Indiana leads nation in coal ash ponds, raising toxin concerns

Even though Indiana has the most coal-ash ponds of any state in the nation and a troubling number of spills, state environmental regulators have done little to address the ongoing problems of how to dispose of coal waste.

So contends a new report by the Hoosier Environmental Council, which is calling on the federal government to step in and do what Indiana so far has been reluctant to do: Come up with stringent standards on how to dispose of the wastes left over from burning coal.

In its report released today called "Our Waters at Risk," the council says Indiana electric utilities generated 6.6 million tons of coal ash in 2012. Much of that ash — which is known to contain toxins such as arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury and chromium — ends up a Indiana's 84 coal ash ponds, the most of any state in the nation.

"It's a huge, unregulated source of surface-water pollution, as well as the ash in the ponds percolating down through the unlined ground beneath them and contaminating groundwater," said the report's primary author, Tim Maloney, the group's senior policy director.

State environmental regulators said they'd just received the report Monday, so they didn't have enough time to adequately study it. However, they cautioned that many of the assertions the environmental group is making might be based on old data.

"It is our understanding that some of the information predates the agency," said Barry Sneed, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. "We will be taking the appropriate time to review the report and provide thoughtful, accurate comment after our review."

Maloney said Indiana is among the worst in the nation with 13 documented cases of ash spills and other documented cases of groundwater contamination.

The worst examples noted in the report include roughly 60 million gallons of coal ash sludge spilling into the West Fork of the White River near Martinsville in 2007 and 2008 when a levee twice failed at Indianapolis Power and Light's Eagle Valley power plant. The report also described how private water wells were so contaminated by coal ash waste from two decades of pollution in Town of Pines near Michigan City that the federal government declared much of the town a Superfund site.

Maloney's report says that the reason for all these problems is simple enough: The dams and embankments that keep Indiana's coal ash ponds from spilling are almost entirely not inspected. Plus, at many sites, Indiana environmental regulators don't set limits on the runoff that discharges from the ponds into waterways, and many of the ponds that contain the sludge aren't lined with material that would prevent seepage into groundwater.

Of 17 coal-fired power plants in Indiana that dispose of ash in ponds, the report highlights Indianapolis Power and Light's Harding Street Generation Station's power plant on the city's Southside as a particularly troublesome example.

The utility's spokeswoman, Brandi Davis-Handy, said IPL meets federal requirements at all its power-generation locations, but in response to federal concerns about ash contamination, plant operators are working to evaluate and physically shore up its ponds.

She said the utility is conducting hydraulic and stability assessments, creating plans for operations, emergencies and maintenance as well as doing "enhanced" inspections.

"These measures have reduced the risk associated with potential releases, in addition to improving our ability to respond in the unlikely event of a release," Davis-Handy said.

But Maloney's report says all but one of eight of the ash ponds at the Harding Street site aren't lined to prevent groundwater contamination. They also sit above a shallow aquifer that serves as the source of drinking water for Southside neighborhood wells and supplies a well field for Citizens Water.

Maloney said that more testing is required to determine whether the plant is contaminating drinking water, but he says there is ample evidence of toxins. Citing EPA toxic releases data, the report says the plant's operators report dumping thousands of pounds of ammonia, arsenic, chromium, copper, mercury and lead into surface water each year.

The report says the state only puts limits on the amount of copper and mercury.

What's more, Maloney says the ponds sit within a 100-year flood plain for the West Fork of the White River, raising concerns about what might happen to all that ash in the event of a flood or a levee break.

All of this has the Hoosier Environmental Council calling on federal regulators to act on proposals to adopt standards that would put tighter standards on coal ash disposal.

Maloney's group also called on Indiana's electric utilities to close and decommission their coal ash ponds and replace them with modern dry ash handling systems that reduce waste and the need for lagoons.

"We know how to reduce that risk, and yet we're not doing it," Maloney said. "It's completely irresponsible."

Call Star reporter Ryan Sabalow at (317) 444-6179. Follow him on Twitter: @ryansabalow.