Southern Company's End Run On Coal Waste Rule: Pay Top $$ For Land Next To Power Plants

[hatrack]

Over the past several years, utility giant Georgia Power has embarked on an unusual buying spree, paying top dollar for people’s property in places where cheap land was easy to find. In 2016, it bought a veterinarian’s 5-acre lot in the rolling hills of northwest Georgia for roughly double the appraised value. The following year, it acquired 28 acres of flood-prone land in southwest Georgia’s pecan belt for nearly four times what the local tax assessor said it was worth. By the year after that, it had paid millions of dollars above the appraised value for hundreds of acres near a winding gravel road in a central Georgia town with no water lines and spotty cellphone service.

Two things united the properties: They were all near coal-fired power plants that generated toxic waste stored in unlined ponds at those sites. And they were all purchased after the Environmental Protection Agency finalized new regulations in 2014 governing the disposal of such waste, known as coal ash. All told, the utility paid over $15 million for nearly 1,900 acres close to five of its 12 power plant sites, according to an investigation by Georgia Health News and ProPublica.

The costly land purchases offer an enormous potential payoff to Georgia Power, one of the largest producers of coal ash waste in the country, the investigation found. They may allow the utility to forestall millions of dollars in cleanup costs outlined by the December 2014 regulations. The Atlanta-based company is trying to convince regulators to allow it to leave more than half of its coal ash — around 48 million tons — in unlined ponds at plant sites spread across the state. Environmentalists believe the safest way to dispose of coal ash is to move it from unlined ponds into landfills that have a protective, and more costly, liner to prevent contaminants from seeping into groundwater — the source of drinking water for people who depend upon wells.

Unlined coal ash ponds frequently leak contaminants into groundwater, according to a pair of analyses of industry-reported data conducted by advocacy groups Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice. Recent Georgia Power tests of groundwater show that coal ash contaminants appear to be migrating out of the ponds at some plant sites, according to experts who reviewed company filings. The new regulations require utilities to clean up contaminants if they are found at high enough levels beyond the boundaries of their plant sites. By extending those boundaries through land purchases, Georgia Power could push back the day it has to deal with its legacy of pollution, according to a dozen environmental experts, regulators and activists.

EDIT

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-power-companys-quiet-land-buying-spree-could-shield-it-from-coal-ash-cleanup-costs

[Finishline42]

1. The un-funded liability of coal-fired power plants

There are over 400 of these fly ash containment ponds spread across the country. They are a ticking time bomb, especially those that don't have the liners to prevent leading of the contaminates - mostly mercury and other heavy metals.