Tag: TVA

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News News Blog

TVA Finds High Arsenic, Lead Levels Near New Wells

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

High levels of arsenic and other toxins have been discovered in ground water beneath monitoring wells near the Allen Fossil Plant in south Memphis. According to the TVA, which first reported the levels to Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation department in mid-May, arsenic levels were more than 300 times higher than federal drinking water standards. Lead levels in the water were also higher than federal safety standards. The pools were originally installed to monitor pollution from nearby ponds containing slag and ash generated by the plant’s coal-burning.

The TVA’s old Allen coal plant

The polluted groundwater is little more than a quarter mile from five recently drilled TVA wells that will provide cooling water for the agency’s soon-to-be-completed gas-fired power plant. While TDEC officials contend that the polluted groundwater is constrained from contaminating the Memphis Sand Aquifer by a layer of clay, local Sierra Club spokesman Scott Banbury begs to differ.

Here is a statement from the Sierra Club:
The Tennessee Valley Authority has found high levels of arsenic,
lead, and other toxins in groundwater beneath the Allen Fossil Plant, where thousands
of tons of coal ash and boiler slag are stored in massive ponds.
The arsenic was discovered in monitoring wells at the plant at levels more than 300
times the federal drinking-water standard. Excessive amounts of lead were also
detected.

Scientists have linked long-term arsenic exposure to health problems including heart
disease, diabetes and several cancers. Exposure to high lead levels can severely
damage the brain and kidneys in adults or children, and can also be fatal.
The tainted groundwater was found about a quarter-mile from where TVA recently
drilled five wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer, the primary source of local drinking
water. TVA plans to draw 3.5 million gallons a day from the aquifer to cool its gas plant,
though their original plan was to cool the plant with “grey water” from the nearby
Maxson Wastewater Treatment facility.

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation officials said they don’t think
the arsenic and lead are impacting drinking water, but have asked the Memphis Light,
Gas and Water to test samples anyway.
Justin Fox Burks

Scott Banbury (file photo)

In response to the findings, Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for
the Sierra Club in Tennessee, released the following statement:
“This contamination is exactly what we feared when TVA decided to use our pristine
drinking water source to cool its fracked gas plant. We still don’t have enough
information about existing breaches of the clay barrier that protects the aquifer, or about
whether pumping from these wells could pull contaminants into the Memphis Sand
Aquifer.

“TVA should immediately contract with MLGW to use municipal water to cool their new
plant, or reconsider their original plan to use grey water, and should contract with the
University of Memphis Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research to
do an extensive geophysical study of the area around TVA’s ash ponds to make sure
there’s absolutely no risk to the drinking water and public health of Memphis families
and children.

“We also call on the Shelby County Health Department to immediately reconsider their
decision to issue TVA’s well permits in light of this new data.”
Ward Archer, president of Protect Our Aquifer, also weighed in on the findings:

“We suspected the groundwater beneath the Allen plant was already contaminated, but
this is even worse than we had imagined. TVA’s plan to pump Memphis Sand Aquifer
water from beneath this contaminated site is irresponsible and endangers our drinking
water supply.

“These contamination findings reinforce our commitment to encourage TVA to find an
alternative cooling water solution, and we will continue to work to protect our drinking
water aquifer by supporting scientific investigation, raising public awareness, working
with our elected officials, and, when necessary, initiating legal action.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Strickland Pondering City Action on Aquifier Dispute

CREDIT: JB

JB

The Sierra Club ‘s Banbury and Mayor Strickland (seated) at recent Water Board hearing

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland is researching local water-permit procedures with an eye toward giving the city some power of approval over future permits — and simultaneously to ascertain the city’s wherewithal under existing rules.

Strickland, an opponent of TVA’s plan to use water from the Memphis sand aquifer, source of the Memphis area’s drinking water, to cool a new power plant, had prepared to speak at the Shelby County Water Quality Control Board’s meeting two weeks ago in which the Sierra Club’s appeal of well-drilling permits for TVA was unanimously rejected. But he was informed the night before that the Board meeting, chaired by special presiding officer Bob McLean, was “not a public hearing” but a judicial one with strictly formalistic rules.

The Mayor was allowed to attend the hearing but only as a spectator, along with other members of the audience.

