When Coal Plants Shut Down, What Happens Next?
Read this article for a fascinating look at the environmental impact that changes in an industry can have. While many would argue that the shift away from coal as an energy source is good for the environment, one must also consider the lasting impact coal plants can have on the environment even after they have closed.
A cautionary tale
If one wants to invoke a nightmare scenario of harmful pollution from energy generation decades in the past, they could look to the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where buried coal tar from a manufactured gas plant necessitated a five-year, $50 million intensive cleanup. Several nearby residents blame their cancer on exposure to the carcinogenic coal tar, which they say oozed up through the grass of the park now on the site.
A number of coal plant sites nationwide were formerly home to manufactured gas plants that from the 1800s through the 1940s turned coal into gas for heating and lighting, creating the toxic coal tar that was often buried onsite. The manufactured gas plants – thousands of them nationwide, many of the sites still unidentified – were often located along rivers, and owned by the predecessors of utilities that later developed coal-fired power plants.
The Crawford coal plant and areas around the Fisk plant in Chicago are among Illinois sites identified by the U.S. EPA as containing buried coal tar. McFarlan said Peoples Gas, which previously owned the plants, is responsible for the coal tar under an agreement with the Illinois EPA. GenOn, FirstEnergy and Dominion officials said their plants slated for closing did not host manufactured gas plants in the past. Coal-fired power plants do not produce coal tar, though they do produce coal ash which is sometimes stored onsite or nearby.