Boulder County has begun a series of meetings with residents living by the Valmont Power Station to address concerns about the toxic coal ash being stored in an inactive landfill and seeping into groundwater.
The latest meeting, held on Feb. 27 at the Boulder County Recycling Center near the Xcel Energy Valmont power plant on 63rd Street, focused on plans to clean up the site’s 1.6 million tons of coal ash, which contains heavy metals like arsenic. Organized by Boulder County Public Health and the Office of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resiliency, the event aimed to hear from underrepresented residents.
“We know for decades and decades and decades the impacts of so many high polluting industries have fallen disproportionately on communities of color,” said County Commissioner Claire Levy at the meeting’s start.
The meeting followed an extensive investigation by Boulder Reporting Lab last year, revealing that ash on-site is in direct contact with groundwater, and contamination seems to have spread toward a residential area in unincorporated Boulder County to the north and east of the plant. Xcel has publicly reported unsafe levels of groundwater contaminants for six consecutive years. In at least one instance, residents were provided with alternative water due to a contaminated private well. The company has yet to implement a cleanup plan.
Read: Hidden hazard: Boulder’s million-ton coal ash problem has no local watchdog
The power plant stopped burning coal in 2017 and currently only uses natural gas when other plants cannot meet electricity demand. At the meeting, county officials explained that coal ash is a byproduct of nearly a century of burning coal for electricity at Valmont. They blamed the contact with groundwater on the absence of federal regulation for much of the coal industry’s history.
Under the nation’s first Environmental Protection Agency rules enacted in 2015 to protect people from coal ash dangers, Xcel must restore Valmont to its condition before contamination happened. This involves stopping the contamination and preventing further pollution either by removing the ash or other methods. The agency does not specify a timeline for action.
Xcel has outlined a plan to extract the polluted water and remove contaminants, and the county told meeting attendees that the company is expected to begin this groundwater remediation in late 2024 or early 2025. Removal of the ash from the landfill is slated to begin in 2025, with Xcel estimating a 10- to 12-year removal process.
County officials sought community feedback at the meeting, and they received it. In addition to concerns about groundwater contamination, residents expressed worries about the impact on air quality during the ash removal process.
“I love that we’re all here and working together, but I think we need to be more intentional,” said Isabel Sanchez, a resident of Boulder County who educates manufactured home and low-income communities on how to be ready for emergencies. Sanchez offered the hypothetical scenario where health impacts from the plant arise in the future, like premature births or cancer. “Is Boulder County going to pay for that? We’re not the ones creating the problem. That’s Xcel.”
“I don’t trust Xcel,” Sanchez told Boulder Reporting Lab. She said that many in her community don’t have health insurance, and many are undocumented. So what happens if they get sick? “I don’t want this to fall on taxpayers,” she said. “I want it to fall on Xcel.”
“What are the physical impacts on our bodies?” was the first question that came out of break-out groups at the meeting’s end, asking about potential effects of coal ash toxins touching groundwater or being released into the air during removal efforts. Others raised similar concerns. The county did not have a response. They said the purpose of the meeting was to collect questions to answer in the future.
When asked why Xcel was not at the meeting, county representatives reiterated that the focus was on allowing community members to be heard and pose questions, even while acknowledging that Xcel is responsible for the site’s clean-up. Lexi Nolen, director of Boulder County Public Health, stood up and said that “one of the roles of Boulder County Public Health is to influence” the actual regulators.
The main regulators responsible for cleanup and contamination efforts are the Colorado Department of Public Health and the EPA. No representative from either agency was at the meeting.
“Boulder County Public health is not the regulator,” said Erin Dodge, a water quality program coordinator with Boulder County Public Health. “We are working with the regulators. We have a voice with the regulators. And our main goal is to make sure the community’s voice is heard.”
Rashawn Edison, a member of Harvest of All First Nations, an Indigenous-led collaborative, expressed concern about the site’s proximity to Valmont Butte, a sacred area where Arapaho people spent the winter long before European-Americans settled to unearth gold. “We only have a handful of prayer spaces where we go, and that is one of them,” Edison said.
Carl Job, a water quality and environmental justice specialist with the county, mentioned that the county is “very aware of the potential risks of digging up a bunch of coal ash” and is exploring the installation of air monitors to detect the impacts of airborne ash. Community members present said these monitors are a top priority, with several residents volunteering to assist in pioneering the effort.
Another action considered by the county was reaching out to property owners whose wells have already been impacted by contaminated groundwater, although steps were not clearly outlined.
“We just don’t always have the answers in the moment,” said Dodge with the county.
Leslie Glustrom, a Boulderite and vocal advocate for the site’s cleanup at county commission meetings, emphasized the importance of staying engaged with the process and consistently asking for what residents want, not just once. “They’ll say no,” she said. “They’ll say we couldn’t possibly do that, but you have to keep asking.”
“Are we asking the health department or asking Xcel?” Sanchez asked.
“A little bit of both,” Glustrom replied, “but you have to keep asking.”
County officials said the meeting is part of a series, but the dates for subsequent meetings have not been released. An initial meeting took place in November 2023 and was co-hosted by the Climate Justice Collaborative, a group in Boulder County dedicated to implementing fair solutions to climate change.
Are the communities impacted public knowledge?