Memphis City Council members want a permanent halt to Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) plan to dump coal ash here.
Council members will review a resolution Tuesday that would stop TVA from dumping toxic coal ash from the now-retired Allen Fossil Plant on Presidents Island to two landfill sites — one in Whitehaven and the other in Tunica County, Mississippi.
Both sites, according to the resolution, “are located within the Mississippi Embayment area as well as the New Madrid seismic impact zone.” Both of these factors increase the possibility for the pollution of the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the resolution says.
“… in light of the many possible events that may occur, whether failure of manmade structures, or catastrophic natural events, the threat to the Memphis Sand Aquifer and this city’s drinking water is too grave for [coal ash] to be moved to a landfill in the city of Memphis, Shelby County, or any location within the Mississippi Embayment,” reads the resolution.
The resolution “strongly opposes” the coal ash move. It says if TVA goes through with the plan “without approval of this body” that it conduct and publish another study (called a location restriction demonstrations review) before it does.
TVA paused the plan to bury coal ash here last month, according to a story in The Commercial Appeal. The newspaper described confusion and consternation by council members at the time as TVA announced it would begin its coal ash dumping plan.
TVA identified the plan to remove the toxic coal ash from the Allen plant in March 2020.
In 2017, TVA found high levels of arsenic and other toxins in ground water close to ponds storing the coal ash. Arsenic levels were more than 300 times higher than federal drinking water standards. The discovery kicked off a years-long, sometimes-contentious series of events that TVA officials hope will end in 10 years. That’s how long they say it will take to finally remove the ash now sitting on nearly 120 acres.
The 500-acre site is about five miles southwest of Downtown Memphis, on the Southern bank of McKellar Lake. The plant had three units producing a max of 741 megawatts of power, enough to power 500,000 homes, according to a figure from Duke Energy.
While in use, the plant consumed 7,200 tons of coal per day. After it was burned to make electricity, that coal left behind about 85,000 tons of ash every year. TVA funneled that ash into two huge ponds — the East Ash Pond and West Ash Pond — on the site. It closed the massive East Pond in 2018.
But the Allen coal plant was replaced with the Allen Combined Cycle Natural Gas Plant, which went into operation May 2018. TVA wants to raze the old coal plant and return the land to its three owners — the city of Memphis, Shelby County, and Memphis Light, Gas & Water — for future development. Before it can do that, however, it has to deal with the ash.
