Groundwater pollutants at former Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station cited in environmental report
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A study released by an environmental nonprofit listed the former Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station as having had pollutants exceeding safe levels, making a list of more than 250 coal plants and offsite coal ash landfills found to have contaminated groundwater.
The Washington, D.C,.-based Environmental Integrity Project, in collaboration with Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network, and other organizations, obtained and analyzed all groundwater monitoring data that power companies posted on their websites in 2018, reporting that 91 percent of coal plants have unsafe levels of one or more coal ash constituents in groundwater, even after setting aside contamination that may naturally occur or come from other sources.
Published in 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Coal Ash Rule established groundwater monitoring requirements for owners or operators of coal ash units, calling for them to make monitoring data publicly available.
The study found that the former Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station in Monongahela Township, Greene County, which FirstEnergy Corp. closed in 2013 and has one Coal Ash Rule-regulated landfill, had excessively high levels of cobalt, boron and sulfate – including 38 times the safe level of cobalt.
Cobalt is associated with blood disease and thyroid damage, according to EPA peer-reviewed toxicity values for cobalt cited by the Environmental Integrity Project.
Ken Dufalla, president of the Harry Enstrom Chapter of the Izaak Walton League, noted the potential for coal dumps to leak fly ash and other pollutants into water system.
FirstEnergy Corp. in April 2017 announced an agreement to sell a portion of property and assets to APV Renaissance Opco, LLC, with a plan to build a 1,000-megawatt clean, natural gas-fueled power generation facility on the site of the former coal pile area at Hatfield’s Ferry.