Plant Hammond has 55 groundwater monitoring wells, 20 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between March 22, 2016 and November 26, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of cobalt, boron, sulfate, molybdenum, arsenic, lithium, fluoride, beryllium and lead.
Site descriptionGeorgia Power Company’s Plant Hammond was an 800-MW coal plant in Coosa, Georgia, near the Coosa River in Floyd County. Hammond opened in 1954 and retired in 2019. Prior to retirement, the plant had four coal-fired units. The plant operated three active disposal areas: two unlined ash ponds and one landfill that cumulatively contained 60,000 cubic yards of coal ash. In its later years of operation, Plant Hammond had a third inactive ash pond that stores over one million cubic yards of coal ash as deep as 44 feet next to the Coosa River and is unlined. Georgia Power has announced plans to close this pond by draining the water and capping the ash in place.
You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information about the Plant Hammond, see EIP's 2019 National Coal Ash Report.