YORK HAVEN, Pa. — An environmental nonprofit organization announced this week it plans to sue a York County energy company for what it deems a failure to mitigate toxic pollution risks from a coal ash storage pond.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed formal notice Tuesday of its intent to sue Talen Energy Corporation and Brunner Island LLC, claiming the company failed to comply with a 2015 Environmental Protection Agency regulation requiring groundwater monitoring and other protective measures to prevent pollution discharges and catastrophic failures of improperly constructed or managed ash ponds.
The storage pond is located in York Haven.
“It shouldn’t take a lawsuit to force these polluters to make sure their toxic waste doesn’t foul waterways and groundwater and harm people and wildlife,” said Ragan Whitlock, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These dangerous pollutants are the true legacy of the multitrillion-dollar coal industry.”
Brunner Island is a 1,490-megawatt coal- and gas-fired power plant on the Susquehanna River that generates and stores large amounts of coal-combustion residual wastes, including fly ash and bottom ash, in in-ground impoundments.
These coal ash wastes — which are a toxic slurry left over after coal is burned — contain a host of heavy metals and contaminants, including cadmium, chromium, lead, radium and arsenic, that can pollute waterways and poison wildlife and people, the Center said in a press release.
The Center calls Brunner Island’s violations "especially concerning," because the coal ash pond at issue, Ash Basin 5, is filled with toxic coal ash slurry at depths of up to 40 feet, 15 feet of which are sitting below the groundwater line.
Citing Talen Energy's public reports for the pond, high levels of contamination from several pollutants, including lithium, aluminum, arsenic, molybdenum and manganese, were found in the groundwater in several downgradient monitoring wells, the Center claims.
“Federal and state environmental agencies have failed to enforce the law at this site,” said Jim Hecker, senior attorney of Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Project. “We are therefore invoking the available citizen suit authority to compel Brunner Island’s compliance with the federal regulations.”
Coal-fired, steam electric power plants are the largest industrial source of toxic water pollution in the United States, releasing heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, the Center says.
"As today’s notice details, the Brunner Island facility has not conducted any of the inspection, groundwater monitoring or corrective action steps for its impoundments that are required by EPA regulations," the Center said. "Specifically, Brunner has not developed the required groundwater sampling and analysis program or evaluated groundwater monitoring data for statistically significant increases of pollutants over background levels."
