In a long-running environmental dispute between the federal government and the state of Alabama, Alabama Power, a Southern Co. utility, is facing potential costs of billions of dollars to clean up its coal ash ponds. Disposing of coal combustion residues is a problem going back decades, and Alabama Power is likely to become the most recent case of the heavy costs of delay.
The Birmingham utility is waiting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to bring the hammer down on what the federal agency found last August is a failure of the state plan to comply with rules for ash disposal at the utility’s retired Gadsden plant and several others, and at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Colbert plant and others. The EPA found that Alabama’s coal ash program does not meet federal standards under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. EPA gave the state 60 days to respond to the finding.
Alabama Power has already been fined $1.5 million for groundwater contamination at its coal ash ponds under state rules.
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