The Department of Environmental Protection published notice in the September 8 PA Bulletin it has received an application for major modifications to the closure plan for the Hatfield Ferry Power Station Coal Combustion Byproducts Landfill in Monongahela Township, Greene County (Permit ID No. 300370). (PA Bulletin page 5625)

The application was submitted pursuant to a September 2017 Earthjustice and the Sierra Club filed a legal settlement with the Environmental Hearing Board over allegations DEP's permits were not protective enough and that the bond covering the cleanup of the site was not adequate.

The legal settlement provides for more protective measures at the landfill.  FirstEnergy agreed to apply for new state permits regarding remedies to contain pollution on site, as well as posting an adequate bond to cover pollution cleanup.

The settlement also contained an “Active Surface Improvement Plan” outlining steps for addressing environmental concerns at the landfill.

Click Here for a copy of the 2017 settlement.

The application would remove the provision in the currently approved Closure Plan allowing for deferral of placement of the cap and final cover system until completion of filling operations, and would commit FirstEnergy to placing the cap and final cover in an ongoing manner as site development proceeds.

The application also requests approval to utilize a completely synthetic final cover system (i.e. ClosureTurf) in lieu of the membrane/soil system as currently approved.

DEP has determined the application is administratively complete, but has not yet started its technical review.

Background

            The landfill site was originally established to take CCB waste from the Hatfield Ferry Power Station in 1984 and has gone through several repermitting cycles since then.  In 2009 the landfill was expanded under a permit revision to a total of 368 acres with 110 acres of disposal area designed to hold 14.7 million cubic yards of waste.

In 2013 the Hatfield Ferry Power Station was closed, but the permit for the landfill was extended by DEP until May 22, 2025. 

In September 2015 DEP amended the landfill permit to allow for the disposal of 8 million tons per year of CCB generated by the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in Beaver County that had previously been going to the Little Blue Run Disposal Impoundment. 

The Little Blue Run Disposal Impoundment was closed in December 2016 as a result of a Federal Court Consent Decree.

About 80 percent of the combustion-related waste from the Bruce Mansfield Plant had also been going to West Virginia to reclaim mined areas near Moundsville.  Another 20 percent of the waste was going to National Gypsum to be used for raw material in its drywall manufacturing plant right across the the power plant.

Earlier this month, FirstEnergy announced the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant would be closing by June 1, 2021.

For more information, contact the DEP’s Southwest Regional Office at 412-442-4000.

[Posted: Sept. 7, 2018]

9/10/2018