Stafford urged to speak up, reject Dominion’s coal ash permit at Possum Point

Submitted: 

I attended the Stafford County’s Board of Supervisors Meeting this evening and asked them to make a statement, approve a resolution and write an official letter to the Virginia DEQ demanding that they reject Dominion’s solid waste permit regarding their ash coal ponds at their Possum Point power station. Here is my speech…

“My name is Charles William “Bill” Johnson-Miles and I live here in Stafford. I am asking our Stafford County Board of Supervisors to join the Prince William County Board of Supervisors in requesting Virginia’s DEQ not approve a state permit that would allow Dominion to permanently bury roughly four million tons of poisonous coal ash at their Possum Point power station. The coal ash is a waste material containing toxic heavy metals. It’s been sitting in ponds on Dominion’s property and seeping into the groundwater, into Quantico Creek and into the Potomac River. All that toxic pollution flows down river past Stafford County homes and parks, locations where our families and children live and play.

Stafford County’s Board of Supervisors should make a statement, approve a resolution and write an official letter to the DEQ demanding that they reject Dominion’s solid waste permit or at least postpone their decision. The deadline to do this is March 10. That’s when DEQ’s public comment period regarding the permit ends.

Recent monitoring continues to show harmful metals in the groundwater. Dan Marrow, who lives near the plant, sent a sample of his drinking well water to a Virginia Tech Lab. Virginia Tech’s advice was to stop drinking the water immediately and move. Dominion did offer to connect the plant’s neighbors to county water lines, but many see this only as an admission of guilt about Dominion’s impact on the environment. The offer is too little and too late. Kids are sick, property values have plummeted, lives have been ruined.

The permit would allow Dominion to take all the ash out of smaller ponds and place it in one large pond with a clay liner at the bottom, and then cap it under several layers of plastic, soil and vegetation, basically just covering up the problem. Experts argue that the pond’s clay liner fails to meet EPA standards and provides less protection than the landfills where our trash is sent. The best solution is the excavation and removal of all of the site’s toxic coal ash to a dry, safe, fully lined modern landfill away from creeks, rivers, homes and drinking water supplies. Coal ash can also be used to make concrete. More than 75 million tons of coal ash have been cleaned up in this fashion and recycled in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Stafford needs to join our northern neighbor and oppose the Solid Waste Permit. Virginia’s DEQ should mandate that Dominion not to just cover up their problem with a cap, but to dig it all up, all the poisonous coal ash, and recycle it or place it in an actual safe landfill. Dominion needs to clean up the pollution, totally and entirely! Thank You.”