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Sunday, January 18, 2009
Environment - NIPSCO: Disposal of coal ash in NW Indiana safe
After the recent news of a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee, Gitte Laasby and Erik Potter of the Gary Post-Tribune report today on coal ash generation and handling in NW Indiana. According to the story, NIPSCO is the only coal ash generator. More:
A coal ash spill like the one that recently occurred in Tennessee couldn't happen in Northwest Indiana, according to NIPSCO.Indeed, the AP list of Indiana power plants with coal ash ponds and the amount in tons stored, reproduced in this Jan. 9th ILB entry, does not include NIPSCO, but the AP story does report:Indiana disposed of nearly 2.3 million pounds of coal ash from 13 power plants in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That's more than any other state in the nation. But because Northern Indiana Public Service Co. stores it differently and the typography is different, an incident like the one in Tennessee wouldn't happen here, NIPSCO said. * * *
"There's two key differences between TVA and NIPSCO, why that event would not occur with NIPSCO," said NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer. "They used what's called a wet-handling system. They store this fly ash in a pond or larger body of water. We handle it differently, what's called a dry-handling system. It eliminates the need for large impoundments."
At the Michigan City and Bailly generating stations, ash is stored in enclosed silos. When the ash needs to be transported, a truck backs into the silos and the ash is dumped into the truck, Meyer said.
The ash is delivered to a conditioning system at the Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield and mixed with water before it goes into NIPSCO's landfill there, which NIPSCO voluntarily lined and monitors.
"It's about as safe as you can get because it's lined and capped and it's got groundwater monitoring," Meyer said.
The U.S. Environmental Portection Agency concluded in 2006 that disposal of coal waste in ponds elevates cancer risk when metals leach into drinking water. Coal ash storage facilities are not federally regulated, only governed by the states. Several states, including Indiana, do not require liners and monitors. That became a subject of controversy locally and nationally eight years ago. NIPSCO used to store coal ash near its Michigan City plant. In the 1980s, ash ponds at NIPSCO's Michigan City generating station were overflowing with coal ash. About a million tons of the waste was moved to Brown's Yard 520 in the town of Pines for what was supposed to be temporary storage.
In 2000, chemicals including boron from the landfill were found in private wells at homes in the Pines at twice the safe level. There was concern about the contamination reaching groundwater. The site was designated a Superfund site and residents were supplied with municipal water.
Meyer said NIPSCO no longer stores fly ash at the site or at its Bailly plant, but transports it to the landfill in Wheatfield.
"Essentially, it's housed at this landfill, and also we use some of the ash that gets recycled into marketable products," Meyer said.
Dave Ellis, chairman of the Dunelands Group of the Hoosier Chapter of the Sierra Club, said he still wants to raise awareness of what can happen with coal waste.
"So much of our electricity in Indiana comes from burning coal. We may not see so many smokestacks here in Northwest Indiana, but there are many in the state and a lot are concentrated around the Ohio River," Ellis said.
"Regardless of anything, it's really producing a lot of a byproduct someone has to do something with.
Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama. Indiana ranks at the top with 13 power plants storing 2,270,950 tons of coal ash in ponds.See a list of ILB entries involving "coal ash" here.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 18, 2009 01:33 PM
Posted to Environment