Letter: Merom Coal Plant’s impact on pollution

In rural Dubois County most of us get our electricity through Dubois REC, which has continued to do an excellent job of serving our community. As a cooperative, Dubois REC purchases our power through Hoosier Energy. While Hoosier Energy continues to balance energy needs to deliver the best product at a good price, unfortunately there are developments that residents need to be concerned about. While Hoosier Energy has continued to grow its percentage of electricity from renewable sources, a large portion is still purchased from the Merom coal plant, in Sullivan County, which was due to be decommissioned in a couple years. However, in 2022, Hallador Energy purchased the Merom coal plant and plans to continue its coal operation even though it has been designated a super polluter facility. One reason is that Hallador continues to seek data center customers. The story gets worse. Hallador Energy is currently in the process of requesting authority to discharge “up to 89,245 gallons per day” of bottom ash wastewater through December 2029 into the Wabash River watershed. Bottom ash is a leftover product after burning coal, is highly toxic, and contains contaminates like mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. Without proper management it pollutes waterways, ground water, drinking water and the air. The EPA also found that living near ash ponds increases the risk of damage from cadmium, lead, and other toxic metals.

The Merom coal plant and the bottom ash wastewater they are requesting to dump in the waterway starts with the Turtle/Little Turtle Creek watershed and empties into the Wabash River which is a significant source of drinking water for many Indiana counties. There are better ways of handling coal ash and there is a solution that other coal plants in Indiana have adopted, which is to convert to dry ash handling or to retire the coal-burning units all together. The Merom plant is one of only two large plants still consciously polluting the waterways with bottom ash wastewater and is asking permission to continue for another four years.

So as customers of Dubois REC what can we do about this? While Dubois REC does not have control or authority of where Hoosier Energy is getting their power from, first you can submit a comment telling IDEM to protect the Wabash River and stop coal pollution from the Merom plant by going to the following link at sc.org/merom. The deadline is December 15. Second, you can ask Dubois REC to ask Hoosier Energy to stop purchasing power from Hallador and their super polluting coal plant by sending Dubois REC a letter or calling their office to let them know your concern.

Mark Nowotarski
Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter member
Dubois County resident