Earthjustice files suit against Gulf Power for polluting the Apalachicola River

The group Earthjustice has filed a federal lawsuit to stop toxic water pollution that is leaking into the Apalachicola River from an aging 40-acre coal ash dump at Gulf Power Company’s Scholz Generating Plant near Sneads.

Earthjustice filed its Clean Water Act suit in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee on behalf of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Waterkeeper Alliance, and Apalachicola Riverkeeper.

The groups say Gulf Power is illegally discharging dangerous pollutants into the river, threatening people and the environment. 

The suit claims that Gulf Power has flushed millions of gallons of toxic coal ash sludge into 40 acres of unlined pits that sit atop a bluff along the Apalachicola River and now the waste is leaking out of the pits and into the river, contaminating the water with pollutants including arsenic, cadmium, and chromium – as well as aluminum, barium, beryllium, copper, lead, nickel, zinc, selenium, and the neurotoxin mercury.

One test, in June 2013, found that arsenic levels coming out of the unlined pits were 300 times the amount of arsenic considered safe for drinking water.

Gulf Power has a federal Clean Water Act permit, which allows it to discharge treated coal ash water and chlorinated condensing water directly into the Apalachicola through an outfall.

But the groups say that contamination is leaking at other points on the site and not receiving proper treatment -- and those discharges  are not covered by the permit.

The toxic heavy metal leaks – and the company’s decision not to report them – violate Gulf Power’s federal permit requirements under the Clean Water Act.

Waterkeeper Alliance attorney Pete Harrison said the plant was built in 1953, and it is a dinosaur that is illegally polluting one of the most incredible rivers in the Southeast.

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