An aerial view of Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer (File photo)

ATLANTA – A lawyer for the Sierra Club asked a Fulton County Superior Court judge Monday to prohibit Georgia Power from passing on $525 million in coal ash cleanup costs to its customers.

But lawyers for the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) and Georgia Power argued the Atlanta-based utility fully justified both its cleanup plan and the costs of that work during hearings before the PSC last year.

Robert Jackson, the lawyer representing the Sierra Club, asked Judge Shukura Millender to declare the pollution of groundwater by Georgia Power’s ash ponds at 11 coal-fired power plants “unlawful,” or at least “unreasonable and imprudent.” Such a ruling would disqualify the company from recovering the costs of the cleanup from ratepayers, he said.

“Georgia Power has coal ash sitting in groundwater at plants Bowen, Hammond, Scherer, Wansley and Yates,” Jackson said. “If it had complied with Georgia environmental law, these expensive environmental remediation costs could have been avoided.”

Georgia Power is working on a multi-year plan to close all 29 of its coal ash ponds at the 11 power plants to meet federal regulations for handling coal ash, which contains toxic chemicals that can pollute drinking water supplies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cracked down on pollution from ash ponds in 2015 after a massive spill at a plant in Tennessee.

The PSC signed off on Georgia Power’s coal ash cleanup proposals In July 2019 as part of its latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), an update of plans for meeting the state’s energy needs the utility submits every three years. The commission then followed up on that vote late last year by incorporating the costs of the cleanup in a rate increase for Georgia Power.

Jackson argued Monday that the PSC decided to allow Georgia Power to pass on those costs to customers without any evidence that they were incurred lawfully or reasonably.

But Dan Walsh, a lawyer representing the PSC, said Georgia Power justified those costs during last year’s proceedings before the commission. In bringing the issue to court, the Sierra Club is essentially seeking to relitigate the case, he said.

“The evidence Georgia Power presented of the costs it would incur … were sufficient to justify permitting cost recovery [from customers],” Walsh said. “By arguing the evidence relied upon by the commission is inadequate, the Sierra Club is asking the court to second guess the commission on the weight it afforded to the evidence.”

Tom Reilly, the lawyer representing Georgia Power, dismissed the Sierra Club’s argument that the company has acted unlawfully in its disposal of coal ash. Neither the EPA nor the Georgia Environmental Protection Division have accused Georgia Power of breaking the law, and there are no pending enforcement actions related to coal ash, he said.

“If the Sierra Club had an issue about the activities being undertaken and whether they were insufficient and improper, it should have made the argument in the IRP,” Reilly said.

Jackson said none of the voluminous testimony filed in last year’s proceedings dealt directly with Georgia Power’s request to make customers pick up the tab for the coal ash cleanup.

“These plans are draft remediation plans for what Georgia Power plans to do when it closes these coal ash ponds,” he said. “None of these documents say anything about whether it’s just or reasonable or prudent to pass these costs on to their ratepayers.”

Judge Millender said she would take the various parties’ arguments under advisement and issue a written ruling.