The environmental law firm, Earthjustice, released a report entitled, “Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps”. Coal ash is the toxic waste left after burning coal to make electricity and is one of the largest industrial waste streams in the U.S. The report assessed 292 coal ash sites across the U.S. which they rated from worst to best.
The report revealed that Grand Haven’s former Sims Coal plant site on Harbor Island ranked as one of the worst coal ash sites in the U.S., coming in as 23rd worst. This plant burned its last coal in February 2020 and was imploded the following year but is now facing a long clean up period.
As reported in the Grand Haven Tribune, the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power said "Our concern is with the ranking of the site within this report. The report does not consider the volume of the waste in its ranking, only the level of contamination." The co-author of the Earthjustice report, Lisa Evans, said that "the volume of ash at a site is not related to the volume of pollutants that were found there."
Other Michigan sites rated in this report showed the Consumers Karn Coal plant in Bay City coming in at 87th and the Consumers Campbell place just South of the Sims plant was rated as 97th with the eight other coal ash sites in Michigan rated between 128th and 234th. See the report here.
Concurrently, a Grand Haven Town Hall: Let’s Talk About Harbor Island was held in early December to update the community. The HDR engineering firm hired by the Grand Haven City Council was there to present what sounds to be a long project. They are currently drilling boreholes for testing, expected to continue until winter 2023. The final phase is cleanup, which isn’t expected to start until sometime between 2028 and 2033. Here is a link to the presentation.
‘“Earthjustice stated in their report, “…that after 100 years of burning coal, U.S. power plants have generated approximately 5 billion tons of coal ash – enough toxic waste to reach the moon in train cars.” In addition, they state that “…we confirm the results of our 2019 report – 91 percent of U.S. coal plants are causing unsafe levels of groundwater contamination.”’ Any questions on this issue or if you would like to join the Sierra Club’s advocacy activities you can email jan.oconnell@sierraclub.org or call Jan at 616-956-6646.