Friday, April 29, 2011

Neighbors of Cane Run plant worry about health impact of coal ash by James Bruggers-Courier Journal

Coal ash and scrubber sludge are combined at the landfill at the Cane Run power plant. The landfill is very close to many homes in the area. City has confirmed coal ash collected on at least one home, and more testing is to occur. LGE wants to expand the landfill. (Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal) April 12, 2011
Coal ash and scrubber sludge are combined at the landfill at the Cane Run power plant. The landfill is very close to many homes in the area. City has confirmed coal ash collected on at least one home, and more testing is to occur. LGE wants to expand the landfill. (Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal) April 12, 2011 / cj/cj

Mountains are leveled in Eastern Kentucky to produce coal, but one Louisville neighborhood has been watching a different kind of mountain grow — one made of waste from burning coal at a power plant.
“We call it Coal Mountain,” said Kathy Little, who has lived for 32 years in Claremore Acres, which is in the shadow of Louisville Gas & Electric Co.'s Cane Run power plant along the Ohio River.
When we first moved out here, you could look over and see Indiana,” she said. Now that view is blocked by the rising pile of coal ash and scrubber sludge — some 650,000 pounds of coal-burning waste in 2009 alone, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory. “In drier times, you can see ash just blowing off the top.”
Some residents have been so concerned about the potential impact on health from the ash that they have been calling on state and local regulators to investigate their complaints. Testing by the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District has found evidence of ash in the neighborhood.
Given those concerns about the existing landfill, Little and many of her neighbors are worried about LG&E plans to build a new, 140-foot coal-burning waste landfill on 60 acres at the Cane Run plant.
LG&E, which still needs state Division of Waste Management and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval to proceed, has said the new landfill is needed because the existing one will run out of room in about three years. The company says the new landfill, like the existing one, will not harm residents.
Neighbors have their doubts.
“It's dirty and nasty,” said Debbie Walker, who lives on Cane Run Road directly across from the existing dump. While grass grows atop much of the dump, a large, black area in the front where new waste is placed remains uncovered.
The residents' concerns focus mostly on the potential hazards of coal-burning wastes, which contain a mixture of toxic metals and other compounds. They say it has blown onto their cars and homes, and gets into their windows.


Cane Run power plant and its coal ash landfill is very close to many homes in the area. Debbie Walker, with her three year old granddaughter, Lilly James live directly accross from the landfill. City has confirmed coal ash collected on at least one home, and more testing is to occur. LGE wants to expand the landfill. (Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal) April 12, 2011
Cane Run power plant and its coal ash landfill is very close to many homes in the area. Debbie Walker, with her three year old granddaughter, Lilly James live directly accross from the landfill. City has confirmed coal ash collected on at least one home, and more testing is to occur. LGE wants to expa

What's in LG&E's landfill?

Fly ash, which is a fine powdery material, composed mostly of silica. It is removed from power plant exhaust gases primarily by pollution controls.

Bottom ash, which is made up of a mass of ash particles, is typically too large to be carried up the smokestacks.

Scrubber waste, which ranges from a wet sludge to a dry powdered material depending on the process. Some can be used to make wallboard.

Much of the waste is inert and nontoxic. But it also contains heavy metals. Some can be essential for life in small doses, but unhealthy in larger doses and have been linked to ailments like cancer, lung irritation, brain damage, nervous system damage and skin irritation.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency; Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry



Cane Run plant's waste

(in pounds for 2009)
Zinc compounds: 139,000
Manganese compounds: 85,000
Vanadium compounds: 98,700
Lead compounds: 37,900
Barium compounds: 130,400
Nickel compounds: 52,000
Chromium compounds: 44,200
Arsenic compounds: 29,200
Copper compounds: 35,800
Mercury compounds: 105 pounds
Source: Environmental Protection Agencynd the landfill. (Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal) April 12, 2011 / cj/cj


National awareness of the dangers of coal ash ratcheted up after the 2008 collapse of a massive ash stockpile in Tennessee. The waste from a Tennessee Valley Authority impoundment near Knoxville slid across several hundred acres, damaged 26 homes and entered a river.
Even as some residents worry something like that could happen at Cane Run, Little and her neighbors say they still fear how the material may be affecting their health. “You just really don't know what you are breathing,” Little said.
Walker, whose siding is covered with dark smudges, said she wonders whether living near the plant for the last two decades may have contributed to two bouts of cancer, or her son's autism.
“Since all this has come up, I've been scared to garden,” she said.
Little, who has been going door-to-door to raise awareness about plans for the new landfill in her community, said some of her neighbors suspect the black and brown splotches on their siding and window sills are coal ash from the landfill or from a pond at LG&E's plant. Some also believe it may be from soot falling after it leaves the power plant's towering smokestacks.

