Post article on Dominion's plan to dump coal ash in the Potomac

[Dalton Terrell]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/battle-over-dominion-coal-ash-ponds-heads-to-state-water-board-this-week/2016/01/10/c006b91e-b48e-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html

I posted about the December hearing related to this permit, and Nick from the board of the Potomac Riverkeeper suggested the voices of anglers and environmentalists were heard. As I understand, some progress was made to potentially help mitigate the impact, but the plan to dump this water into the Nation's River has not been stopped yet. I applaud our local politicians and groups like the Potomac Riverkeeper that are standing up to this.

Dalton

[arthur noglak]

Umm clearly we need to have the whole club show up at the white house in waders and full fly fishing regalia to protest the dumping.

[namfos]

State of Maryland is getting in on the action: http://1.usa.gov/1RKiqAT

Mark

[Dalton Terrell]

Unfortunately, according to this article, Dominion has admitted to already dumping 33.7 million gallons of toxic water from these ponds despite previous denials from DEQ and Dominion.

I can't claim to know the solution to this issue, but I certainly don't want these coal ash ponds dumped into the water I drink or fish.

Dalton

[namfos]

Well, has anyone asked for and then published some sort of toxicology or chemical profile of the contaminated water? That was released (and will be released)? The dose makes the poison.

The answer, given current energy trrends, is natural gas. 

Mark

[Dalton Terrell]

Mark,

I'm not certain the ponds have been sufficiently tested or that this information is public but I supposed the permits have listed levels of concentrations of the toxic chemicals. Check page 3 of this letter from MD DNR for a summary on the toxicology of these of these concentrations from a Wake Forest University scientist: http://potomaclocal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Maryland_DNRComments_VA0002071_PossumPoint_Jan11_2016.pdf

Some highlights (or lowlights) are:
- levels of copper that can kill 20-50% of aquatic organisms
- levels of selenium that are 5 times the concentration that the EPA says are acceptable and 5 times a rate that have shown deformities in Bluegill

Doesn't sound good to me.

Dalton

[namfos]

Thanks for the link. If memory serves (been 14 years since I worked for the plastics and chemicals industries), levels set by EPA are often (if not usually) 3 orders of magnitude greater than what tox testing shows as lethal dose - that's how much of a margin there is. So if 1 ppm is acutely toxic, the regulators will set 1 ppb as the standard. Forgive me if I've misremembered any of this, it was a big part of my workadays for about 12 years.

Mark