The outcome of that hearing has not sat well with Strickland or with other local public officials, including state Senators Lee Harris, a Democrat, and Brian Kelsey, a Republican, who oppose the drilling and have announced plans for bipartisan action to hash out the matter publicly.

And a freshly incorporated Protect Our Aquifer organization, including the Sierra Club, whose members regard the TVA drilling as potentially contaminating to the Aquifier water supply and whose appeal had prompted the Water Board hearing, plans to challenge the board’s decision in Chancery Court.

Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Sierra Club in Tennessee, plans also to suggest to the Shelby County Commission new and stricter rules for granting well permits, including more advance public notice regarding applications.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Power of the People

While you and your family were enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend, hundreds of people wrongly spent the holiday at Shelby County jail, literally lost in the system, due to a new, malfunctioning computer records program.

Just City, a Memphis nonprofit group concerned with improving our criminal justice system, filed suit against Sheriff Bill Oldham on behalf of an inmate who spent 11 days in jail after being picked up on a traffic stop. The inmate was not informed of the charges against him, and it took nearly two weeks to get him out.

Many other inmates were kept in jail unlawfully, even after they’d posted bail, due to failures in the new system. Without Just City’s efforts to shine a light on the problem, most of us would never have known about it.

And while most of us were enjoying an evening out or a night at home watching the Grizzlies last week, a couple dozen citizens met at the Abe Goodman Clubhouse in Overton Park to discuss ways to fight the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans to drill wells in our pristine Memphis Sand aquifer. TVA’s original plans called for using wastewater to cool its new plant. The change of plans to instead tap our aquifer for that purpose were made without public input. Without the Sierra Club raising the alarm, most of us would have never known of the problem, and TVA would have quietly drilled wells into our fresh water.

These are just two examples that demonstrate the power that can be wielded by activist, concerned citizens. Another, of course, was the Save the Greensward movement, which, after a prolonged battle, ultimately resolved the long-festering issue of Memphis Zoo parking on public parkland.

I could list dozens more examples of citizen involvement in tackling the many issues we face — endemic poverty, lack of legal representation, animal services, public transportation (see this week’s cover story), literacy, women’s rights, education. You name the issue, and there is probably a group of concerned citizens working to improve the situation.

We owe them all our thanks. These are folks who recognize that change — real change — only comes from a commitment to volunteer one’s time, effort, and money. Governments, at any level, can only do so much. And it looks like for the next few years our state and federal governments are going to be run by folks who don’t believe government can do much of anything, except cut taxes and privatize government services to siphon taxpayer money to corporate interests.

And to make it worse, we have a president-elect who appears to spend most of his spare time watching television and reacting to it on Twitter. In the past few days, he’s spent every spare moment criticizing the media, insulting individual reporters, and baselessly claiming that millions of votes were cast illegally. And this is the man who won the election.

At some point, the grownups in the GOP are going to have to acknowledge that a horrible mistake has been made. We’ve elected a man who bypasses daily intelligence briefings but doesn’t miss a night (or morning) of CNN or Fox News, a man whose byzantine world-wide business connections will present daily conflict-of-interest potential, and a man whose mental stability is clearly questionable.

Though I truly hope I’m wrong, I fear we are in for a chaotic near future. Which is why organizations like Just City, the Sierra Club, MIFA, Mid-South Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Literacy Mid-South, and countless others I could name are more important now than ever before. An involved, organized citizenry can mobilize more quickly to speak truth to power and stand up to injustice and government overreach.

I believe power will need to be spoken to — loudly and vociferously — in the year to come. Stay woke.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Policy Needs to be Set for Memphis Sand Aquifer

The good news? The Tennessee Valley Authority’s 2014 decision to phase out the Allen coal plant that spewed toxic gas and chemical particles into Memphis’ atmosphere for decades. Even more good news: TVA’s decision to

replace the coal plant with a much more environmentally friendly combined gas-cycle plant, which is due to go online in 2018.

The bad news? The TVA’s surprise announcement that it would drill five wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer and remove 3.5 million gallons a day of Memphis’ world-renowned drinking water to cool the new plant. This is akin to putting Perrier in your car’s radiator.

The “surprise” part of TVA’s announcement was the non-public nature of its recent policy change. When TVA announced the construction of the new plant, the agency told the public it would be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for the plant’s cooling water system. TVA now says those plans turned out to be too expensive, primarily because using wastewater would first require treatment of pollutants.

