Recording

0:10
Good evening.

0:11
Thank you for joining.

0:13
We're here for NIPSCO’ s Bailly Generating Station ash pond closure public meeting.

0:22
Welcome attendees that have joined tonight.  

0:31
There are two keyways as we go through the presentation that folks can jump in and ask questions to the NIPSCO team.

0:40
To ask questions live, you want to click on the Q&A live event which will be located in the right-hand column on your screen.

0:50
Click ask question at the bottom of the screen.

0:54
You will have the opportunity to type your name into the chat box or you can ask questions anonymously. If you have dialed into the meeting, and you do not have access to the chat or think of questions after the live session, you can submit them to NIPSCO_Environmental@NiSource.com.

1:19
And we will respond to your questions within 72 hours after the meeting or after the initial question that's asked.

1:34
So the NIPSCO team presenting today is Megan Henning, which is myself.

1:38
I'm Project Communications lead for NIPSCO

1:42
We have Jennifer Wunsh which is Principal Environmental Policy, Rob Ridge, Manager Project Engineering, Jeff Loewe, Principal Environmental Remediation.

1:53
And our agenda for today is overview of NIPSCO’s Bailey Generating Station Ash Pond closure project as well as an opportunity for questions about the ash pond closure work after we complete.

2:11
I am going to turn to an overview of our NIPSCO profile.

2:15
NIPSCO is working to become Indiana's premier utility.

2:19
We are across Northern Indiana in 32 counties, and we service both gas and electric.

2:25
You can see our map here.

2:27
Our electric is outlined in green, our gas is outlined in blue and NIPSCO services 2900 employees and our corporate headquarters is in Merrillville IN.

2:40
So we have 483,000 electric customers and we have 859,000 natural gas customers throughout, 32 counties for natural gas.

2:58
There are some other key points here are generating capacity is at 3165 megawatts and we have 17,000 miles of transmission and depth distribution gas main throughout our service territory as well Bailey generating station coal ash pond closure project.

3:27
So we're going to kick it off with these slides here and I'm going to turn the presentation over to our expert, Jennifer Wunsh.

3:38
Good evening and thank you for joining us.

3:40
My name is Jennifer Wunsh and I'm a principal in the environmental policy and sustainability department for Nisource.

3:48
I'm here tonight to provide you with a short summary of the Environmental Protection agencies, the EPA Coal Combustion Residuals Rule.

3:56
This is also known as the CCR rule.

3:59
And I'm going to set the stage for our technical experts who will present you with some of the details on the work that we will be doing at the Bailey Generating Station.

4:08
I'm going to refer to that as Bailey going forward.

4:12
Before I talk about the specifics of the CCR rule, I'd like to begin with a short introduction to coal ash.

4:18
I think that may be useful for a better understanding of the information you're going to hear later on in this presentation.

4:26
There are three kinds of coal ash at Bailey.

4:29
There's bottom ash, boiler slag and fly ash.

4:32
Bottom ash and boiler slag are essentially the same thing, but they have different physical properties depending on the type of boiler they were generated in.

4:42
This is the ash that falls to the bottom of the boiler after coal is burned to generate the electricity.

4:49
Bottom ash is comparable to the ash left after a campfire, and boiler slag has more of a glass type texture.

4:57
Fly ash is the ash that becomes airborne in the boiler.

5:00
If we're going to use the campfire metaphor, it's kind of like the particles that you see floating in the air.

5:08
I'd like to talk a little bit about the CCR rule to give you a general broad understanding of what that is.

5:14
The EPA has finalized national regulations to provide a comprehensive set of requirements for the safe management and disposal of CCRS.

5:24
This final rule and several subsequent revisions are the culmination of extensive studies by EPA and establishes in part the requirements to safely remediate and close CCR areas.

5:39
Both EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management or IDEM, have oversight and enforcement authority.

5:47
The work we will discuss tonight will be done in coordination with IDEM consistent with the requirements that EPA established in the CCR rule and the subsequent revisions.

6:00
The CCR rule is also unique in the way that it's implemented.

6:04
There are clear steps that must be taken in a very specific order and within specific time frames.

6:11
We have broken the work down into three main phases.

6:15
Phase one was to discontinue CCR going into the ponds at Bailey.

6:20
Bailey is no longer generating CCR since the coal units were retired in 2018.

6:26
Phase two is where we're at today.

6:30
As I mentioned earlier, we have been working with item and submitted an application for pond closure in 2021.

6:37
There has been a lot of work done since that since that time with lots of questions being asked back and forth asking and answering questions.

6:47
The CCR material at the Bailey Generating Station will be removed with disposal at a state-of-the-art, double lined and monitored landfill at our Schaefer facility in Wheatfield, Indiana.

7:00
Based on the CCR rule compliance timeline, we must have the Bailey ponds closed by October of 2025 to stay in compliance.

7:08
CCR removal is planned to begin in 2024.

7:13
OK, Finally, let's discuss phase three of our CCR plan.

7:17
We call this Phase 3, but really it started in 2015 when we installed a network of groundwater monitoring wells across the site and began sampling.

