Under the terms of an emerging legislative deal, Dominion Energy still won’t be able to permanently bury 4 million tons of coal ash at a site in southeastern Prince William County — yet the result doesn’t feel like much of a win to the people fighting the company’s plans.
Environmentalists and people living near the Possum Point power station outside Dumfries had high hopes for this year’s General Assembly session, with sympathetic lawmakers pushing a bevy of bills that could’ve forced the utility company to back away from its long-delayed plans to bury the waste material underground on the property.
Yet, as the statehouse session reaches its midpoint, all they’ve managed to secure is legislation that essentially preserves the status quo. Last year, lawmakers teamed up with then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe to bar Dominion from moving the ash into a clay-lined pit and sealing it through May 1 while the company worked on a study of alternative disposal methods — now, a proposal extending that moratorium through July 2019 while Dominion works on another, slightly different study is moving closer to becoming law.