After public blowback to TVA’s original plan to drill five wells into the aquifer and pull water directly from the ground, MLGW suggested that TVA could purchase water from them. But even if that were to happen, much of the water purchased from MLGW would still come from the Memphis Sand aquifer.

TVA says MLGW can’t sell it enough water. MLGW disagrees. Who’s right? And who makes the final decision?

The overarching issue that’s been brought to light by this controversy is that policy decisions as to how our precious water supply is used need to be made at a higher level than the Shelby County Health Department, which is currently charged with the power to grant permission to drill into the aquifer.

Other things the public needs to know: How many wells are currently tapped into the aquifer? How many wells are drilled each year? Who’s gotten permission to drill? How difficult is the process of getting permission? These are issues that need to be addressed by a commission composed of all interested parties: public entities, private corporate interests, environmentalists, state agencies, etc.

The other good news is that, according to MLGW president Jerry Collins, the aquifer is in better shape now than it was as recently as 2000, when the average amount of water pumped from the aquifer daily was 159 million gallons. In 2015, according to Collins, 126 million gallons per day were pumped. Collins credits that drop primarily to low-flush toilets and more energy-efficient washing machines and dishwashers.

But even given that bit of good news, the need has never been greater for close monitoring and smart decision-making regarding our most precious resource.

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News News Blog

Shelby County Commission Wants to Study New Rules for Drilling Wells into Aquifer

TVA is replacing the Allen coal plant (above) with a new gas plant, and they’re looking at drilling wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to cool that new plant.

The Shelby County Health Department has already issued three permits to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to drill wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer to access cooling water for its new gas-powered Allen Combined Cycle plant.

Two more permits for wells are being considered, but at a Shelby County Commission committee meeting on Wednesday morning, Commissioner Steve Basar asked the Health Department not to issue those permits without coming to the commission first. Basar and Commissioner Heidi Shafer also recommended the formation of a committee that would look at updating the codes for drilling wells into the aquifer — the source of the region’s drinking water.

“What was acceptable 10 to 20 years ago may not be acceptable now. We need to evolve and move on and change the way we’re doing things,” Basar said.

At that meeting, Bob Rogers, manager of the Health Department’s pollution control program, told the commission that current codes say that if a company or resident wants to drill a well and has the proper design and installation plan, the department generally issues a permit. He said there are some restrictions, including a restriction on water use for non-circulating systems, meaning the water is used and discarded.

At issue are the permits TVA has requested to drill into the Memphis Sand aquifer for up to 3.5 million gallons of water per day to cool the new, under-construction gas plant. In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system.

But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water. The TVA looked a few alternatives  — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sands and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

The TVA published a supplemental report on those proposals in April, but the entity did not seek public comment. That’s not required by law, but TVA did seek comments for its original report detailing the options for switching from a coal plant to a gas plant.

Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Tennessee Sierra Club, spoke at the county commission meeting, and he said those new codes should include public notice for drilling permits. 

At a Sierra Club-hosted panel discussion on the issue in August, MLGW President Jerry Collins told the crowd that if TVA had to take water from the aquifer, he’d prefer the entity buy potable water from MLGW rather than pump directly. Either way, it comes out of the aquifer, but Collins said a purchase from MLGW would allow for more oversight.

“That would keep your rates low, and we could monitor how much they’re using. Also, we take out the iron and add phosphate, which makes it much less corrosive,” Collins said at that panel meeting. 

At the Shelby County Commission committee on Wednesday, Tyler Zerwekh, administrator of environmental health services for the Health Department, revealed that the department has issued 25 well permits in the past 12 months, and that includes wells for residential and industrial use. In total, there are 841 quasi-public wells (meaning at least some of the water is for public use) in 641 locations. That does not include wells for residential use.

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News News Blog

Environmentalists Question TVA’s Plan to Drill Wells in Aquifer

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

The TVA is replacing the Allen Fossil Plant with a new gas plant.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) proposal to pull 3.5 million gallons of water per day from the Memphis Sand aquifer to cool its new under-construction gas plant is under fire by local environmentalists, many of whom showed up to a Sierra Club-sponsored public forum on the matter Thursday night.

About 100 people showed up to the meeting at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to express concern over the plan to use Memphis’ clean drinking water to cool the TVA’s gas plant. 

