Coal ash: 'Why in the world would we be importing it?'

RICHMOND, Va. -- Shipping containers full of coal ash from China, Poland and India have come into the U.S. through the Port of Virginia as foreign companies find a market for the same industrial waste America's utilities are struggling to dispose of.

Critics call it a missed opportunity. Coal ash is treasure as well as trash, useful for projects from roads to concrete to wallboard. They want Virginia to mandate more recycling of the ash that's already here, threatening to contaminate water sources or create an environmental disaster.

"We have millions of tons of this sitting along our riverbanks," said Travis Blankenship, former government-affairs manager for the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. "Why in the world would we be importing it from other states and countries?"

The nation's shift away from coal for electricity has reduced the supply of fresh coal ash, forcing industries that depend on it to look farther afield. Some turn to companies that have figured out how to reprocess ash discarded years ago in pits and ponds. Others look overseas.

The Port of Virginia handled just one shipping container of coal ash in 2015, from India. Last year, there were about 22, from China and Poland. It all went on to Ohio and Wisconsin, according to a port spokesman who didn't know the final destinations.

Meanwhile, more ash has been trucked in from other states for concrete production in Virginia.

Coal ash is an umbrella term. It includes bottom ash, which settles in boilers; fly ash, a powdery material captured in exhaust stacks; and synthetic gypsum, a byproduct of smokestack "scrubbing."

These materials can be had for several dollars a ton if trucked directly from a utility to a factory or job site. They're more expensive to obtain in a useful form after decades underground or underwater. That makes foreign imports economically viable.

Nationally, there are more than 1,100 coal-ash dumps, many unlined. In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency classified coal ash as nonhazardous, partly to avoid a "stigma" that might discourage proper containment and recycling, the agency said.

The EPA stressed this waste, with heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, must be managed properly to avoid risks to human health.

"We have two children who have been poisoned by this," Dan Marrow, who lives near a coal-ash pond in northern Virginia, told lawmakers last month.

Marrow is convinced a power-station pond tainted his well and caused his daughters' health problems. Dominion Virginia Power recently agreed to hook residents up to public water lines. Marrow said that's an admission of guilt; Dominion said it's being a good neighbor.

Dominion is closing 11 ponds containing about 29 million cubic yards of ash at four Virginia power stations to comply with EPA rules.

It's been proceeding largely by treating and releasing the water, consolidating some ponds and capping the remaining dry material.

The company insists its process is safe, despite adverse rulings such as a judge's finding Thursday that Dominion allowed arsenic to flow from its pit in Chesapeake, polluting nearby groundwater.

The judge also said that spill posed no immediate threat.

Meanwhile, the ash has real value, and technology to reprocess it already is being used.

"We can ... take the material that would be an environmental liability and transform it into something that has a beneficial use," said Jimmy Knowles of The SEFA Group, which partners with utilities in South Carolina and Maryland to recycle old and new ash.