Georgia Power Denies "Naturally Occuring" Hexavalent Chromium Has Anything To W. Coal Ash
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Had those five energy regulators swiveling in their chairs asked more pointed questions about Georgia Power’s waste-disposal practices, Berry would have been pressured to tell a long-hidden story about ash and avarice. In the second half of the 20th century, Georgia Power had saved money by building some of America’s largest coal-ash ponds without a protective liner underneath, despite knowing some of the risks of contaminating residents’ drinking water. It had also sought to do as little as possible to protect drinking water that’s now believed to be tainted by coal-ash toxins.
Starting in 2016, the Altamaha Riverkeeper began testing private wells for contaminants commonly found in coal ash, including hexavalent chromium, a trace metal associated with an increased risk of cancer. That same year, Georgia Power went on a buying spree, acquiring properties near the plant and sealing those wells. The company denies that coal ash has sickened its neighbors, adding that hexavalent chromium is “naturally occurring.”
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A yearlong investigation by Georgia Health News and ProPublica has revealed that Georgia Power and its parent company have spent millions of dollars on lobbying tactics to dodge billions in environmental costs. Thousands of pages of previously unpublished documents obtained by the news organizations shed new light on how Georgia Power leveraged political tensions to reduce a massive financial liability that could decimate its bottom line — and how it pushed disinformation to distance itself from patterns of sickness among people who lived near its coal-ash ponds.
Georgia Power spokesperson John Kraft declined to answer most of the news organizations’ questions and to make Berry available for an interview. Kraft said in a statement that Georgia Power has worked to “quickly and safely begin closing all of our ash ponds” in a manner that complies with federal and state coal-ash regulations. But at the hearing in April 2019, none of the energy regulators pressed Berry on the topic of coal-ash contamination. Because they didn’t ask, Berry remained mum. His silence would make it easier for the regulators to stomach the idea of passing the cost of the cleanup on to customers — and easier for Georgia Power to avoid responsibility for the much more expensive fix. And it allowed Georgia Power to continue its longstanding efforts to cover up the hazards of coal ash across the state, most notably in a tiny town where the company operates the largest coal-fired plant in the Western Hemisphere.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/coal-ash-georgia-power
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