“In my opinion, this is not a good use of our drinking water,” said panelist Brian Waldron, the director of the University of Memphis’ Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research.

In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system. But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water.

Now, they’re looking at a few alternatives — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sand and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

The TVA published a supplemental report on the proposals in April, but the entity did not seek public comment. That’s not required by law, but TVA did seek comments for its original report detailing the options for switching from a coal plant to a gas plant.

“Had they opened it for comment, we would have offered alternatives,” said panelist Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Sierra Club.

Some of those alternatives were discussed by panelists at the meeting. MLGW president Jerry Collins sat on the panel and told the crowd that if TVA had to take water from the aquifer, he’d prefer the entity buy potable water from MLGW rather than pump directly. Either way, it comes out of the aquifer, but Collins said a purchase from MLGW would allow for more oversight.

“That would keep your rates low, and we could monitor how much they’re using. Also, we take out the iron and add phosphate, which makes it much less corrosive,” Collins said. 

Collins did say that the aquifer is in better shape than it was 16 years ago. In 2000, the average amount of water pumped from the aquifer daily was 159 million gallons. Last year, 126 million gallons per day were pumped. Collins credited that drop to regional water users becoming more environmentally conscious and installing low-flush toilets and more energy efficient washing machines and dishwashers.

Waldron said he’d prefer the TVA take its cooling water from the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer rather than the Memphis Sand. He also warned of a known breach in the Memphis Sand that he believed could cause damage to the water supply if TVA went through with its plans to pump water directly from the aquifer.

Angela Garrone, an attorney for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, pointed out that if TVA would dedicate more resources to renewable energy, it wouldn’t need so much water.

“Solar and wind don’t need water and don’t have much of an impact on our environment,” Garrone said.

She also said the TVA should be doing a better job to engage the public on the matter.

“The TVA is a federal entity, not a company. I would think it would be in their best interest to engage the public,” she said. 

The TVA is still in a decision-making mode about what to do, Collins said. But several environmentalists from the Sierra Club are planning to attend the TVA’s board meeting on August 25th in Knoxville to express their concerns. Memphis City Councilman Martavius Jones said he may introduce a resolution in support of the TVA considering other alternatives at the next council meeting.

The TVA is under an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to reduce emissions at its coal-fired plants by December 2018. In 2014, the TVA’s board voted to close the Allen Fossil plant, which provides energy to the region, and replace it with a more environmentally friendly natural gas plant. The new Allen Combined Cycle plant is currently under construction in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, near the site of the Allen Fossil Plant.

The TVA must have the Allen Fossil Plant closed by December 2018, so they’re looking to get the new plant online by June of that year. 

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Opinion Viewpoint

Step Up, TVA!

As a pastor, I often find myself providing guidance to others on how to better themselves and improve their lives. Frequently, I witness people struggling to lift themselves out of difficult situations caused by a lack of resources. Even when these people begin to get ahead financially, circumstances beyond their control deplete their resources. Too many times, that uncontrollable circumstance is a family’s utility bills.

After reading a report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), I learned that our city has the highest energy burdens in the country. That is why I am compelled to express my concern for the well-being of these vulnerable communities, if we do not act quickly to address these unnecessary energy burdens.

Families living on low wages, disability payments, or a fixed income such as Social Security spend a national average of 7.5 percent of their income on energy, compared to 3.5 percent for those with a higher income level. In Memphis, the average energy burden for these economically vulnerable communities is 13 percent, the highest in the nation. Utility bills can consume a significant part of a family’s monthly income, especially during the hottest and coldest months, when economically struggling customers pay 26 percent of their income on energy costs.

Utility bills are often unnecessarily high for many families due to sub-standard housing. Poor insulation, leaky windows, improperly sealed doors, and even outdated major appliances can all cause utility bills to be higher than they should be. If we helped these families get necessary home improvements and brought housing up to minimum efficiency standards, they could reduce energy burdens by 35 percent. Instead of a $300 utility bill, for example, a family might save as much as $105 on efficiency improvements, alone. That saved money could be used to meet other needs.

I applaud Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) for the steps it has taken to help their customers manage energy costs and lower utility bills. MLGW has a weather-related moratorium policy that ensures customers will maintain service in the winter months and also offers a special reconnect program to re-establish utility service during extreme summer heat. Memphians will need these services even more in the coming years as older, substandard housing continues to age.

