Fayette County residents oppose coal ash disposal
LABELLE, Pa. — A landfill in Fayette County is one of several sites under consideration to be the new disposal site of coal ash from the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant, and residents recently spoke out against that proposal.
Jack Purcell, the solicitor for Luzerne Township in Fayette County, said dozens of people attended a hearing held by the state Department of Environmental Protection last week to solicit public comment for a water discharge permit at the site.
That permit is one of several that FirstEnergy Corp., the company that owns the Shippingport coal-fired power plant, would need before it could dispose of coal ash at the site.
FirstEnergy must find a new site because the state has ordered the Little Blue Run impoundment, the largest coal ash landfill in the country, to be closed by the end of this year. If the company chooses to use the LaBelle site, it would ship the coal ash by barge down the Ohio and Monongahela rivers to the landfill.
But if the residents in LaBelle have their way, Bruce Mansfield’s coal ash won’t be coming to their community.
“There is a lot of frustration” among residents in LaBelle, Purcell said, adding that the supervisors there also oppose FirstEnergy’s proposal.
“People here have gone to many meetings and many hearings, and the situation does not improve, and now it’s threatened with it becoming even worse,” Purcell said, noting that there has been a coal ash landfill in LaBelle for decades.
Residents there are still “resolute” in opposing any additional coal ash coming there, “but they’re afraid because this is a serious health problem and they don’t see an end in sight.”
“It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, putting coal ash in an area that has people who live close by,” Purcell said.
The entire ordeal is “very troublesome,” Purcell said, and he noted local officials there will ramp up their opposition to FirstEnergy’s proposal if that proposal becomes reality.
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young reiterated that the company is considering “multiple options” for the reuse or disposal of Bruce Mansfield’s coal ash.
One of those options is disposal in LaBelle, but not in the way some residents think.
“Pennsylvania promotes using approved coal combustions residual materials for the closure and reclamation of legacy coal mines, and thousands of acres of abandoned mine lands across the state have been successfully reclaimed in this fashion over the years,” she said. “CCR materials reduce infiltration of rain water into the coal waste material and neutralize acid drainage from these mines.”
She said FirstEnergy is pursuing a “beneficial reuse permit” from the state DEP that would allow the company to use CCRs from Bruce Mansfield for use in mine reclamation projects like the one in LaBelle.
Little Blue must close by Dec. 31 to be in compliance with state orders.