"As Board Weighs Coal Ash Permit, Citizens Fight Back"

"Since the early 1990s, thousands of York County residents have played softball and soccer on acres of well-manicured fields at Chisman Creek Park and the adjacent Wolf Trap Park.

But to Peter Martin, a York County native now living in Chesterfield, the site’s current recreational purpose belies its troubled past.

For nearly 30 years, a private contractor had hauled away approximately 500,000 tons of coal ash from Dominion Virginia Power’s Yorktown power station and disposed of it in four unlined, abandoned sand and gravel pits near Chisman Creek, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

In 1980, two people who lived near the pits noticed that their well water had a yellowish-green tint. Testing showed that the water contained high levels of vanadium, a heavy metal contained in coal ash."

Jim McConnell reports for the Chesterfield Observer March 2, 2016.