Valmont Station burned coal to produce electricity for Boulder from the mid-1920s until 2017. Five years later, the environmental impacts of coal ash linger, with few conservation watchdogs in sight. Boulder Reporting Lab founder and publisher Stacy Feldman joined KUNC host Nikole Robinson Carroll to talk about it.
Coal-fueled operations at the plant owned by Xcel Energy have left a mixed legacy.
“It fueled Boulder’s economic growth, and much of its prosperity, but it has also left a legacy of pollution, like coal has done everywhere,” Feldman said.
Coal particulates have polluted the air in the area and contributed to climate change, which has been researched extensively. But much less is known about groundwater contamination around the plant.
“Coal ash, which is a byproduct of burning coal, contains potentially toxic chemicals - things like arsenic, lithium,” Feldman said. “And it is lying underground in an unlined landfill that is directly touching the groundwater at the Valmont site, and coal ash sprawls across acres.”
It's a fact that the groundwater is contaminated, according to Xcel's own public documents. In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed the first federal rule regulating coal ash storage sites like the one at Valmont. As part of the rule, Xcel started monitoring groundwater at the site for contamination for the first time in 2017. Monitoring documents are required to be accessible to the public.
Because of the high level of contamination, Xcel must fix the groundwater problem as soon as possible, as mandated by the EPA.
“They have to clean it up and they have to restore the site," Feldman told KUNC. “This year they announced a plan to begin to do so, but full cleanup is still many years away. And in the meantime, residents who depend on this groundwater nearby for drinking water are concerned.”
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