Cooper Power Station has 8 groundwater monitoring wells, 5 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between December 07, 2016 and October 22, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of lithium, molybdenum and sulfate.
Site descriptionCooper Power Station is a 344-MW facility owned by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative near Somerset, Kentucky. The station is adjacent to Lake Cumberland in Pulaski County. The Cooper Power Station has one landfill regulated under the federal coal ash rule. Cooper has two coal-fired generating units: Unit No. 2 which went online in October 1969 and Unit No. 1 that went online in February 1965. Following a settlement between East Kentucky Power Cooperative and the EPA in July 2007, the company was required to spend $650 million on pollution upgrades and $750,000 in penalties. The EPA had filed the lawsuit against Cooper for illegally modifying and increasing air pollution at two of its coal-fired power plants.
You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information about the Cooper Power Station, see EIP's 2019 National Coal Ash Report.