Mitchell Power Plant has 14 groundwater monitoring wells, 9 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between February 20, 2012 and June 12, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of boron, arsenic, molybdenum and radium.
Site descriptionAmerican Electric Power’s Mitchell Plant is a 1,633 MW power station with two coal-fired units located along the Ohio River in Moundsville, West Virginia. The plant started operating in 1971 and has two units regulated under the CCR rule: the Bottom Ash Pond and the Landfill. The Bottom Ash Pond, with the area of approximately 10 acres, is located south of the plant. The Landfill site is located about 2 miles east of the Mitchell Plant. Both storage sites are in active use. Mitchell Plant has switched to dry fly ash handling. The fly ash is currently stored in a lined landfill. Mitchell Plant is among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of potential damage cases, indicating that coal ash disposal at the site has potentially polluted groundwater or surface water at levels which threaten human health and the environment. You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information on the Mitchell Plant, see EIP’s 2019 National Coal Ash Report.