As State Loosens Oversight, Coal Ash Contaminates Central Kentucky Waterway https://t.co/LrPkcefnr6 via @WFPLNews

— Ryland Barton (@RylandKY) February 28, 2017

As Kentucky regulators and utilities are pushing to loosen regulations on the state’s coal ash ponds and landfills, more pollution problems are emerging at one of the sites in central Kentucky.

Over the past six years, documents show contaminated water including arsenic and selenium leached from the ash pond at the E.W. Brown Power Station into groundwater and directly into Herrington Lake, near Danville. Despite remedial measures taken by Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, the pollution persists.

Now, fish tissue sampling has revealed the coal ash pond’s selenium runoff has poisoned aquatic life in the lake.

Meanwhile, the same regulators who monitor the runoff from that plant have been working extensively with the utility industry — including a group that represents LG&E and KU — to weaken state regulations governing coal ash.

Experts say that under the new regulations, the pollution at the E.W. Brown plant might never have been detected.

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In February 2014, Division of Waste Management inspectors were at the Brown plant to examine underground springs — a step in support of the plant’s permit application to build a dry landfill on the capped pond. They shot video of a torrent of orange water rushing down a hill and into one of the lake’s inlets. Water tests performed later showed arsenic levels that were 98 times the maximum allowable level, and levels of iron and manganese were also high.