Constellation Energy announced efforts to help clean wells contaminated by the company?s coal fly ash.
“We are committed to doing the right thing,” said John Long, president of Constellation Energy?s fossil fuel power plants, at an Anne Arundel County Council meeting Monday.
The utility company and BBSS Inc., the mining company helping to reclaim two former sand pits in Gambrills, said they will stop dumping the material at the site, where high levels of heavy metals were discovered in dozens of surrounding wells.
Constellation Energy also said that 11 days ago, it filed a grading permit to install a water main, which would put the contaminated area under a public water system that is generally safer than private wells.
Constellation Energy officials asked the council to help expedite the permit, and some on the dais agreed.
The company also plans to install a better liner between the material and water table, including a hardened clay boundary that water cannot pass through.
“This will provide more protection than an industrial waste landfill,” said Yvonne Dedrickson, a chemical engineer with Constellation Energy.
The council, as well as a few residents who testified, were skeptical of the Constellation Energy claims.
“The only reason they?re putting a pipe in is because they polluted the water, and [the state] is going to tell them to do it,” Greater Crofton Council President Torrey Jacobsen said.
The council?s biggest gripe on the proposed fly ash ban is what the bill doesn?t do ? correct contaminated wells in Gambrills.
The bill only prohibits future fly ash dumping, but county officials said there are no imminent projects using fly ash.
“What they tell us is great, but I?d feel a whole lot better if it were us telling them to do it,” said Councilman Jamie Benoit, who represents Gambrills area. “That is where we need to be as a county.”
