The James River at Bremo Bluff
by James A. Bacon
Dominion Virginia Power has reached a settlement with the James River Association regarding the discharge of treated coal-ash wastewater into the James River, and the river-keeper group, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, has agreed not to appeal Dominion’s wastewater permit approved last month.
For the most part, the agreement formalizes measures and standards that Dominion was planning all along to implement, says spokesman Dan Genest, although it does add one additional measure of protection for aquatic life — the tissue sampling of fish in the river — and it specifies clean-water standards the company was planning to meet anyway.
The deal follows a similar agreement announced yesterday between Dominion and Prince William County for the discharge of wastewater from the power company’s Possum Point Plant. As part of that deal, the county withdrew its appeal of the Bremo wastewater permit.
Environmental groups had expressed concern that the levels specified in the permit for arsenic, selenium and other heavy metals were too lax. Throughout the controversy, Dominion maintained that its plan for treating the wastewater would keep concentrations of potentially toxic heavy metals, measured in parts per billion, way below levels that would pose a threat to aquatic life.
“We thank Dominion for engaging with us in a cooperative manner to address our concerns about the dewatering of Dominion’s coal ash ponds at the Bremo Power Station,” said Bill Street, James River Association chief executive officer in the press release. “Through our agreement today, Dominion will install enhanced treatment for the wastewater that is designed to better protect all uses of the James River.”
“Dominion will always be committed to keeping the James River safe for fishing, boating, swimming and all the activities we Virginians love to do,” stated Pam Faggert, chief environmental officer for the company. “The James River Association has helped us create a plan that reflects the commitment of both our organization to maintain the quality of the James River.”
The differences between Dominion and the environmentalists were never as great as it appeared from the marches, protests and sit-ins that resulted in numerous arrests of numerous students and marchers in Richmond. Those groups had engaged in inflammatory rhetoric, accusing Dominion of planning to dump toxic wastewater into Virginia waters and demanding that the company treat the waste to levels that would make it safe for human consumption.
Mainstream environmental groups had focused on a much narrower set of issues regarding the size of the so-called “mixing zone” where the wastewater would be diluted to levels safe for aquatic life. As it turned out, many of the water-treatment measures Dominion was planning on implementing were spelled out in a Concept Engineering Report attached to the permit.
In the case of the Bremo plant, while the permit allowed the release of 10.2 million gallons per day into the James River, Dominion’s treatment plant is designed for only 2.2 million gallons per day. “In reality, we’ll be discharging one-fifth the number of gallons,” says Jason Williams, a Dominion environmental engineer. Effectively, that means the company will be releasing into the river only a fraction of the heavy metals contemplated by the permit.
Also, Dominion intended all along to install a piece of equipment capable of removing the heavy metals from the wastewater, said Genest. “Our intention was to use it only when necessary to meet the permit limits.” The agreement with the James River Association spells out precisely when the company fires up that equipment.
Even before the settlement, Cathy Taylor, Dominion’s director-environmental electric services, had described the Bremo permit issued by Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality as “the most stringent permit I have ever seen in 25 years of working in the field.”
According to Genest the permits exceed EPA standards by requiring:
- More frequent and elaborate testing of water quality.
- More stringent requirements on how water samples are taken.
- More frequent reporting of testing results to DEQ.
- Stricter limits on constituents.
- Limits on constituents the EPA normally does not call for.
- DEQ approval of Dominion’s treatment technology.
- Dominion to halt discharges if it exceeds the limits on any single constituent.
- A smaller mixing zone than under the EPA rules.
In its Possum Point appeal, SELC argued that the permit must set effluent limits sufficient to both “restore” and “maintain” the quality of the affected water body. That means no degradation of the ambient water quality. But Dominion’s permits could prove detrimental to life in a contained area known as the “mixing zone” where the discharge water mixes with river water to dilute concentrations of heavy metals to safer levels. Dominion, argued the SELC, is legally obligated to use the best available technology to prevent any back-sliding in water quality, and it could install that technology at modest additional cost.
(Dominion is a sponsor of Bacon’s Rebellion.)
