80 FR 52079 - Environmental Impact Statement-Closure of CCR Impoundments

TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 166 (August 27, 2015)

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to address the closure of coal combustion residual (CCR) impoundments at its coal-fired power plants. CCRs are byproducts produced from the combustion of coal or the control of combustion emissions and include fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag, and flue gas desulfurization materials. The purpose of this EIS is to facilitate TVA's compliance with the CCR Rule that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued on April 17, 2015. This also will provide the public a meaningful opportunity to comment on the issues associated with that effort. This EIS will programmatically consider the impacts of the two primary closure methods: (1) Closure-in-Place and (2) Closure-by- Removal. It will also consider the site-specific impacts of closing 11 of TVA's impoundments within three years. Public comment is invited concerning the scope of this EIS.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 166 (Thursday, August 27, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 52079-52081]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-21217]


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TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY


Environmental Impact Statement--Closure of CCR Impoundments

AGENCY: Tennessee Valley Authority.

ACTION: Notice of intent.

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SUMMARY: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) intends to prepare an 
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to address the closure of coal 
combustion residual (CCR) impoundments at its coal-fired power plants. 
CCRs are byproducts produced from the combustion of coal or the control 
of combustion emissions and include fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag, 
and flue gas desulfurization materials. The purpose of this EIS is to 
facilitate TVA's compliance with the CCR Rule that the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued on April 17, 2015. This 
also will provide the public a meaningful opportunity to comment on the 
issues associated with that effort.
    This EIS will programmatically consider the impacts of the two 
primary closure methods: (1) Closure-in-Place and (2) Closure-by-
Removal. It will also consider the site-specific impacts of closing 11 
of TVA's impoundments within three years. Public comment is invited 
concerning the scope of this EIS.

DATES: Comments on the scope of the EIS must be received on or before 
September 30, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent to Ashley Farless, Tennessee 
Valley Authority, 1101 Market St., BR4A, Chattanooga, TN 37402. 
Comments also may be submitted to http://www.tva.gov/environment/reports/ccr or by email to [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ashley Farless, 1101 Market Street, BR 
4A, Chattanooga, TN 37402, 423.751.2361, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice is provided in accordance with 
the regulations promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality (40 
CFR parts 1500 to 1508) and TVA's procedures implementing the National 
Environmental Policy Act (http://www.tva.com/environment/reports/pdf/tvanepa_procedures.pdf.)

TVA Power System and CCR Management

    TVA is a federal agency and instrumentality of the United States, 
established by an act of Congress in 1933. Its broad mission is to 
foster the social and economic welfare of the people of the Tennessee 
Valley region and to promote the proper use and conservation of the 
region's natural resources. One component of this mission is the 
generation, transmission, and sale of reliable and affordable electric 
energy.
    TVA operates the nation's largest public power system, producing 
approximately 4 percent of all of the electricity in the nation. TVA 
provides electricity to most of Tennessee and parts of Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Currently, it 
serves more than 9 million people in this seven-state region. The TVA 
Act requires the TVA power system to be self supporting and operated on 
a nonprofit basis and directs TVA to sell electricity at rates as low 
as are feasible. TVA receives no appropriations.
    Most of the electricity is generated on the TVA system from 3 
nuclear plants, 10 coal-fired plants, 9 simple-cycle combustion turbine 
plants, 6 combined-cycle combustion turbine plants, 29 hydroelectric 
dams, a pumped-storage facility, a wind-turbine facility, a methane-gas 
cofiring facility, a diesel-fired facility, and several small solar 
photovoltaic facilities. Only its coal-fired power plants produce CCRs.
    Historically, TVA has managed its CCRs in wet impoundments or dry 
landfills. After a CCR impoundment at its Kingston power plant failed 
in 2008, TVA committed to converting its CCR impoundments to dry 
systems. TVA has coal-fired plants and CCR impoundments in Alabama, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee. Its CCR impoundments or wet CCR management 
facilities vary in size from less than 10 acres to more than 300 acres. 
All of TVA's CCR facilities operate under permits issued by the States 
in which they are located.

