Awful coal ash story devastating an ordinary homeowner.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lisa Evans levans@earthjustice.org Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:19 AM Subject: "Beneficial" Reuse of Ash in FL: A rural road-paving project becomes an environmental disaster for JEA To: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE@lists.sierraclub.org
http://www.folioweekly.com/folio0320wkl008.php
Road Trip A rural road-paving project becomes an environmental disaster for JEA – with a potentially hefty price tag
Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida Written by Susan Cooper Eastman Published March 20, 2012
When Steven Johnson accepted 16 tons of free coal ash from JEA’s coal-powered Northside Generating Station more than two years ago, the agency assured him it was as “safe as sand.” So Johnson spread the pebbly white material liberally over the dirt roads of his 30-acre Black Water Farm in Middleburg. He paved a road through wetlands, a boat ramp into Black Creek, an area near his drinking water well and roads on his neighbor’s property. He says one JEA representative was so impressed with how he applied the material, which JEA markets as EZBase, that he brought prospective clients out to Black Water Ranch to show them how Johnson was using it.
But even as Johnson was spreading the stuff around his home, the federal government was considering whether to classify coal ash as a hazardous waste. Although the state of Florida has approved EZBase for a number of road-paving uses, that approval was based on strict compacting standards and application guidelines that are, in practice, not always followed. Loosely applied, the stuff leaches many of the same pollutants that make coal ash toxic, and that have prompted the state to require it be disposed of in a lined landfill.
Folio Weekly previously reported about Johnson in the April 13, 2010 story “Road to Hell,” after he and a neighbor were cited by the state Department of Environmental Protection for applying the material in violation of state restrictions. The citation said the EZBase wasn’t properly compacted, meaning it could wash away and contaminate the surrounding area, and was improperly used near wetlands and in residential areas. Johnson insists that the JEA employee who offered him the EZBase rode all over his land with him and didn’t tell him anything about the restrictions. Still, DEP cited Johnson for the violation, and said the material needed to be excavated and removed. (At the time, Johnson wouldn’t talk to the media because he was working out a settlement with DEP and JEA.)
Two years later, Johnson’s property is still covered with EZBase. JEA already removed the material from Johnson’s neighbor’s property, but the agency has not yet agreed to remove the material from Johnson’s property or responded to his request that JEA compensate him for the loss of value to his property and attorney fees.
A 2010 report that Johnson commissioned from Moran Environmental Recovery that he provided last week to Folio Weekly estimated the cost of removing the 12 tons of EZBase and another four tons of contaminated soil at $653,640. Replacing the soil with clean fill would bring the total cost close to $1 million. Beyond fixed costs, there are intangible ones. A 2010 real estate appraisal from Broom, Moody, Johnson and Grainger Inc. estimated that Johnson’s property was worth $470,000 before he covered it with EZBase, but that it will drop $70,000 in value — even after the EZBase is removed — because of the stigma of contamination. In its current state, the company valued the property as a liability — at a negative –$486,300.
“I’m a little guy,” he says. “I ain’t no millionaire like JEA.”
Johnson now feels like JEA used his farm as a toxic dump. He worries about allowing his 3-year-old daughter Kelsey to play outside. He fears she’ll ingest poisons, breathe in the EZBase dust or absorb it through her skin. Preliminary tests he had done of the property in 2010 show reason for concern. The arsenic levels in the soil samples were four times the level the state considers safe and the levels of vanadium were 75 times the state standard.
“JEA is the ones with the knowledge and the science about how to use this stuff,” he said. “I put it out here thinking I was going to improve my property. After I did my homework on it, I began to see that it’s not good, it’s not good at all.”
JEA first began selling EZBase as a paving material in 2005, for $50 a truckload. Like other coal-powered electric generating stations, JEA facilities produce a sludge waste that’s a combination of fly ash and bottom ash from their silos. The ash contains heavy metals like lead, mercury, vanadium and boron, which in high concentrations can cause birth defects, lung disease, cancers, nerve disorders and other illnesses. But when the sludge hardens, it becomes like concrete. If properly compacted, JEA testing shows, the toxins are contained in the hardened material.
JEA has promoted EZBase as a means of recycling, and has the strong support of the state DEP, which considers the paving material a beneficial reuse of an otherwise hazardous waste. DEP issued permits for each EZBase application.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency also supports reuse, but admitted late last year that there hasn’t been enough testing done to determine the safety of coal ash byproducts. Some utilities recycle their ash into drywall or roofing shingles, bowling balls and even cosmetics. Prompted in part by the catastrophic collapse of a coal pond in Tennessee in 2008, which sent a billion gallons of coal ash sludge into Emory River, EPA has been considering for the past two years whether to classify coal ash as a hazardous waste and require that concentrations of heavy metals in it be reduced before it is dumped. (In January, the legal nonprofit Earthjustice announced it would sue EPA for delaying its decision.)
For JEA, the questions surrounding the safety of EZBase have proved costly. DEP has required the utility to remove it or cover it with a top coat at a number of locations in Northeast Florida. JEA spokesperson Gerry Boyce said there is no estimate yet of what it will cost to clear out Johnson’s EZBase, but the agency began removing the four tons of EZBase that Steven Johnson spread on neighbor James Evans’ property in December 2011. The removal cost about $20,000, and raised additional contamination concerns. Neighbors complained that the resulting dust covered everything and that trucks were leaving the property uncovered.
“There were probably 20 dump trucks in and out of here every day,” says neighbor Bonnie Smith, who lives down the street from Evans and says she had two attacks of bronchitis during the process. “A white dust covered everything. There was a film on my swimming pool, every day.” If EPA does designate coal ash a hazardous waste, utilities say the increased costs of transporting and handling the material would make recycling cost-prohibitive. They’ve lobbied heavily for states to retain regulatory control over its disposal and reuse. In October, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that gives the states’ control over permitting and regulating products like EZBase and prevents the federal government from regulating disposal. The companion bill is in committee in the Senate. But even if EPA takes control of coal ash regulation, it will be too late to make much difference at Johnson’s Black Water Ranch.
“I have an absolutely beautiful place here,” Johnson tells Folio Weekly. “It’s like a piece of heaven. It’s not some dump where it’s OK for JEA to bring their EZBase in here and poison it up.”
Susan Cooper Eastman sceastman@folioweekly.com
Lisa Evans Senior Administrative Counsel Earthjustice 21 Ocean Ave. Marblehead, MA 01945 T: (781) 631-4119 F: (212) 918-1556 www.earthjustice.org
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