Test: Water Meets Standards
Groups say Mon Power is polluting
Morgantown Dominion Post
14 March 2011
By Michelle Wolford
KINGWOOD — Three environmental groups have threatened to file suit
against Mon Power over arsenic levels from coal ash dumps near the
Albright Power Plant, which the company owns.
The groups — West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, W.Va. Rivers
Coalition and Sierra Club of West Virginia — claimed in a letter sent
to the company in February that those levels are “unlawfully high” in
the Cheat River.
The groups also claim the company is not reporting selenium discharge
with enough accuracy to determine if it violates its DEP permit.
On Feb. 22, The Dominion Post collected water samples from the Cheat
about one mile upstream from the Albright Power Plant, and a quarter of
a mile downstream from the plant. The samples were tested for arsenic
and selenium by Reliance Laboratories Inc. of Bridgeport. Results
received this week show that the water in the Cheat River meets Water
Quality Standards.
Neither sample revealed either mineral at a level above the permit
restrictions.
The samples were not obtained on Mon Power property nor at the same
sites where the company checked its discharge. But they were collected
before drainage from the coal ash dumps enters the river and after.
Numbers provided by the groups, which the state DEP has confirmed are
Mon Power’s (then known as Allegheny Power) readings at the Albright
plant, indicate the company did exceed its discharge limit for arsenic
from July to December of 2010.
“Each discharge amount that exceeds permit limits is an unlawful and
unpermitted discharge, and therefore, is not shielded from liability”
under the Clean Water Act, the groups told the company in a letter,
which threatens a lawsuit seeking civil penalties and “for an
injunction compelling it to come into compliance with the Act and its
permit requirements if no remediation steps are outlined.”
According to Kathy Cosco, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia DEP,
exceeding permit limits “does not always trigger notices of violation
or penalties.”
If the DEP notices a pattern of “exceedences,” she said, “the DEP will
work with the company to determine what the problem is. If the company
can’t get them in line, or if they fail to take steps necessary to
rectify the situation, then the agency will start down the path of
assessing penalties.
“There are instances where the nature or severity of a single violation
may result in the assessment of a penalty,” Cosco said. “Generally
speaking, however, an individual exceedance reported on a Discharge
Monitoring Report would not trigger an enforcement action. The company
is expected to take necessary measures to achieve compliance with the
permit.”
The environmental groups also claim Allegheny Power isn’t accurately
reporting selenium discharges into the Cheat River.
“From March 2010 through October 2010, Allegheny Energy reported the
concentration of selenium in its effluent with only three significant
digits — too few for the undersigned, the DEP, or the public to
determine whether a violation had occurred.”
According to Cosco, “the company has what is a called a variance: A
condition that allows the facility a threeyear period during which it
may exceed its selenium limits three times before a violation is
triggered.” In other words, if the company exceeds the 0.005 mg/l
(milligrams per liter) four times in a 36-month period then the
exceedence is considered a violation. When the legislature passed this
variance, it applied to monitoring that began Jan. 25, 2010, so the
permit just completed the first year of the three year period.
In the letter to Allegheny Energy, the three groups claim Allegheny
Energy “has met and possibly exceeded its limit of 0.005 mg/L on at
least five separate occasions. ... Because Allegheny Energy is
apparently rounding to the nearest part per billion (equivalent to a
thousandth of a mg/L), a reported 0.005 mg/L could reflect a discharge
with a selenium concentration from 4.51 parts per billion to 5.49 parts
per billion.”
Testing done on behalf of The Dominion Post showed the selenium level
at less than 0.004 mg/L upstreamm and downstream from the plant, which
is in compliance with its permit limit.
The letter asserts that by rounding off the numbers, the company “has
the potential to hide violations of its permits, and is therefore not
in accordance with the monitoring and reporting requirements of the
Clean Water Act.”
“Our concern is that the standards set by DEP to protect human health
and the environment are not being met,” said Mike Becher of the
Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, who represents
three nonprofits. “An additional consideration is that just downstream
of this discharge is a trout stream —- Daugherty Run,” he said.
Becher said the technology exists to treat pollutants, such as arsenic.
“The best result from our perspective is to achieve compliance with the
legal limits in the permit.”
David Neurohr, an Allegheny Energy spokesman, said the company had no
comment “until we can see something a little more definite.” He said he
had not seen the letter sent to Daniel C. McIntire, Allegheny’s vice
president of Generation Operations.