NRG, which owns Midwest Generation and the Waukegan Generating Station, held its first public meetings this week to discuss plans to close two coal ash ponds in Waukegan, a community that is dealing with generations of industrial waste.
Company representatives announced NRG plans to remove all coal ash from one of the ponds while implementing “cap-in-place” at the other, meaning workers will drain the water from the pond, fill in the lined pit around the remaining coal ash and cap it with artificial materials to prevent runoff and erosion.
The Waukegan Generating Station coal-fired plant can be seen from North Beach in Waukegan on Nov. 30, 2021. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
At the meetings, held Wednesday and Thursday, NRG presented its plan for the closure, which is available online. It had already been submitted in draft form for review and is also available on their website.
The meetings and disclosure are required as part of Illinois’ coal ash rules, which impose restrictions on how coal ash surface impoundments can be closed. The company is required to hold two public meetings to explain its closure plans, answer questions and hear comments.
Based on the comments and questions posed to the panel of NRG and Midwest Generation executives and consultants, many participants were concerned about the cap-in-place method, which would keep the coal ash contained beneath the ground rather than removing it.
NRG concluded that removal was not the best option for one of the ponds because, the panelists said, it was not polluting nearby groundwater and removal would create heavy traffic in the community, since they had ruled out use of railroads and barges due to permitting concerns.
In June 2019, the Illinois Pollution Control Board ruled that the facility violated environmental regulations and was responsible for groundwater contamination in Waukegan and elsewhere. When asked about the ruling, the NRG panel said the case is ongoing.
“That matter is still under litigation,” said Sharene Shealy, environmental director at NRG. “We can’t go into a lot of detail about it. But that finding came after almost 10 years of hearings and legal things. ... The board will hold hearings to determine if there’s any additional work or work to be required.”
While the board ruled that the facility is responsible for contamination, it did not specify if the formal ash ponds, the nearby historical ash fill or both are the source. That may be why NRG representatives said they don’t believe the ponds are a source of contamination.
Dulce Ortiz, co-chair of Clean Power Lake County and a member of the Waukegan community, asked multiple questions, then said most of the company’s answers were unsatisfying.
Dulce Ortiz, co-chair of Clean Power Lake County and a lifelong Waukegan resident, on North Beach with the Waukegan Generating Station coal-fired plant in the distance on Dec. 1, 2021. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
“When I started doing this work, you know, I was very naive, and really felt like, ‘let’s talk to them. Maybe if we tell them our story, they’ll have a heart and they’ll hear,’ ” Ortiz said. “But after almost a decade of doing this work, I mean, you’re not really surprised ... because there’s no accountability. They don’t feel responsible to the community.”
Ortiz asked the NRG representatives if they had a plan to incorporate community feedback and if their plan was already finalized.
“We did not walk into this meeting with a plan to do anything with feedback because we hadn’t received it yet,” Shealy said. “Now that we are receiving it or we’re in the process of receiving it, we will formulate a plan to respond.”
Other spokespeople had similar responses, saying they came to the meeting to listen and would respond to feedback accordingly.
The idea that transportation ruled out full removal of the coal ash in both ponds was questioned by multiple community members who pointed out that fly ash, a similar type of coal combustion residual, is already regularly shipped from the facility.
“We prefer not to haul ash through the streets of the community. ... We have a system by capping in place that, at the end, has the same effect of assuring that it’s environmentally safe or just as good as taking the ash out of the pond,” said Paulo Rocha, plant manager for the generating station.
The Waukegan Generating Station in Waukegan, owned by NRG Energy, is ringed by ash ponds on May 12, 2021. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
NRG presented modeling data that showed how it believed contaminants would spread if the ponds did leak. It modeled how far and to what degree the contaminants would spread if the company capped one or both of the ponds in five years versus 25 years. The pictures for every scenario presented showed a large decrease in span and concentration of the contamination and looked largely the same for cap-in-place and removal.
It is not clear what data NRG used to produce the models. Ortiz said she is still not confident in the modeling data because even if the system holds for 25 years, what happens after 100 or 200 years?
“Can we trust (NRG), and then if something catastrophic happens, who’s gonna pay for it at the end of the day?” Ortiz said. “They’re also making a decision of the site for community members like, you’re not going to be able to do anything with this site. We’re just going to store ash here.”
Faith Bugel, a senior attorney at Environmental Law & Policy Center who has been involved with the action against NRG since the start in 2012, said she doesn’t think the community wants the land to forever be covered in fake turf and blocked from use.
“They put a fence around it, and they call it ‘passive open space,’ which basically is like a big garbage pile that nobody can touch. This site is of value to the community,” Bugel said. “I think we have to listen to what the community wants.”
sygoodman@chicagotribune.com
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