Appeals Court Rules That Suit Against Alabama Power Over 600 Acres Of Coal Waste, Groundwater Poisoning To Proceed

A yearslong court battle over the 21.7 million tons of coal ash sitting in one of Alabama’s most ecologically sensitive areas will continue after an appeals court ruling handed down Monday. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lawsuit by Alabama-based environmental group Mobile Baykeeper challenging Alabama Power’s plans to leave the coal ash in place can proceed, overturning the decision of a lower court that had dismissed the complaint.

Mobile Baykeeper’s lawsuit argues that the nearly 600-acre coal ash pond at Alabama Power’s James M. Barry Electric Generating Plant, near Mobile, violates the Environmental Protection Agency’s coal ash rules, largely because much of the coal ash remains saturated with groundwater. Baykeeper’s Cade Kistler told Inside Climate News he hopes the ruling will spur Alabama Power to agree to remove the coal ash rather than continue to fight to leave toxic waste from the coal-fired power plant in the impoundment pond. “We certainly feel vindicated, but more importantly, I think it feels like an opportunity here for Alabama Power to see that there’s a different way forward than battling this,” Kistler said.

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Coal ash, or coal combustion residuals, is the solid material leftover from burning coal. It often contains substances like arsenic, mercury, lead and heavy metals that can cause human health problems, including cancer. At large coal plants like Barry, this ash material was flushed into wet, unlined impoundments or ponds for decades, building up massive volumes of toxic substances and often significantly polluting groundwater in the area. New EPA coal ash rules enacted in 2015 required utilities to close most unlined coal ash ponds either by moving the ash to lined landfills or by covering the ash in place, provided the utilities could prove contaminants from the ash were not polluting groundwater.

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In 2023, the EPA issued Alabama Power a notice of potential violations over the coal ash at Plant Barry, stating that the company had “potentially failed to meet the criteria for conducting the closure of the Plant Barry Ash Pond.” The EPA, under then-Administrator Michael Regan, took the position that coal ash ponds could not meet legal requirements if the ash remained in contact with groundwater.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052026/alabama-power-coal-ash-lawsuit/