Southern Co. looks to recycle coal ash in roads – Atlanta Business Chronicle

Southern Co. officials say they’ve found a safe and profitable way to dispose of ash generated by coal-burning power plants.

But before the Atlanta-based parent of Georgia Power Co. can take its plan to recycle coal ash as highway building material beyond the pilot phase, Southern must convince the Environmental Protection Agency not to regulate it as hazardous.

“Southern Co. initiated its highway construction project well before EPA’s … rulemaking,” the utility wrote Aug. 30 in response to an EPA request for comment on the agency’s proposed rule on coal ash. “However, since then, we have declined projects that, in our judgment, are appropriate from a technical standpoint, because we are concerned about how EPA will regulate the material in the future.

“The threats to this market naturally have depressed investments … In other words, the stigma … is real.”

The EPA began moving to regulate coal ash from power plants after a 2008 spill dumped more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into two rivers west of Knoxville, Tenn., polluting more than 300 acres in a rural community with sludge deposits up to 6 feet deep. A federal court held the Tennessee Valley Authority responsible in a ruling handed down last year.

Southern Co. launched its coal ash pilot project just weeks before the December 2008 spill in Tennessee, spreading about 31,000 tons of ash from Georgia Power’s Plant Yates on a stretch of roadway under construction near Rome, Ga.

via Southern Co. looks to recycle coal ash in roads – Atlanta Business Chronicle.