Overturn decision on ash, club asks

The Arkansas chapter of the Sierra Club on Sept. 17 asked a state panel to overturn a decision by state environmental regulators allowing a coal-burning power plant in Benton County to continue wastewater discharges of a type of coal ash for three more years.

In a request for Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission’s review, the Sierra Club said the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality did not meet federal environmental regulations concerning the discharge of bottom ash wastewater, one of the byproducts of burning coal to generate electricity.

The commission sets environmental policy, which the division enforces.

Under a 2016 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule, the Sierra Club explained, power plants operating with wastewater permits issued after Jan. 4, 2016, must eliminate bottom ash discharges “as soon as possible” beginning Nov. 1 and no later than Dec. 31, 2023.

The final permit Arkansas environmental regulators issued to the Flint Creek power plant Aug. 18 allows the facility to continue bottom ash discharges until the last possible date.

The Flint Creek plant near Gentry is operated by the Southwestern Electric Power Co., or SWEPCO, a subsidiary of American Electric Power.

Additionally, in its request for the commission’s review, the Sierra Club said SWEPCO’s permit application failed to include any evaluation of the timing or costs related to achieving compliance with the bottom ash discharge rule.

“Sierra Club’s appeal is simple: we want SWEPCO to follow the law, and we want the state of Arkansas to require them to do so,” Glen Hooks, the Sierra Club chapter director, said in a statement released Wednesday. “There is no doubt the toxic wastewater continuously released by the Flint Creek coal plant is dangerous to our environment and public health.”