When the new Allen Combined Cycle Plant was under construction a few years ago, the Tennessee Valley Authority said the advanced technology it contained required more than three million gallons of pure water every day to operate. The water would be pulled directly from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the source of the city's famously clean drinking water.
But the move toward this new, cleaner technology is plagued by the toxic remnants of its predecessor, a coal-burning plant, which left behind an enormous, sludgy pit full of coal ash. Arsenic is among the toxins found in coal ash, and environmentalists have noted a higher level of arsenic in the groundwater around the disposal site.
Now, they are concerned that pumping a high volume of aquifer water in the vicinity of the site could cause tainted groundwater to seep more quickly down into the city's drinking water.
Commercial Appeal reporter Micaela Watts joins us to discuss the ongoing environmental concern.
