Source: http://www.thestate.com, April 9, 2015
By: Sammy Fretwell
Evidence that a Duke Energy power plant site near Hartsville is more contaminated than previously suspected continues to grow as state regulators, environmentalists and company officials learn more about the property.
Records show that a coal ash waste pond at the H.B. Robinson plant contains about six times as much ash as reported last year by Duke.
About 4 million tons of ash are in the 55-acre coal waste pond in Darlington County, according to data recently published on Duke Energy’s website.
Last year, the power company reported only 660,000 tons in the ash basin near Lake Robinson, a popular recreation spot outside of Hartsville and about an hour’s drive east of Columbia.
Duke says it updated the statistics after learning more about the property, which it acquired in a merger with Progress Energy three years ago. Duke said that as it continues to investigate, the company is developing a cleanup plan for the old Progress power plant site – one of the few in the country with both a nuclear plant and a coal plant.
Statistics showing more ash in the pond follow revelations in March that nuclear waste had been dumped in the ash pond and that poisonous arsenic has been found at levels substantially higher in groundwater than previously known by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
The atomic waste dumping, which took place in the 1980s and 1990s, initially occurred without federal or state approval, but later was authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to federal records obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center and reviewed by The State newspaper. Rarely has low-level atomic waste been dumped in a coal ash pond, federal officials have said. The 1960s-era Robinson coal plant is now closed.
Issues surrounding the Robinson plant prompted a flurry of questions Thursday at the state Public Service Commission, whose members expressed dismay at the extent of the problems outlined by Frank Hollemen, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“This is pretty daunting information,” state Public Service Commissioner Elizabeth Flemming said, noting that “it’s hard to believe that this information wasn’t dealt with in a much sooner time frame.”
Holleman, a Greenville attorney, told the commission his organization had not made cleaning up Robinson a priority until recently because neither Duke nor the public had raised any questions about the property. But as his group began to examine public records late last year, it found a host of problems that make the Robinson site prime for aggressive cleanup efforts by Duke.
“What we have found was contrary to what we thought,” Holleman said. “Robinson is not a small coal ash storage site without serious problems.
“Instead, it is a place where Duke Energy stores a large amount of ash in an unlined pit, next to an important water resource, where Duke Energy has been …. contaminating groundwater with high amounts of arsenic, where coal ash is stored deep into the groundwater, and where low-level radioactive waste was dumped over a period of almost 20 years.”
Flemming said it was “bothersome” that the contamination could have been such an issue without the PSC knowing about it. Commissioner Butch Howard suggested that Duke and state environmental regulators should have corrected problems long ago.
“I feel like there is some responsibility there,” Howard said. “I hate to say it, but somebody might be negligent.”
Holleman said the Robinson coal pond is the last commercial site without a cleanup plan in South Carolina.
Duke said earlier this year it would clean up some 3 million tons of ash from its other waste basins at a power plant site in Anderson County. Previously, the SCE&G and Santee Cooper power companies have said they would dig out all the ash. More than 2 million tons of coal ash are being removed from an ash basin in lower Richland County by SCE&G.
Coal ash contains toxins, such as arsenic and mercury, that can leak into groundwater and poison wells, while also seeping through stream banks into creeks and rivers. Ash dams also can break. In this case, Lake Robinson is just a few hundred yards from the coal ash basin blamed for contaminating groundwater with high levels of arsenic.
During the summer, scores of boaters, swimmers, campers and fisherman can be found on the lake. Residents living near the lake told The State recently they didn’t know much about problems associated with the ash pond. Not only can coal pollution threaten human health, but it can cause deformities and shorter lifespans in animals.
The Southern Environmental Law Center has been pushing Duke to clean out ash from coal basins throughout the Carolinas and deposit the polluted material in lined landfills – rather than leaving the material in place with a cap on top.
The Public Service Commission does not regulate pollution, so it can’t force Duke to dig out the ash and remove the toxic material. But the PSC does focus on oversight of utilities. It often holds hearings to gather information about issues regarding utilities, which need PSC approval for rate increases.
DHEC is the chief environmental agency overseeing the coal waste pond at the Robinson plant.
Duke spokeswoman Erin Culbert said new data on the amount of coal ash in the pond results from the power company’s continuing investigations in the region.
“The figures evolve as we get more engineering completed at each site,” she said, but added that “even with the updated estimate, Robinson is still one of the smaller sites in the Carolinas from an ash inventory perspective. We’re going through the same evaluation process at all the plants to prepare for closure, and we’re adjusting estimates as we learn more.”
One of the biggest questions discussed Thursday by the PSC was why monitors for years had not detected substantially elevated levels of arsenic in groundwater beneath the coal ash pond. Arsenic levels in groundwater near the pond were found to be 1,000 times higher than the safe drinking water standard, according to December test results. The highest levels found before 2014 were just over twice the standard.
The answer, Holleman said, is simple: DHEC for years monitored only a handful of spots near the pond, and those places were not in the path of where groundwater was flowing. When the agency required more test wells to be installed, arsenic levels skyrocketed.
Agency spokeswoman Cassandra Harris said DHEC has historically monitored the site, but Holleman said “only recently has adequate groundwater testing been done there. It’s to the credit of DHEC today that it is being done. But I think it is a reasonable question for the utilities and the government as to why it was not done in the past.”