In 2015 USEPA issued the first regulations applicable to coal ash ponds (or ‘coal combustion residual (CCR) surface impoundments’ in technical terminology). Those regulations were something called “self-implementing,” which means all the design, operation, groundwater monitoring and closure requirements were placed in the rule and had to be interpreted and followed individually by each facility and their professional engineer/geologist without any direct oversight from USEPA or Illinois EPA. CWLP began immediately complying with those rules. Various reports and studies were completed and published our website in the Fall of 2016 through the Fall of 2018 time period to meet the regulatory requirements.
Almost immediately after the regulations were adopted, both power plant operators and environmental groups recognized the shortcomings of creating this closure program without direct permitting and oversight by EPA. Consequently, legislation was passed in Congress (called the WIIN Act) to give authority for USEPA and the States to develop CCR permitting programs.
As of 2025, USEPA still has not finalized the federal permit program authorized by Congress. However, back in 2019, environmental groups and the late Senator Scott Bennett proposed legislation to establish an Illinois permit program. CWLP worked collaboratively with that process in the legislature and during the process that followed in 2020 to help develop the Pollution Control Board regulations implementing the legislation and creating an Illinois EPA permitting program.
Under the Illinois EPA program, CWLP was required to apply for an operating permit in October 2021 and to apply for a closure construction permit in February 2022 following public meetings, which we held way back in December 2021. These permit applications cover a lot of territory: the history of construction, location restriction documentation, analysis of chemical constituents, emergency action plans, fugitive dust control plans, design and construction plans, groundwater monitoring programs, corrective action plans, closure plans, post-closure care plans and health and safety plans.
Now, three years has passed and Illinois EPA has still not issued either set of permits and has still not submitted its permitting program for USEPA approval. This permitting program approval is very important to CWLP because until that time, my staff must track and follow two different sets of rules at the same time.
What's The USEPA-CWLP Agreement?
Back in April of 2022, USEPA’s Regional Office staff from Chicago reached out to CWLP to provide notice of an upcoming site visit. They indicated they were going to be inspecting all the facilities in the Midwest Region and that our site was the first in line. They also brought along contractual engineers that they had hired to assist them to review our program, as this group from the USEPA had almost no experience inspecting ash ponds. So, essentially, rather than developing a permit program where CWLP would apply for a permit and then follow the conditions of that permit, they were instead hiring consultants to evaluate the various ‘self-implementing’ reports we had completed 4 to 6 years earlier.
It should be no surprise that USEPA’s paid consultants were able to find things in those reports they would have done differently than how CWLP’s consultants and employees did them. As an example, and probably the most significant one, USEPA believed that CWLP should have categorized the ash ponds in such a way under the regulation that we studied their ability to hold the rain from a 1,000-year storm, instead of the 100-year storm our consultants believed we were required to study. Another example was that USEPA provided comments that they believed more wells were needed to monitor the ash ponds under the federal rules and asked us to include two wells we have used for monitoring our on-site landfill since 1995 and three wells we installed recently for our State CCR permit into the monitoring network. Where USEPA pointed out issues that we agreed with or, if we still didn’t agree but could easily redo the work at minimal cost to the ratepayers, we immediately began to revise our program to meet this new USEPA guidance. As examples, we updated our study of the ash ponds to the 1,000-year storm and are adding additional wells to our federal groundwater monitoring network.
For other questions and issues they raised, we provided additional information to USEPA that justified our approach. An important example in this category is when USEPA questioned whether our background monitoring wells were appropriately selected. This is a question they have raised at nearly every facility they have ever had any interaction with across the nation. As a result of the additional information we presented in our meetings, USEPA has approved the background wells CWLP is using—something we could not find evidence of them doing officially for any other ash pond in the country.
Over a two and a half year period, my staff and I met with USEPA and went over their long list of items regarding our program to place each issue in a category of one that we had adequately justified and explained or one that would be updated to comply with the informal guidance USEPA was providing. While this process was very involved and time consuming, in the end, we were able to reach an agreement with USEPA that outlines going forward how they will review and approve our reports as they are completed on the front end. This provides a level of clarity and certainty we believe almost no other power plant facility in the country has been able to reach with the Agency.
Where Do We Go From Here?
In developing our permit applications for Illinois EPA, CWLP was required to present an ash pond closure plan and a closure alternatives analysis for Illinois EPA approval. When we conducted public meetings on CWLP’s closure plan, we explained that our plan drawings and specifications were not very detailed up to that point, because we did not want to spend funds on detailed design drawings until we knew if our overall plan was going to be accepted. Since that time, CWLP ceased sending any materials to the ash ponds in October 2023 once the new lime lagoons for the Water Department were completed. So now, with the knowledge of the final amount of material that will ever be sent to the ash ponds, this additional guidance from USEPA and following some correspondence and meetings we’ve had with Illinois EPA, we feel much more comfortable that we know what both Agencies are looking for. Under the agreement with USEPA, during the remainder of 2025 we will be developing a revised and updated closure plan for submittal to both Agencies. This new plan will be presented for public comment under the federal rules – hopefully in late 2025 or early 2026 -- since the Illinois public meeting already held did not count for the federal rules.
Editor’s Note: CWLP manages ash ponds that holds material from retired power plants. Ash is a byproduct of the generation process at coal plants. All Dallman 4 ash is repurposed for mine reclamation and other use including for cement production.
The drinking water source for the CWLP, Lake Springfield, is not at risk or influence of materials from the ash ponds. No drinking water wells are in the vicinity of the CWLP ash ponds. Arsenic, naturally occurring in soil throughout Illinois, is not in CWLP’s drinking water. CWLP annually publishes Water Quality Reports here, https://cwlp.com/Departments/WaterDeptHome/WaterInformation/WaterQuality.aspx.