MLGW also offers a voluntary program called Share the Pennies that rounds up customers’ monthly bills to even-dollar amounts and uses that money to provide free energy-efficiency upgrades to low-income customers. Funding for that program has been limited by the number of participants and has only managed to fix around 200 homes over a three-year period.

MLGW’s power provider, the Tennessee Valley Authority, currently has no low-income targeted efficiency programs that MLGW could use to fill in the gap and address a desperate need in Memphis.

Low-income households pay for the costs of TVA’s general energy efficiency programs through their monthly power bill, which is true for everyone who uses TVA’s electricity. But those with higher incomes are currently the ones who actually benefit from TVA’s energy saving programs, which require payment for the energy savings up front and then waiting for a rebate from TVA. More vulnerable communities do not have the financial resources to pay for energy savings measures up front.

Other states have seen low-income energy efficiency utility programs provide critical financial support to households that spend a too-high portion of their income on utility bills. In other states, utility-customer-funded energy efficiency programs have a strong track record of delivering not only energy savings but also important non-energy benefits, such as increased comfort and improved health.

TVA has an obligation to make sure its home-weatherization programs, funded by all of its customers, actually reach all of its customers. I urge TVA to do more to protect the lower-income households from the disproportionate burdens of energy costs and help lift some of its most vulnerable customers’ energy burdens.

Dr. James L. Netters is senior pastor at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church and is a long-standing activist in community and civil rights affairs.

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News The Fly-By

Water Works

CREDIT: Courtesy of TVA

The source of Memphis’ beloved clean drinking water — the Memphis Sands Aquifer — could soon be tapped for up to 3.5 million gallons of water per day to cool the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) new, under-construction gas plant.

In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system.

But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water.

“It would add more than a million dollars a year to the operating costs,” said TVA spokesperson Chris Stanley.

Courtesy of TVA

Plans for the new Allen Combined Cycle gas plant

Now, they’re looking at a few alternatives — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sands and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

“We may need both the [aquifer] well water and the backup potable water from MLGW,” Stanley said.

Most of that water — about 90 percent — is evaporated in the plant’s cooling process, and the rest will be discharged into the Maxson plant, Stanley said.

The TVA is under an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to reduce emissions at its coal-fired plants by December 2018. In 2014, the TVA’s board voted to close the Allen Fossil plant, which provides energy to the region, and replace it with a more environmentally friendly natural gas plant. The new Allen Combined Cycle plant is currently under construction in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, near the site of the Allen Fossil Plant.

The TVA must have the Allen Fossil Plant closed by December 2018, so they’re looking to get the new plant online by June of that year. Stanley said they’d originally planned to use wastewater to cool the plant “to maximize environmental efforts.”

But in April, the TVA issued a supplemental environmental assessment report on the aquifer issue, claiming either option would lead to “minor irreversible and irretrievable commitments of groundwater resources.” Cooling the gas plant requires about 3.5 million gallons of water per day, but the aquifer is believed to hold around 57 trillion gallons. Stanley said the TVA wouldn’t be the first local company to pull water directly from aquifer wells.

Still yet, not everyone is pleased with the TVA’s new plan.

“It’s depleting our aquifer,” said Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Tennessee Sierra Club. “Most people in Memphis are pretty stoked that we have this awesome source of water. The TVA did some basic calculations on the cone of depression it would create, and they describe that as negligible, but it’s still a depletion.”

Banbury said he’s upset that the public wasn’t given an opportunity to comment on the issue.

“They tried to pull a switcheroo on us without giving the public an opportunity to weigh in,” Banbury said.

The TVA released on its website the supplemental environmental assessment report looking at the new potential water sources back in April, but Banbury said he only learned of it recently since no meetings were held seeking public comment.

“We don’t have to have those meetings by law, but we usually do,” Stanley said. “But in this case, it’s a decision we have to make quickly because we have to have the Allen Fossil Plant retired by December 2018.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

TVA Makes Plans to Permanently Close a Local Coal Ash Pond

CREDIT: Tennessee Valley Authority

In August 2014, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) board voted to retire its Memphis coal plant by December 2018 and replace it with a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant. That process is underway, and now TVA is focusing on closing one of the two ash ponds on the coal plant’s site.

