Pleasants Power Station has 13 groundwater monitoring wells, 10 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between October 25, 2016 and July 30, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of arsenic, molybdenum, radium, fluoride, barium, lithium, cobalt, selenium, sulfate, lead and beryllium.
Site descriptionAllegheny Energy’s Pleasants McElroy Run is a coal ash disposal site associated with Pleasants Power Station located along the Ohio River in Willow Island, West Virginia. The power station has two units with the capacity of 1,368 MW. The coal ash disposal site consists of a wet disposal area (impoundment) and dry disposal area (landfill) developed in the McElroy’s Run watershed. The impoundment is situated in the upper portion of the watershed, and has been in continuous use since the late 1970s. At the current water level, the surface impoundment area is about 250 acres. The landfill consists of three primary development stages which are further subdivided into construction subareas. Pleasants Power Station is currently slated to be closed in 2023. You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information on the Pleasants McElroy Run, see EIP’s 2019 National Coal Ash Report.