"Federal Coal Ash Case Could Impact Cleanups Beyond Virginia"

"A federal judge in Virginia could soon decide a potentially landmark case determining whether power plants can be held accountable for contaminating surface waters with toxic chemicals that leached into the ground from coal ash pits.

U.S. District Court Judge James Gibney Jr. heard four days of testimony last month in a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club accusing Dominion Virginia Power of fouling the Elizabeth River with arsenic that seeped via ground water from coal ash pits at the company’s now-closed Chesapeake Energy Center in Chesapeake, VA.

Hydrologists, chemists and other experts for Sierra testified that contaminants from coal ash could travel from longstanding pits through ground water to nearby waterways. Dominion, though, disputes that it is the source of arsenic found in the river, asserting that Sierra did not prove that pollutants from the plant can or would reach surface waters."

Whitney Pipkin reports for the Bay Journal July 27, 2016.