Spokesman: Ash pond at Plant Hammond is safe

By Scott Wright

COOSA, Ga. — A Southern Company spokesman said people who live on the Coosa River downstream from Plant Hammond have no reason to fear a devastating coal ash spill like the one that recently unleashed a nine-foot wall of toxic sludge in Tennessee.

“Even prior to the incident in Tennessee we were conducting monthly visual inspections, and structural engineering inspections every six months,” Media Relations representative Jeff Wilson told The Post last week. “Since the incident, we've begun weekly visual inspections, just to be proactive. Our last structural engineering inspection took place on Dec. 9.”

Southern Company – which owns Georgia Power and Alabama Power – and other utilities across the country that burn coal to produce electricity have increased inspections following the Dec. 22 collapse of a 40-acre surface pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority-operated steam plant in Roane County, Tenn.

The spill sent 1.1 billion gallons of sludge into a nearby neighborhood, destroying at least three homes. Fish and other animals were killed in and around the Emory River, a tributary of the Tennessee River, and drinking water supplies were threatened. TVA officials are still investigating the incident.

Wilson said Plant Hammond, which sits a few miles across the state line near Rome, Ga., hasn't experienced such an incident in over 54 years of operation.

“There has never been a spill here,” Wilson said. “We follow all safety guidelines and feel our ponds are secure.”

Wilson said other than increased inspections of the packed earth walls, Georgia Power officials have made no major alterations to normal procedure at Plant Hammond's 21-acre coal ash pond, which sits between Ga. Highway 20 and the Coosa River -- and just a few miles upstream from where Weiss Lake begins.

“We haven't made any changes here because we still don't know what happened in Tennessee,” he said. “Was it an isolated incident or is there something we can all do to make these ponds more secure? That's something that will likely come out of all of this.”

In the wake of last month's environmental disaster just west of Knoxville, a multitude of facts about the main byproduct of coal fired-electricity and the procedures used to dispose of it have come to light.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that there are “millions of tons of coal ash piling up at power plant ponds in 32 states,” mostly in Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Georgia. Dozens of utility companies across the country produce an estimated 125 million tons of coal ash each year, according to a recent report by Washington-based watchdog groups.

AP also reported that, at over 150 plants nationwide, coal ash is stored in a total of around 300 surface ponds like the one that collapsed in Tennessee.

The ponds typically contain multiple remnants of the coal-fired process, including limestone spray from scrubbers used to remove sulfur dioxide from a plant's air emissions. Water is also sprayed into the smokestacks to prevent coal ash from escaping into the atmosphere. Afterwards, the mix of water and coal ash is pumped into storage ponds to prevent the wind from blowing it away.

According to an AP analysis conducted in 2005, 20 percent of the coal ash produced each year – just less than 20 million tons – ends up in surface ponds. The rest is either buried in landfills or sold to make concrete and other products.

According to a story in the Jan. 10 edition of the Times-Daily in Florence, the ash can contain “arsenic, lead, nickel, mercury and other metals or poisons.”

An editorial in the Jan. 12 edition of the Anniston Star called for more stringent government supervision of nine ponds in Alabama, which contain over 1.36 million tons of coal ash. “This unregulated portion of the energy industry has long been known to be potentially dangerous to those who live and work close to coal ash ponds if the toxins were released,” the writer concluded.

The federal government has long recognized coal ash ponds as a risk to human health and the environment but has left the practice unregulated.

“Coal ash is not classified as hazardous waste,” Wilson said. “We currently do not perform water tests, and there is no requirement for ground water testing for coal ash ponds.”

Wilson did not rule out the possibility of a new wave of regulations in response to the Tennessee spill and a second earlier this month at another TVA-operated steam plant in Stevenson, near Scottsboro.

“It's hard to speculate on what might happen or what new regulations might come,” he said.

Besides, Wilson insisted, there are no problems at Plant Hammond.

“We feel that our ash ponds are safe and secure, and are operated the way they are intended to operate,” he said. “We comply with all current guidelines and we will continue to comply in the future.”