The Tennessee Valley Authority is inviting the public to comment on an environmental review of the potential impacts of building and operating special processing facilities for the beneficial use of coal combustion residuals at one or more of its coal plant sites in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky.
Officials said, "Coal combustion residuals, or CCR, are the byproducts of burning coal for electricity, including coal ash and gypsum. These facilities would help process CCR for beneficial use in construction products like concrete and drywall.
This would reduce the amount of CCR for long-term storage and management in landfills.
"TVA is increasing its efforts to use CCR instead of storing it in landfills. In the past five years, TVA has beneficially used nearly 70 percent of the CCR produced."
TVA has prepared a draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), available at www.tva.com/nepa.
TVA invites the public to provide input on the options in the PEA which include no action or constructing and operating one or more beneficiation processing facilities.
Comments may be submitted online, by mail to Brittany Kunkle, Tennessee Valley Authority, 400 West Summit Hill Dr., WT-11B-K, Knoxville, Tn. 37902, or via email to nepa@tva.gov.
To ensure your comments are correctly dispositioned, specify the project (“Beneficiation Processing Facility PEA”) with your submission.
Comments must be received or postmarked no later than May 14. Any comments received, including names and addresses, will become part of the administrative record and subject to public inspection.
More information on this environmental review process can be found at www.tva.gov/nepa.