NEW YORK, December 29, 2025, 06:47 ET
- Inside Climate News said Alabama Power’s coal-ash ponds along waterways hold more than 117 million tons of waste statewide.
- The utility’s Plant Barry site near Mobile contains more than 21 million tons in an unlined pond, the report said.
- Alabama Power says its closure plans comply with environmental rules; the EPA previously required monitoring and emergency-plan upgrades at Plant Barry.
An Inside Climate News review said Alabama Power’s coal-ash ponds could inundate hundreds of square miles of land and waterways if barriers fail, sharpening scrutiny of how the utility is closing the sites.
Coal ash is the waste left after utilities burn coal to make electricity. The Environmental Protection Agency says it can pollute waterways and groundwater and contains metals linked to cancer and other serious health effects.
The report comes as regulators and courts continue to weigh whether utilities can use cap-in-place closures, which leave ash where it sits under an engineered cover, or must move the waste to lined landfills. The EPA in 2024 denied Alabama’s application to run a state coal-ash permitting program, saying it was less protective than federal standards.
Inside Climate News focused on the James M. Barry Electric Generating Plant in Bucks, Alabama, about 25 miles north of Mobile Bay, where a 600-acre ash pond sits beside the Mobile River. The unlined pond contains more than 21 million tons of coal ash held back by earthen dikes, the report said.
Alabama Power said its plans meet environmental requirements. “We remain committed to operating in full compliance with environmental regulations,” Alyson Tucker, a media relations manager for the company, said in an email to Inside Climate News. Inside Climate News
Tucker said the company’s closure and groundwater-protection plans comply with state and federal law, have Alabama Department of Environmental Management approval and are certified by professional engineers. She said the utility could not comment further because of litigation over Plant Barry, the report said.
The emergency action plan for Plant Barry indicates that a breach of the dikes could inundate roughly 25 square miles of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta with coal slurry, according to the report.
Statewide, Alabama Power operates six coal-ash pond sites that cover about 2,000 acres and hold more than 117 million tons of coal sludge along waterways, Inside Climate News reported.
The report said four plants — Barry, Gorgas, Greene County and Miller — are listed as significant hazard potential sites under federal rules, while Plant Gaston is designated high hazard potential. Hazard potential refers to the consequences of a dam failure, not how likely it is.
In October 2024, the EPA said Alabama Power agreed to expand groundwater monitoring at Plant Barry, review and upgrade its emergency action plan and pay a $278,000 civil penalty to resolve alleged coal-ash violations. The agency said the settlement did not resolve a separate allegation related to the pond’s closure.
Inside Climate News cited state records showing Alabama regulators fined Alabama Power $1.25 million in 2018 and $250,000 in 2019 after groundwater testing found elevated levels of contaminants near coal-ash disposal sites.
Mobile Baykeeper, an environmental group, is challenging Alabama Power’s closure plan for Plant Barry in federal court. The case is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, court records show.
Coal-ash breaches have proved costly elsewhere. The EPA said cleanup of the 2008 Kingston, Tennessee spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant cost an estimated $1.134 billion and ran through 2015.
Inside Climate News said Alabama Power differs from some regional utilities, including Southern Co’s Georgia Power, which has shifted at least part of its coal ash to lined landfills. Alabama Power has continued to store coal ash in unlined ponds along waterways, the report said.
The report said choices over whether to excavate and move coal ash away from waterways or cap it in place will shape long-term cleanup risk for rivers that feed Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
