A Jasper County resident is worried about environmental and public health if a NIPSCO permit is approved by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Office of Water Quality.
“I’m concerned about what it might do to the value of my property,” said Barb Deardorff, a Kankakee Township resident who lives about two miles from the R.M. Schahfer Generating Station and about seven-tenths of a mile from the Kankakee River. “But my major concerns are about public health, the contamination of our waterways and our threatened and endangered species.”
On Sept. 4, IDEM put out a notice for a NIPSCO permit application for its R.M. Schahfer Generating Station that would mix wastewater — including coal ash water — from the plant, a new gas plant and Jasper County’s incoming Amazon data center together in a settling basin before discharging the wastewater into the Kankakee River.
According to the permit application, on peak days, the data center and gas plant will withdraw more than 34 million gallons of water from the Kankakee River.
“That could be a pretty significant amount of water,” said Ben Inskeep, program director for the Citizens Action Coalition. “That puts into perspective that it’s a very large power plant.”
A NIPSCO representative was unable to provide a comment by deadline Friday.
At 4 p.m. Oct. 7, IDEM will host a virtual permit hearing for the draft permit on Microsoft Teams. A response is due by Oct. 22, according to the permit application.
Inskeep told the Post-Tribune that the permit application is unlike any he’s seen before.
“I’ve never seen a permit like this that’s mixing together coal, gas and data center waste streams before discharging,” Inskeep said.
There’s also no wastewater treatment plant planned for the data center site, he added.
Inskeep said that through the permit, NIPSCO is taking pollution from three sites and putting them together in a settling basin, where he alleges there will be limited treatment before it’s discharged into the Kankakee River.
He’s concerned about the mix of heavy metals like mercury, arsenic and lead that will be distributed into the waste stream.
“The fact that these different waste streams are being mixed together before being discharged presents a concern that it could be difficult to trace where certain pollutants are coming from,” Inskeep said.
In a Friday statement, Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, expressed her disdain for the permit application.
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“This facility already dumps up to 22 million gallons of wastewater per day,” Williams said in her statement. “This one permit covers a mess of projects: a coal plant that was due to shutter, a massive new gas plant, and an (artificial intelligence) data center complex, and all the waste goes through the same outfall. What could go wrong?”
Williams also expressed concern that the Schahfer coal plant is operating, even as a June Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission hearing revealed that two coal units are broken.
She also said she’s concerned that the hearing is virtual rather than held in-person in Jasper County.
“It’s blatantly clear that NIPSCO and Big Tech are trying to turn Jasper County into one giant, AI-boom, profit-making machine at the expense of Wheatfield residents’ health and safety,” Williams said in her statement. “JTNWI strongly opposes this permit. We encourage everyone in the Kankakee watershed and beyond to make your voice heard at the upcoming public hearing and in written comments.”
Deardorff is concerned that toxic chemicals including chromium, mercury and arsenic will be distributed into the Kankakee River if the permit is approved. A lot of people use the river for recreation, including swimming, tubing and fishing, and she said they will all be impacted by the wastewater discharge.
“We should be keeping it clean and free from contaminants,” Deardorff said. “There are also a lot of people that eat fish they’ve caught in the river. … Suddenly, our fish that people are eating are going to be contaminated with this, and this contamination isn’t even limited to our community. Communities downstream will be affected by this.”
According to the permit application, NISPCO has violated their current discharge permit five times since October 2020.
“It’s possible that they’d be permitted to discharge some amount of these toxic chemicals that have negative side effects to public health,” Deardorff said, “but also that they could exceed the limits in the permit, and that’s really concerning.”
The permit application is nearly 150 pages long, which Deardorff said is concerning to her. If people don’t have the time to go through the permit, they won’t understand what’s coming.
“I taught chemistry, and I have a degree in environmental management,” she said. “So when I read through it, I know what they’re talking about. But for the average citizen, it can be difficult. Plus you’re asking the average citizen to read like 143 pages, and who has the time to do that between work and children and other obligations?”