Coal news and updates

LG&E to cap Cane Run coal ash

With natural gas replacing coal at its Cane Run plant as early as May, LG&E is working to shut down its controversial coal-burning waste handling equipment, dry out and cap an ash pond and close an ash dump.

But before it can finish the job, the power company needs the approval of the Kentucky Division of Waste Management, which has scheduled a public meeting and hearing in Louisville on March 17.

Much of what the company is requesting could be described as a bureaucratic tidying up of old permits to recognize that it no longer plans to expand its ash-dumping operation on the western Louisville site. But other aspects get into the details of something that LG&E officials say is new for Kentucky: Taking a pond that was originally designed to hold ash in the water and permanently closing it down and sealing in the remaining ash.

“We need to raise that area up, so we can have a dome,” said John Voyles, vice president of transmission and generation services for LG&E and KU Energy. “Without a mound, water won’t run off.”

The company’s ash management has been controversial in recent years, with the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District issuing violation notices and negotiating for more financial penalties after nearby residents reported blowing ash and strong odors. Some neighbors have sued in federal court, and company officials have said they have spent $1.5 million to control blowing ash.

Coal combustion wastes are seen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a potential source of toxic pollution. The agency has documented more than 130 so-called “damage cases,” where there is evidence that ash sites have polluted the environment with heavy metals such as arsenic, boron and selenium. The EPA in December rolled out new rules for managing the wastes, which have piled up at power plants across coal-dependent Kentucky and Indiana.

“We would love to see all the coal ash at Cane Run go away,” said Thomas Pearce, a Sierra Club activist who has been working with neighbors of the plant. “We want to know that the pond will no longer be a pond ... and that there will no longer be (ash) dust in the area, and that the community will be safe from coal ash.”


The levies that have held water and ash in the pond have been classified by state and federal officials as high-hazard, meaning their failure could cause loss of human life or major damage to buildings. Pearce said residents also want to make sure that risk is eliminated, and that the company won’t use the property as a dumping location for coal-burning wastes from other power plants.


When the company removes all the water, what remains will no longer be considered a dam and regulated under the state’s dam safety program, so the high hazard rating will go away, said Peter Goodmann, director of the Kentucky Division of Water.

And Voyles said LG&E won’t be hauling in any ash from other locations.

He also said it’s impracticable to move Cane Run’s coal-burning waste, the vast majority packed in a large landfill along the Ohio River near the plant.

But Voyles said the company’s plans will offer safe encasement of the waste under layers of water-tight clay, dirt and thick grass.

Water is already being removed from the 52-acre pond.

Course bottom ash is going to the pond, to help make the mound. When the closure is finished, it will be be similar to the landfill, which sits on 110-acres, he said.

Voyles said the former ash pond will be about 17 feet high and designed for rain to wash across a clean grassy surface into a couple of lined stormwater basins.

Most of the landfill, which stands about 130 feet high, is already covered with clay, dirt and grass, but any remaining areas that are not will be as part of the final closure plan, he said.

He said groundwater monitoring wells are on the property and the company may add more.

LG&E has been burning coal since 1954 at Cane Run. For the last couple of years, it has been building a natural gas plant that produces less air pollution and no ash.

That new plant is now being tested.

“Between now and the end of May, we expect to complete that process,” he said. “So far, so good.”

So come June, the flow of ash from the old plant’s coal burners may stop for the first time in more than 60 years, marking the end of an era.

source: http://www.courier-journal.com