Coal ash spill causes outcry

Millions of gallons of ash sludge poured through a broken dike at a coal plant Monday in Tennessee, fueling outcries from environmentalists, including critics of Santee Cooper's proposed Pee Dee plant, who say the breach exposes the dangers of coal ash.

The spill happened at Tennessee Valley Authority's coal plant west of Knoxville when an earthen wall failed after heavy rains. The berms held 2.6 million cubic yards of ash from the coal plant's boilers — a retention ash pond with dikes similar to those at five Lowcountry coal plants.

"What happened in Tennessee could happen at the Pee Dee plant," said Nancy Cave, a project director with the Coastal Conservation League. "As we have said, there is no such thing as 'clean' coal, and this is a perfect example of that."

The ash poured out of the Tennessee coal plant's pond, toppling power lines, wrecking a dozen homes and covering hundreds of acres in a 4-foot-thick mat of gray slime. Environmental officials said the clean up could take weeks or longer.

Coal naturally contains traces of arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals, but burning coal tends to concentrate these materials in ash.

A recent Post and Courier Watchdog series, "Toxic Ash," documented how power companies in South Carolina annually dump 2.3 billion pounds of ash in landfills and ponds.

Many of these ponds sit precariously close to waterways, such as the Edisto, Wateree and Waccamaw rivers. At some of these ponds, arsenic and other heavy metals in the ash leached into groundwater.

Utility officials in South Carolina said Tuesday that their ash ponds and landfills are structurally sound.

"Santee Cooper's retention walls and ponds have lived up to their sound engineering and design standards throughout their long history," said Laura Varn, director of corporate communications for the power company. "The chances of a failure happening, like what happened in Tennessee, are extremely, extremely remote."

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She added that the pond at the future Pee Dee plant will "be designed to the highest engineering standards," and that the company hopes to recycle most of its ash instead of putting it in a pond.

South Carolina hasn't had a major breach of an ash pond in recent memory, though contaminants leached into groundwater after a slurry wall failed in the 1990s at South Carolina Electric & Gas' coal plant on the Edisto River near Canadys. The utility spent $11 million to fix the problem.

"It is important to note that the structural integrity of the ash pond at Canadys was never in question," said Robert Yanity, public affairs officer with SCE&G.

He said a plant official does a daily "walk-around" and visual inspection of each ash pond the utility operates.

Conservationists remain concerned about what could happen at the state's ash ponds.

A pond at SCE&G's Wateree plant, for instance, is a few steps from the river, which flows through Congaree National Park. A monitoring well next to the river has found groundwater contaminated with arsenic 300 times above the federal drinking water limit, state inspection records show.

Bob Guild, a Columbia lawyer representing a farmer next to the plant, said the monitoring well is less than 10 feet from the water, and that the river bank has migrated toward the pond. "Of course, catastrophic failure of the berm would flood the river with this coal ash waste."

In Tennessee, Crystell Flinn, 49, said she was still in shock after her family's home was pushed off its foundation and driven 30 feet onto a road. She told The Associated Press that her husband, James Schean, was trapped inside at the time.

"He didn't know what was going on," she said. "He couldn't see anything. He had to tear one door off the hinges to get out of the bedroom, and he couldn't get out the front door so he had to kick out a window." Schean made it out unhurt.

Blan Holman, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charleston, said his group has been pushing for tougher national regulations for coal ash. He said the incident in Tennessee "only confirms that the term 'clean coal' is an oxymoron."