Cleaner air rules mean more power plant solid waste

Morgantown facility among those affected

Friday, June 5, 2009

Some of the more than 2 million tons of additional waste could be headed for unlined landfills that environmental groups say pose serious health threats, particularly heightened cancer risks from exposure to toxic metals that could leach into the ground and water.

According to the analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earth Justice, only two landfills, at the Dickerson plant in Montgomery and at Morgantown in Charles County, have systems for collecting liquid waste that leaches from the dumps, and the Morgantown landfill and four others covering almost 1,300 acres in Anne Arundel Montgomery and Prince George's counties and in Baltimore city lack even less-effective clay liners.

Maryland Department of the Environment spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said the department could not verify yet whether data that the environmental groups used were up to date and accurate.

One of the five landfills is linked to Constellation Energy's Brandon Shores plant in Anne Arundel and is already subject to a consent decree with MDE. That order requires Constellation to clean up contamination and provide safe drinking water to replace affected wells.

No new ash is being placed there, Constellation spokesman Kevin Thornton said.

That's little comfort, said Lisa Widawsky, a lawyer for the Environmental Integrity Project, which, with Earth Justice, accused the Bush administration of withholding information about health risks around coal waste dumps.

"The highest risk from these sites with no liners can come 78 to 105 years after the ash is placed at the site," Widawsky said. "The fact that they are not accepting more waste does not mean they are not causing harm."

Last month, Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law a bill that authorizes the Maryland Department of Environment to charge fees for every ton of ash, slag and sludge generated by burning coal.

The roughly $750,000 in fees will be used to implement new regulations that MDE enacted in December.

The new regulations require more monitoring and controls on coal ash and waste and liners in landfills where it is disposed.

Some of the roughly 4.5 million tons of pollutants projected to be captured next year will be intercepted by smokestack scrubbers expected to begin operating in the first quarter of 2010 at Mirant plants at Morgantown and in Montgomery and Prince George's counties and at Constellation's Brandon Shores plant in Anne Arundel County.

The scrubbers turn pollutants into gypsum, calcium sulfate dihydrate, that Mirant and Constellation both plan to sell to manufacturers who will use it to produce wallboard.

Lafarge North America has the right to buy all the gypsum sludge from Mirant's Chalk Point and Morgantown plants, and Mirant is pursuing a similar deal for a manufacturer to buy sludge from its Dickerson plant.

Constellation is also pursuing sludge buyers, Thornton said, noting that sales could depend on the market for wallboard, which is dependent on the now-struggling construction industry.

About 1 million tons of coal waste is recycled into beneficial uses now, Stoltzfus said.

Beneficial reuses of coal waste can earn exemptions from the fees under the regulations.

Constellation already sells about 60 percent of its coal waste to Separation Technologies Inc. to use as components in concrete and cement, Thornton said. About 40 percent goes to lined dump sites in Virginia and a lined site called Mountain View near Frostburg, he said.

In March, 4,000 gallons of coal ash sludge generated by the New Page paper mill in the town of Luke in Allegany County escaped through a leaky pipe used to pump it across the Potomac River to a surface impoundment in West Virginia. Most of the leaked sludge appeared to fall onto the West Virginia river bank, but some discolored the river.

Even if such spills do not kill fish, metals or minerals such as selenium from the sludge could accumulate in fish and harm animals and people who eat them, scientists told Congress recently.

mhyslop@gazette.net