This summary is part of a collaborative journalism project between Boulder Reporting Lab and the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. Read the full story, Hidden hazard: Boulder’s million-ton coal ash problem has no local watchdog. And read, Valmont power plant history: A century of fueling Boulder’s growth and environmental challenges.
Boulder Reporting Lab, in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Journalism and led by six graduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder, delved deep into the environmental impact of coal ash located underground in an unlined landfill just east of Boulder city limits. The coal ash is a remnant of more than 90 years of coal burning for electricity at the Valmont Power Station.
Over decades, the powdery residue from burned coal was removed from smokestacks and boilers and deposited into nearby landfills and storage ponds on the power station’s premises. In 2018, Xcel removed all coal ash from its ash storage ponds, relocating it to a dry landfill that sits adjacent to three reservoirs, before following federal rules for closing the ponds.
Spanning nearly 15 acres between Valmont Butte and Leggett Reservoir, the landfill contains coal ash that is in direct contact with groundwater, according to Xcel’s public documents. Comprising minerals like quartz and clay, along with toxic heavy metals, this ash falls under the regulatory oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA established guidelines in 2015 for the first time for the storage and monitoring of waste at coal ash dumps nationwide, including Valmont. Xcel has been testing groundwater at Valmont since 2017, as mandated by the EPA, and is required to make the data public.
Although Xcel has reported unsafe levels of groundwater contaminants for six consecutive years, this information has barely registered in Boulder and among local elected officials. The company intends to remove the ash eventually and is currently developing the details for treating and removing the contaminated water. However, the cleanup plan for the site has not been implemented yet.
In the meantime, here are some key findings from our investigation:
- Groundwater is contaminated. The Valmont site has been leaking contaminants into groundwater at levels the EPA considers unsafe for human health since at least 2017. In 2018, as part of its required reporting under the EPA rule, Xcel detected “statistically significant levels” of cobalt, molybdenum, arsenic, lithium and selenium in the groundwater at the site. Prolonged exposure to high levels of these heavy metal contaminants can lead to liver and kidney damage, intestinal problems, anemia and skin disorders.
- Deadlines for action are vague. Because Xcel found concerning levels of contamination year after year, the company was required under the EPA rule to address contamination “as soon as feasible.” Xcel has yet to implement its plan to do so.
- Contamination is moving offsite. Contamination appears to have traveled toward a residential area that sits to the north and east of the plant, according to Xcel’s public reports. It remains unclear how far some of these contaminants have traveled because monitoring wells currently stop just beyond Xcel’s property boundary. Xcel tested 10 nearby residential wells in 2022 and found that lithium, a heavy metal, exceeded safe levels in at least one. Xcel has not made public the precise locations of these wells, and the company denied our requests for this information.
- An unregulated landfill may be leaking. Another landfill at Valmont might be leaking too, according to Xcel’s maps modeling groundwater contamination. But because this unregulated, and inactive, landfill was closed before the EPA passed regulations in 2015, it is not subject to EPA regulations, and is thus not being monitored for contamination. Under a new rule proposed in May 2023 this will change, however.
- Some data required to be public is not accessible. Though Xcel has links to regulatory documents posted on its website, we found that many of the links to reports on the Valmont Plant were chronically broken during the course of our investigation. At another Xcel site, the Comanche Power Plant in Pueblo, the EPA in 2022 imposed a $925,000 civil penalty on the company, which operates in the state through its subsidiary Public Service Company of Colorado, for violating the coal ash rule. Infractions included failing to post reports on a publicly available website.
Read the full story, Hidden hazard: Boulder’s million-ton coal ash problem has no local watchdog.
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