More testing in works

Little raised her family in a small brick home about 150 feet from the eastern wall of the ash pond, and just down the block from the black face of the ash dump. Now she said she's caring for an 8-year-old granddaughter.
“With a child, you don't know how it's affecting her growing body,” Little said. “With fly ash, you have a lot of the heavy metals and that kind of thing. She's breathing it; she's rolling around in the grass, and possibly ingesting it.”
In February, a Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District inspector swabbed the outside sills on the front of Little's house, and a laboratory analysis confirmed fly ash in three samples. Air district spokesman Matt Stull confirmed that investigation.
But LG&E spokeswoman Chris Whelan said company officials don't believe the results.
“We have requested they re-test,” Whelan said. “We have never found anything more than trace amounts of ash. We're not sure what's on their homes.”

District officials returned for more tests on Monday, Stull said, adding that it would be several weeks before they get the results back from a laboratory.
The Kentucky Division of Waste Management, which regulates the dump, is conducting its own investigation of whether the ash and scrubber sludge that LG&E puts there is staying in place. The utility has completed one round of testing and also plans to go back, when it's drier.
“We have not finalized the details of the additional sampling, but we will likely coordinate it with the (air district) and LG&E,” said Tim Hubbard, assistant director of the state agency.
A preliminary round of testing in March by the state at five locations in Claremont Acres, east of the plant, and Riverside Gardens to the north, “did not show significant levels of fly ash” on homes, Hubbard said, adding that inspectors would like to return “when conditions are drier.”
The air district's enforcement manager, Terri Phelps, said district regulations require reasonable precautions to be taken to prevent particulate matter from becoming airborne and blowing beyond the boundaries of a work site.
District regulations allow the agency to levy fines of up to $10,000 per day per violation, Phelps said. Offenders can also be required to take corrective actions, she added.
Some residents said they believe LG&E officials know their plant causes ash and soot problems because the company has sometimes provided them with vouchers to pay for car washes. Whelan acknowledged the company has paid for car washing, but only rarely, after an unusual incident at the plant, she said.
“We believe our plant is operating in compliance and that it is not impacting the neighborhoods,” Whelan said.
Federal help may be on the way. Since the 2008 accident in Tennessee, the EPA has been weighing its first national regulations on managing such wastes, which include various kinds of ash and wastes that come from scrubbers designed to reduce pollution emitted into the air through stacks.

Kentucky is the country's biggest producer of coal burning wastes, according to the EPA. Indiana and Kentucky also are the nation's top two states for coal ash ponds, with 53 and 44, respectively. Making matters more worrisome for the Cane Run plant's neighbors — the ash pond has been ranked a “high hazard” because of potential damage that it could do to neighboring homes across Cane Run Road if its levee broke and ash spilled out.

Pollution suit settled

In a related matter, LG&E last month settled a pollution nuisance lawsuit in U.S. District Court with some of its neighbors to the northeast in Riverside Gardens.
Monika Burkhead, a Riverside Gardens resident and plaintiff in the case, said terms of the settlement were confidential, and she declined to discuss any issues related to the Cane Run plant.
Whelan acknowledged the confidential settlement, but added: “I can say that we never found any risk to human health or property damage.”
At the same time, the company's president and chief executive officer, Vic Staffieri, last fall said LG&E may shut down the 57-year-old Cane Run power plant or convert it to cleaner-burning natural gas in response to tightening environmental regulations. The TVA announced similar plans for three of its aging power plants last week.
Whelan said any plans to close the plant or change its fuel within the next five years would be spelled out in planning documents the utility intends to file with the Kentucky Public Service Commission within the next month.
Little said she'd welcome either option, which would mean an end to the ash and smoke. “That would be much better than what we've got now,” she said.
Reporter James Bruggers can be reached at (502) 582-4645

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