The cost of cleaning up coal ash stored in Dominion Energy ponds across Virginia can be passed onto utility customers under bipartisan legislation that Governor Ralph Northam signed this week, WTOP reported.
Senate Bill 1355 and House Bill 2786 require the closure and removal of any coal combustion residuals units, which the bills define as including coal ash ponds or landfills, in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The legislation is intended to clean up more than 27 million cubic yards of coal ash in unlined ponds across the state.
“In all, millions of cubic yards of coal ash would be recycled or stored in lined landfills,” wrote WTOP’s John Aaron. “But, under the measure, the cost of the cleanup can be passed along to Dominion customers.”
For decades Dominion Energy has been storing toxic coal ash, a byproduct from coal-fired electricity, in unlined ponds near vulnerable waterways, explained Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, in a recent Washington Post letter to the editor.
“Dominion proposed closing these facilities by removing the water, leaving toxic ash in place, and placing tarps and sod atop the drained ponds at a cost to ratepayers in the billions of dollars,” he wrote. If a future disaster occurred, ratepayers would be on the hook for even more money, Town argued.
The bipartisan coal ash pond cleanup legislation just signed into law offers a compromise. “Though cost estimates are slightly higher, the Virginia law ensures this toxic waste no longer would pose a threat to clean water,” Town wrote. “Dominion won’t profit off the cleanup, but ratepayers foot the bill because the company was not breaking the law by storing the coal ash as it did.”
Over the last two years, the General Assembly has had a moratorium on the “cap-in-place” closure method in order to consider alternatives. Four coal ash sites in Chesapeake City and Prince William, Chesterfield, and Fluvanna counties will be cleaned up under the new legislation.
“The potential risks to public health and water quality posed by unlined coal ash ponds in the Commonwealth are far too great for us to continue with business as usual,” Northam said on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Dominion Energy said the utility applauds the legislation, according to CBS19. The spokesperson added that they plan to continue investing in renewable energy and working with local communities and the State Corporation Commission to dispose of the ash safely.
Coal ash remains a complex and contentious issue — and not just in Virginia. Flooding last year in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence prompted a Duke Energy plant shutdown and raised concerns over a coal ash spill. A report from environmental groups published earlier this month found that the power industry’s own data reveal widespread groundwater contamination next to coal ash storage sites.
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