," he said.

The nation's worst coal ash contamination site, according to the report, is San Miguel Electric Plant, south of San Antonio, Texas.

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Harris announced an initiative to address environmental justice concerns in the Central District of Illinois.

Harris' office planned to work closely with the Department of Justice’s Office of Environmental Justice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, state and local agencies and community advocates "to secure environmental justice for all communities, to ensure that everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, and to protect equal access to a healthy environment in which to live, learn, play, and work."

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Report: Springfield's Dallman coal-ash dumps contaminating groundwater