Alabama Power Claimed Its Coal Ash Pit Was Sealed And Safe; Water Data Show Otherwise And They're Being Sued

GADSDEN, Ala.—The coal ash lagoon at Alabama Power’s Plant Gadsden was supposed to be a model for how to close ash ponds by covering them in place, a process utilities insisted would protect human health and the environment from toxic contaminants in the ash. Now, groundwater monitoring data and a federal lawsuit are challenging that contention.

The ash pond was the first in Alabama to be closed with a cover-in-place system in 2018, after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 coal ash rules, and Alabama Power planned to use the same basic technique at the coal ash ponds for five other power plants across the state.

But today, seven years after the Gadsden pond closure was completed, environmental groups say the facility is still leaking toxic substances into groundwater on the banks of the Coosa River and Neely Henry Lake, a popular boating and bass fishing destination in east Alabama.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of environmental group Coosa Riverkeeper, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Alabama Power, challenging what it called “unlawful and defective capping” of the coal ash pond at Plant Gadsden. The groups say that as recently as October 2024, Alabama Power’s self-reported groundwater monitoring results show “levels of arsenic forty times the legal standard in groundwater,” as well as potentially harmful levels of boron, chromium and cobalt.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29072025/alabama-coal-ash-groundwater-pollution-lawsuit/