The West Ash Impoundment, a retired coal ash pond near the Allen Fossil Plant in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, was the disposal site for waste products from the plant until 1978. It was replaced by the newer East Ash Impoundment. The West Ash pond has only received small amounts of combustion coal residuals (CCR) since then, typically when the East Ash pond was being worked on.

Tennessee Valley Authority

Map of the Allen Fossil Plant and its ash impoundments

“CCR is a result from the coal-burning process. You can have bottom ash from the bottom of the boiler. You can have fly ash, which goes into the air and is collected,” said Amy Henry, the manager of TVA’s National Environmental Policy Act program. “Some of the processes use water to push [the CCR] out through a pipe into an impoundment, and that’s why [the impoundments are] wet.”

Active ash impoundments, like the East Ash pond, are wet, but since the West Ash pond has been out of use for a while, it doesn’t look like a pond at all. The pond has been filled in with dirt, but TVA wants to permanently close the pond, either by covering the area with an impervious cap or by trucking the CCR material off-site to the South Shelby Landfill.

Those are the two options TVA is considering in the ash pond closure’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). While both were studied in the EIS, the report recommends the permanent cover option over the option to truck material off-site. The public is invited to comment on that report through February 24th. Later in the year, the TVA board will vote on one of the two options.

One of the reasons the EIS recommends what they’re calling “closure in place” over “closure by removal” is the potential for a traffic accident as trucks haul the coal ash from the industrial park to the landfill.

“With closure by removal, we would predict a higher risk of impacts in the traffic system, potentially accidents if there were more trucks on the road,” Henry said. “We’d have to take a look at the impacts on the community and where these routes would be going.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that CCR is nonhazardous, but the Sierra Club’s Tennessee conservation program coordinator Scott Banbury has a different stance.

“The EPA says it’s not hazardous, but we disagree because within this material are toxic heavy metals, and that can have a huge impact on aquatic communities,” Banbury said.

Banbury believes leaving the coal ash where it is could have more potential negative impact than moving it out. The ash ponds are currently unlined, meaning there’s nothing separating the waste from the ground underneath.

And even though the closure-in-place option would include a cap over the top, Banbury fears the ash could still seep out into the groundwater underneath and eventually make its way to into nearby McKellar Lake. Although signs are posted to discourage fishing in that lake, Banbury said many people still fish there to feed their families.

“The groundwater comes up from the river and gets the bottom of the ash pond wet below the water table,” Banbury said. “They’re saying they’re going to cap this thing so that rainfall can’t fall on top of it and leach through the ash pond, but that’s irrelevant because the groundwater comes up through the containment anyway.”

By contrast, the South Shelby Landfill is lined, so if the TVA were to truck the material out of the pond and into the landfill, it’d be moved to a lined containment. But Banbury said the landfill isn’t ideal either.

“Our preferred alternative is for them to remove it from this unlined pond and construct a new one with a liner underneath it,” Banbury said.

Categories
News News Blog

Shelby County Health Dept. To Hold Hearing on TVA Gas Plant

TVA Allen coal plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) voted last year to retire its Allen coal plant on Presidents Island and replace it with a new $452 million gas plant, but the Shelby County Health Department must approve a building permit for the new gas plant before the process can move forward.

The health department will hold a public hearing on that permit on Thursday, September 17th at 6 p.m. at the Memphis Area Transit Authority Board Room and Hudson Hall at Central Station (545 South Main).

The Sierra Club’s Memphis chapter made a big push for the TVA to retire the Allen plant, and now they’re pushing the health department to ensure the new gas plant will protect health and public safety.

“While we agree with the Tennessee Valley Authority’s move away from coal, we must also stay vigilant to ensure the new gas plant doesn’t put the health and safety of our community at risk,” said Rita Harris, senior organizing representative with Sierra Club in Memphis. “As plans for the gas plant move forward, we will be asking for adequate monitoring of the gas lines running through neighborhoods, which is one of our environmental justice concerns.”

From the Shelby County Health Department’s hearing announcement: “The proposed construction will consist of the addition of two combustion turbine generators, two heat recovery steam generators, one steam turbine generator, one dual fuel (natural gas and biogas) auxiliary boiler, three natural gas-fired dew-point gas heaters, three natural gas-fired dew point heaters, one diesel-engine-driven fire-suppression water pump and one multiple-cell cooling tower. This permitting activity ensures that the public has an opportunity to comment on all affected emission units.”