Meramec Energy Center has 12 groundwater monitoring wells, 9 of which have been polluted above federal advisory levels based on samples collected between March 29, 2016 and December 20, 2019. Groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of boron, molybdenum, arsenic, sulfate, lithium and cobalt.
Site descriptionAmeren Energy Company’s Meramec Energy Center is in the city of St. Louis, MO, in between the banks of the Mississippi River and its tributary the Meramec River in St. Clair County. Meramec began operations in 1953 and has a maximum generating capacity of 736-MW from four units. The four units were all coal-fired until 2016, when Units 1 and 2 were converted to natural gas. The entire facility is slated for retirement by the end of 2022. Ameren has admitted to contaminating the groundwater around their ash ponds and now are required to close all active ash ponds by 2023. Meramec has reported statistically significant increases for lithium, molybdenum, and arsenic in its unlined disposal ponds and will release the report from their assessment monitoring in late 2019. Meramec’s five active surface impoundments are regulated under the CCR rule.
You can find the industry-reported data here. For more information about the Meramec Energy Center, see EIP's 2019 National Coal Ash Report.