Dive summary:
- Three coal-fired power plants in Maryland have agreed to pay a total of $2.2 million to clean up pollution at the landfill where they dispose of ashes.
- Brandywine, Faulkner and Westland coal-ash landfills have been polluting groundwater, nearby streams and the Patuxent River.
- Chronic leakage from the site is estimated to affect 45 residential drinking-water wells within a half-mile of the landfill.
From the article:
"It's one of the toughest remediation requirements we've seen a state impose for a coal ash site," said Jennifer Peterson, a staff attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, one of several activist groups to intervene in the federal lawsuit. The University of Maryland environmental law clinic helped represent the groups.
The state has filed a series of lawsuits against GenOn over the past three years charging that contaminants in the coal ash, including toxic arsenic and selenium, have contaminated groundwater under all three landfills, which then seeped into nearby streams. Selenium in streams has been shown to accumulate in fish and other wildlife, Peterson noted. ...
