Old coal-fired power plants have caused contamination, but cleanup in question

Steve Reilly

Their empty smokestacks loom imposingly over the communities they helped power for generations.

But the most lasting legacy of New York’s shuttered coal-fired power plants may lie underground.

In the Southern Tier, the bankruptcy sale of power plants formerly owned by AES Eastern Energy L.P. and its affiliates in late 2012 led to new disclosures about decades of industrial contamination left behind at the sites, and raised key questions about who, if anyone, is responsible for cleaning it up.

A record of U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings spanning more than 1,200 documents, in addition to nearly 800 pages of state Department of Environmental Conservation records obtained by thePress & Sun-Bulletin, shows the extent of contamination underground at the deserted plants.

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