NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 08:54 ET
- Inside Climate News said Alabama Power’s coal-ash ponds could threaten hundreds of square miles if containment barriers fail.
- The outlet cited emergency planning documents showing more than 117 million tons of coal waste stored at six sites statewide.
- Alabama Power says its closure and groundwater-protection plans comply with state and federal law.
An Inside Climate News investigation published on Monday said Alabama Power’s coal-ash ponds along Alabama waterways could place hundreds of square miles of land and water at risk if earthen barriers holding back the waste were to breach. The report said more than 117 million tons of coal sludge are stored at six sites, including an unlined pond at the James M. Barry plant that holds more than 21 million tons and could inundate about 25 square miles of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta if dikes fail.
The findings matter now because U.S. utilities face mounting legal and regulatory pressure over how to close coal-ash ponds, a legacy liability that can drive cleanup spending and long-running court fights.
For Alabama’s Gulf Coast, the focus is the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, a vast wetland system upstream of Mobile Bay where flooding risk and industrial infrastructure sit side by side.
Alabama Power says its closure plans and groundwater protections comply with current state and federal law, are approved by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, and are certified by professional engineers. On its coal-ash compliance page, the company says it is treating and removing water at Plant Barry and plans to excavate material to create buffers from the Mobile River.
Coal ash — also called coal combustion residuals — is the waste left after burning coal for electricity and can contain contaminants including mercury, cadmium, chromium and arsenic, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says. In 2024, EPA denied Alabama’s bid to run its own coal-ash permit program, saying state requirements were less protective than federal standards.
EPA has also taken enforcement action tied to Plant Barry. The agency said a 2024 settlement required Alabama Power to expand groundwater monitoring, review and upgrade its emergency action plan, and pay a $278,000 civil penalty to resolve alleged violations of federal coal-ash regulations.
A central dispute in many coal-ash cases is closure strategy. One approach is “cap-in-place,” which means draining a pond and sealing the ash under an engineered cover rather than removing it; critics argue that leaving waste in unlined pits can keep contaminants in contact with groundwater.
Alabama Power has also promoted recycling as part of its coal-ash management. In a January 2024 press release, Alabama Power said it planned an on-site processing facility with Eco Material Technologies that it expected to be in service by January 2026, and senior vice president Brandon Dillard said the company “has a long history of recycling coal ash from its plants for beneficial use.” Alabama Power
Eco Material later agreed to be acquired by building materials group CRH for $2.1 billion, CRH said in a July 2025 announcement.
Coal-ash incidents elsewhere have sharpened regulatory scrutiny. EPA’s enforcement summary of Duke Energy’s Dan River Steam Station spill in 2014 said the release created a site stretching about 70 miles downstream from the plant.
In Tennessee, cleanup and litigation over TVA’s 2008 Kingston coal-ash disaster included estimates that total costs would exceed $1.2 billion, a 2014 Reuters report said.