EPA's CCR Rule and Determinations

    EPA's April 2015 CCR Rule establishes national criteria and 
schedules for the management and closure of CCR facilities. To support 
this rule, EPA compiled an extensive administrative record, including a 
number of technical and scientific studies. EPA decided to continue to 
regulate CCRs as solid waste and determined that compliance with its 
CCR criteria would ensure that CCR management activities and facilities 
would not pose a reasonable probability of adverse effects on health or 
the environment. The rule establishes location restrictions, liner 
design criteria, structural integrity requirements, operating criteria, 
groundwater monitoring and corrective action requirements, closure and 
post-closure care requirements, and recordkeeping, notification, and 
internet posting requirements.
    EPA indicated that current management of CCRs poses risks primarily 
associated with potential structural failures and groundwater 
contamination. In its technical analyses, EPA determined that CCR 
impoundments posed greater risks than CCR landfills because ponded 
water creates a hydraulic head that can stress impoundment structural 
integrity and promote groundwater contamination.
    EPA's rule establishes two primary closure methods: (1) Closure 
with CCR in Place and (2) Closure through Removal. Closure-in-Place 
involves removing standing water from an impoundment and installing a 
final cover system that minimizes the infiltration of water. Closure-
by-Removal involves excavating and relocating the CCRs from an 
impoundment (or beneficially using them in products or structural 
fills). EPA observed that most facilities would be closed in place 
because of the difficulty and cost of Closure-by-Removal. It determined 
that either closure method would be equally protective if done 
properly.

Closure-in-Place v. Closure-by-Removal

    TVA has decided to perform a programmatic review of the potential 
impacts of the two primary closure methods. EPA's technical analyses 
lend themselves to and support such an approach. Conclusions reached 
from such a programmatic comparison generally should be applicable to 
any CCR impoundment on the TVA system regardless of the location. Site 
specific conditions would affect the potential magnitude of effects, 
but not the kind of effects. For example, Closure-by-Removal would 
require excavating the accumulated CCRs and transporting them elsewhere 
either for beneficial use or disposal in a CCR-compliant or municipal 
solid waste landfill. In every instance where CCRs are moved off site 
there would be transportation impacts of some kind and to some degree 
depending on the transportation distance and method. Identifying, 
assessing, and contrasting the effects of these two closure methods on 
a generic basis would allow their merits to be considered by the 
public, interested stakeholders, and TVA decision makers. In this 
programmatic review, TVA may be able to identify general criteria for 
method selection that could be applied to site-specific closure actions 
when those are assessed.

Site-Specific Actions

    EPA structured its CCR Rule to encourage regulated entities to 
accelerate the closure of CCR impoundments because of the significant 
decrease in risk that results from eliminating the hydraulic head of 
ponded water. EPA determined that once a CCR impoundment is dewatered 
and closed, the risks are no greater than those of an inactive CCR 
landfill that is not subject to additional requirements

[[Page 52081]]

under the rule. This would require TVA to cease sending CCRs to an 
impoundment by October 19, 2015, remove the water, and close it by 
April 17, 2018. TVA has identified 11 CCR impoundments at six of its 
plants that it could cease using and close within the required 
timeframe. These are facilities at its Allen, Bull Run, Kingston and 
John Sevier plants in Tennessee and at its Widows Creek and Colbert 
plants in Alabama. The EIS would assess the site specific impacts of 
such closures.

EIS Scope

    Scoping is a process that allows the public to comment on an 
agency's plans for an EIS. This includes identifying issues that should 
be studied and those that have little significance. The public's views 
on the alternatives that should be addressed also can be helpful in 
preparing an EIS.
    Programmatically, TVA proposes to examine two closure alternatives, 
Closure-in-Place and Closure-by-Removal. The EIS will address different 
methods of implementing the two closure approaches, including partial 
removal of CCRs. Various kinds of caps or surface liners could be used 
for Closure-in-Place and the merits of those approaches, sub-
alternatives, will be addressed. Closure-by-Removal could involve 
moving CCRs off-site by truck, rail, or barge transportation and the 
potential impacts of these alternative transportation methods would be 
addressed. At the site-specific level, TVA will examine in more 
specific detail the implications of closing these eleven impoundments. 
TVA encourages the public to comment on this.
    At either the programmatic or site-specific level, the typical 
range of resource impacts addressed in EISs would be assessed. This 
would include surface and groundwater impacts that were a focus of 
EPA's technical assessments. It also is likely that Closure-in-Place or 
Closure-by-Removal would involve movements to and from borrow areas to 
obtain cover material (soil, clay). For Closure-by-Removal, it would be 
necessary to fill in the depression or hole that is left when CCRs are 
removed unless it is possible to place the removed CCRs back into the 
hole after lining the bottom. It also may be possible to beneficially 
use some of the ash as cover material (structural fill) in lieu of 
using borrow material to close a dewatered CCR impoundment.

Public Participation

    The public is invited to submit comments on the scope of this EIS 
no later than the date identified in the DATES section of this notice. 
After TVA prepares a draft of the EIS, TVA will release it for public 
comment. TVA anticipates holding public meetings near the plants where 
site-specific early closure actions are proposed after release of the 
draft EIS. Meeting details will be posted on TVA's Web site. The 
schedule for releasing the Draft EIS is December 2015 or January 2016.

    Dated: August 19, 2015.
Wilbourne (Skip) C. Markham,
Director, Environmental Compliance.
[FR Doc. 2015-21217 Filed 8-26-15; 8:45 am]
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