State dam inspectors today proclaimed a 40-acre coal ash basin near Holtwood Dam safe and in no danger of collapse.

The state Department of Environmental Protection had promised to immediately reinspect all five of Pennsylvania's coal slurry basins with "high-hazard" dams, including PPL's closed Holtwood ash basin, following the Dec. 22 collapse of a coal ash impoundment in Tennessee.

In the Tennessee collapse, some 1.1 billion gallons of escaped ash and water sludge damaged at least a dozen homes and a slurry with cancer-causing heavy metals flowed into a river, causing a drinking-water scare.

At Holtwood, DEP Division of Dam Safety inspectors "found minor maintenance issues but no problems of an emergency nature at all," DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun said this morning.

The other four Pennsylvania coal slurry basins with high-hazard dams, all outside Lancaster County, have been or will be re-inspected by month's end, DEP said.

The report on the Holtwood inspection recommends increased mowing to keep trees from piercing the earthen cap on the ash basin. Another recommendation is for PPL to establish thicker vegetation along an area of the dikes to combat minor erosion.

Earlier this month, DEP had inspected an active coal ash basin with dikes 39 feet high located along the Susquehanna at PPL's Brunner Island coal-fired plant in York County. No safety concerns were found.

The Holtwood and Brunner Island coal ash basins were among 10 ash pits with dams inspected this month by DEP engineers and inspectors with the Division of Dam Safety.

Coal ash, the dry leftover material from burning coal in large power plants, has long been placed in earthen basins, mostly unlined, near the power plants. Often water is added to prevent the material from flying away as dust and to get it to settle.

The Tennessee accident has prompted new calls for federal regulations on such ash basins.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying coal ash is a risk to human health, said eight years ago it wanted to set a national standard for disposal of coal wastes, but has yet to act.

The agency ruled in 1988 and again in 1993 that coal ash should not be regulated as a hazardous waste.

PPL's ash basin that was inspected today held ash deposits from the coal unit at the Holtwood Dam from 1980 to 1999, when PPL retired the coal unit. Ash was buried to a depth of about 50 feet.

The basin, bordered by Old Pinnacle and New Village roads in Martic Township, was capped by PPL and is now a public park popular with birdwatchers and strollers.

Since it has dikes that follow a small stream up to 45 feet high, it is classified as a "high-hazard" dam by DEP, meaning its collapse could endanger property or lives.

An older ash basin, also unlined, on the west side of Old Pinnacle Road and also a park, is 32 acres and operated from 1954 to 1980, according to PPL records.

Brunner Island has had at least six ash basins since it began operations in 1961. Retired ones have become soccer fields for a neighboring municipality and the location of new pollution-catching equipment being built at the plant.

The current ash basin now is used only for non-ash plant-waste products. Coal ash is now recycled and sold for use in the concrete-manufacturing process, according to George C. Lewis, PPL spokesman.

DEP requires ash basins with dam permits to be inspected yearly by owners and the agency. Since Sept. 11, 2001, they have come under more scrutiny, notes Rathbun.

Before the Tennessee incident, the most high-profile ash basin accident in the nation occurred in 2005, when a defective drain at a lined coal ash basin at PPL's Martins Creek coal plant near Easton spilled some 100 million gallons of ash and water, much of it entering the Delaware River.

PPL had to vacuum up toxins from the river at a cost of $37 million. DEP later fined PPL $1.5 million.

In January 2007, PPL was ordered to stop using coal bottom ash as a sealant when working on the Holtwood Dam. The material was being flushed into the river. DEP fined PPL $85,000.

Though there are no federal guidelines, DEP says it aggressively inspects and monitors the state's active and closed coal ash basins.

"Not every state has a dam safety program like ours," says DEP's Rathbun.


Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.