THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230529
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GREG EDWARDS, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
For years, Norfolk Southern Corp.'s railroad has hauled coal from the Appalachian coalfields to electric utilities in the eastern United States.
In the years ahead, the railroad may be carrying back to the coalfields much of the ash left over after power plants burn the coal.
Hauling back coal ash holds promise, said William Bales, the railroad's vice president for coal marketing in Roanoke. ``We're always interested in new business and this is one we think may be a new opportunity for us,'' he said.
Bales said Norfolk Southern has for more than a year had a team looking at the potential for moving coal ash to coalfields. The business is one that could develop significantly within a few months, he said.
The idea is a not a new one and is particularly appealing to Norfolk Southern and other railroads because coal cars typically return to mines empty.
Since April, Virginia Power has been shipping over CSX rail lines all of the coal ash produced by its 1,144-megawatt Yorktown power plant to a West Virginia coal company - 39,480 tons or 449 rail cars to date.
Virginia Power has a contract with Anchor Energy Co. to take 30,000 to 200,000 tons of the ash each year over the next three years, utility spokesman Ken Blackwell said. The coal company mixes coal ash with other waste and pumps it back into its abandoned mines, he said.
Bales said he was not aware of any utility putting pressure on coal companies to take back coal ash in return for coal sales contracts. He said, however, that offering the back-haul service might be a good marketing device that coal companies and railroads could use to develop a long-term relationship with utilities.
``When you can add value to a product or service, it's very important,'' he said.
Virginia law allows coal ash to be put to limited use such as for fill under building foundations. The state, however, has over the past two to three years received requests to expand the beneficial uses allowed for the ash, which now mostly is buried in landfills.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is developing regulations that would allow coal ash to be used in the reclamation of strip mines and, to a greater degree, as construction fill material.
``The regulations talk about coal ash from the perspective of putting it to productive use,'' said Harry Gregori, the department's policy and research director. The proposed regulations are designed to provide the same environmental protection as if the ash was buried in landfills, he said.
Whether coal ash is an environmentally benign material is a matter of debate, Gregori said. The chemical composition of the ash varies depending on where the coal was mined, he said.
Over the past 10 years, the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy has issued permits for three western Virginia sites to apply coal ash to strip-mined land. There haven't been any environmental problems from application of the ash, department spokesman Mike Abbott said.
Some utilities are having trouble trucking ash to disposal sites, Norfolk Southern's Bales said. The railroad's decision to go after that business fits in with its aggressive strategy of competing with trucking companies, he said.
Bales said the railroad would not fill its coal hoppers as full of ash as it does with coal and would spray the top of the ash with a special substance to prevent it from blowing out of cars. Coal ash can come either as a fine substance from a power plant's smokestacks or in a heavier form from its boilers. The company has moved three or four cars on an experimental basis, he said.
Norfolk Southern has been criticized in the past for dust from its coal cars. by CNB