Flint Creek Power Plant

Flint Creek Power Plant has 31 groundwater monitoring wells, 29 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between January 26, 2010 and August 28, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of cobalt, selenium, arsenic, sulfate, molybdenum, manganese, lead, radium, lithium, antimony, chromium, beryllium, boron and fluoride.

The Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) Flint Creek Power Plant opened in 1978 and is located a mile west of Gentry, in Benton County. It is a 516-MW coal-fired facility and uses coal mined from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. SWEPCO announced that it will continue to operate the plant until 2038. There are 45 private wells within a 2-mile radius of the plant and 6 public wells within a 5-mile radius of the plant. The Landfill CCR Management Unit and Primary Bottom Ash Pond are regulated under the CCR rule.

Even prior to the recent groundwater monitoring required by the CCR rule, there were documented exceedances of barium, cadmium, lead, iron, manganese, silver, selenium, chromium, and sulfate standards at the site. Statistically significant increases in January 2005 for sulfate, pH, TDS, and selenium resulted in the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) requiring SWEPCO to initiate assessment monitoring at the landfill. Additionally, ADEQ issued a Notice of Deficiency to SWEPCO in 2008 due to an uncontrolled discharge of CCW leachate from the landfill, requesting the installation of a leachate collection system and treatment of CCW leachate prior to discharge into ponds. AEP argued that no treatment other than discharge to the pond was necessary and that continued discharge through the intermittent stream was acceptable.

You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information about the Flint Creek Power Plant, see EIP's 2019 National Coal Ash Report.