Dominion wants to clear the air on coal ash

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RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - Dominion Virginia Power officials say there are a lot of misconceptions about coal ash and they want to set the record straight.

Angry protestors have been in the news for months, voicing their concerns how power companies are disposing of their coal ash. Dominion Power opened up on Tuesday about how it's tackling federal mandates as it converts its coal operations to that of natural gas. It says to make that conversion it has to close 11 coal ash ponds at four different power stations.

"Our objective is, in fact, to get these ponds closed as soon as we can within that three-year time frame," says David Craymer, Dominion Vice President of Power Generation. The process will cost nearly half a billion dollars. The company says some of that cost will be passed onto Dominion customers.

The company walked reporters through a step-by-step process which will clean the water, stripping it of metals, before it will be discharged into the nearby James River. Dominion says ash will not be going into the river, but many protestors want to know why the company has to discharge anything into the river.

"If we were to excavate that ash, which is a number of years of ash -- all these plants have been in operation some of them since 1930s -- then we would have to truck all of that approximately 1.6 million truck loads and that ends up being an additional $3 billion," explained Dominion Environmental Services Manager Jason Williams. Even then, the company would still have to deal with the wastewater.

Dominion says with this process ash will not be going into the river, instead treated water under greater standards will.

"The permit itself is protective. It is established to protect the river, but our treatment system is established to treat further that what those requirements are," says Williams.

Dominion says it's working toward an April 2018 closure date for all its coal ash ponds. In the meantime, a treatment center at the Bremo power station in Fluvanna County is set to be completed next month and begin discharge into the James River.