The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to build a new dry storage landfill for the future handling and storage of coal ash byproducts at the 2,522-MW Cumberland power plant in Stewart County, Tenn.
As part of the plan, the federal utility will build a bottom ash dewatering facility and new process water basins to handle future coal combustion residuals, or CCRs, product disposal at the coal-fired plant, according to a June 7 news release.
The project involves removing CCR from of a portion of the main ash impoundment and temporarily staging it within the footprint of the existing impoundment, while the utility further considers permanent disposal options for the material. The dry storage landfill will be built on authority-owned, or TVA-owned, property that will eliminate the need for transport of the residual on public roadways.
The utility on May 31 released a record of decision to move forward with the project, which was identified as a preferred option for CCR management operations at the Cumberland plant in the final environmental impact statement released on April 20.
The preferred option called for the construction and operation of a bottom ash dewatering facility, closure-in-place of the bottom ash impoundment and a combination of closure-in-place and closure-by-removal of the main ash impoundment and construction of an onsite landfill for future CCR produced at the facility.
"This decision achieves part of the project purpose and need of converting the wet storage of CCR to a dry system and promoting the future management of dry CCR at [Cumberland] by converting to dry bottom ash handling and providing additional long-term disposal for dry CCR materials produced at [Cumberland]," TVA said.
TVA said it will consider the proposed in-place closure of the bottom ash impoundment and a portion of the main ash impoundment before making a decision on closure of these facilities. In addition, the utility plans to further consider the location for permanent disposal of the ash excavated from the main ash impoundment.
The project is part of TVA's commitment to move from wet to dry storage of coal ash and other CCRs at all its coal-fired plants. In August 2016, the utility decided to permanently store coal ash in place at 10 of its coal-fired power plants instead of digging the ash up and moving it elsewhere. Eliminating wet storage at its coal plants will help TVA comply with the U.S. EPA's rule on CCRs, which set requirements for coal ash sites at active power plants. The impetus for the EPA rule was a major coal ash spill at the TVA's Kingston plant in 2008.