7:27
Results are available on our website at nipsco.com.

7:31
The sampling data indicate that groundwater has been impacted from the ash ponds.

7:36
Our next step following the pond closures will be to select a groundwater remedy and then to implement, operate and monitor that remedy.

7:46
NIPSCO’ s commitment to protecting human health and the environment extends to being a positive force and improving our communities and our environment.

7:56
Our dedicated employees and environmental professionals including me, work, play and raise families here in Northwest Indiana.

8:04
The work being proposed today is another step forward in enhancing our environment here.

8:10
This concludes my portion of the presentation tonight.

8:13
Rob Ridge will take you through the details of the pond closure project.

8:17
Thank you for your time and participation this evening.

8:21
And Rob, if you're ready, I'll turn it over to you.

8:24
Thank you.

8:35
All right, thank you, Jennifer.

8:36
My name is Rob Ridge.

8:37
I'm the manager of project engineering for our major projects group here at NIPSCO, been with the company and in the same department for about 13 years now.

8:45
This slide that we're currently showing covers the scope of the project.

8:48
So first off, as you would expect, public outreach is one of the first steps that we would have in in project execution.

8:54
For a project like this, we consider a key to project success and is one of the reasons why we're meeting with you today.

9:04
Like Jennifer said previously we did meet with item multiple times during the permitting process to confirm a consistent understanding of our closure approach to ensure compliance with state and federal requirements.

9:20
This slide does show the four ponds that will be closed during execution of this project.

9:25
So the four ponds at Bailey will be closed by removing CCR instead of closing the ponds in place.

9:32
This work will include dewatering and excavation of the CCR material.

9:37
This work will be completed with heavy civil equipment, so excavators, front end loaders, dump trucks, things like that you can picture during residential neighborhood development or maybe a transportation project or other similar earth moving projects.

9:52
That's the type of equipment that will be utilized for this project.

9:56
After all CCR material is removed, backfill material and topsoil will be imported from local sources and filled into the closed impoundments to allow vegetation to grow in future stormwater to shed off of the closed ponds.

10:12
Like Jennifer said, CCR material will be transported from Bailey to our existing landfill located at Schaefer in Wheatfield IN.

10:22
The project is also planned to be executed under the National Maintenance Agreement, which has requirements to utilize union labor.

10:31
Megan, if you could take me to the next slide, please.

10:37
All right.

10:37
So this slide shows the potential truck routing to haul CCR material from Bailly to Schahfer.

10:43
Trucks are currently planned to exit out of our gate and are planning to be routed E on State Road 12 where they will continue to State Road 49 and head South to our facility at Schahfer.

10:55
Film material and topsoil will be sourced by the awarded construction contractor from locations near Bailey and may take a different path to haul the material to the site.

11:08
Megan, if you could take me to 1 more slide please.

11:11
This slide shows the current schedule milestones for the project.

11:15
So Item has reviewed our closure application as and has considered the application complete which has allowed us to hold our public meeting with you today.

11:26
After the public meeting is concluded, it will open the public comment period.

11:31
After that is completed, it will allow Item to move forward with approval of the closure application in advance of our start of construction in Q1 of 2024, which will line us up to complete construction of the project by Q3 in 2025 ahead of our required completion date.

11:57
Next, I will pass over the presentation to Jeff Loewe to cover groundwater corrective measures.

12:04
Thanks, Rob.

12:05
As mentioned, my name is Jeff Loewe.

12:06
I'm with the environmental remediation department and part of my responsibilities include our managing our groundwater monitoring programs as well as our groundwater remediation programs.

12:20
And so while today's focus is on the pond closure design, I am going to take a few minutes to provide an update on our groundwater monitoring program.

12:31
So in response to the 2015 CCR rule, NIPSCO installed at that time a compliant monitoring well network and we implemented a groundwater monitoring program beginning in that 20/15/2016 time frame.

12:50
The CCR rule identifies a groundwater impact as when you have a statistically valid exceedance in concentration of a constituent above its applicable groundwater protection standard.

13:06
And in 2018, we identified groundwater impacts for four constituents, those being arsenic, cadmium, lithium, and thallium due to the presence of the statistically significant levels those SSLS, which is again simply that we found the concentrations above the groundwater protection standard.

13:30
So due to the SSLS as required by the CCR rule, NIPSCO initiated an assessment of corrective measures program called an ACM and we did that in 2019.

13:43
The objective of the ACM is to identify both the nature and extent of the impacts as well as those corrective measures that are available to remediate the groundwater at a later date.

13:57
Our ongoing groundwater monitoring and the evaluation of the corrective measure alternatives, these activities we continue and we remain compliant with the requirements of the CCR rule.

14:12
And NIPSCO is going to continue to monitor the groundwater at the Bailly Station during the ACM process and after which we will select a remedy for the groundwater and we're going to, we will present that remedy to item as well as the public at a future public meeting.

14:31
So again, this meeting today is to simply focus on the pond closure design.

14:37
I did want to give you an update on our groundwater monitoring program.

14:41
And as I said, more will come at a later date.

14:45
Next slide please.

14:49
So the map you're seeing here is representation of our groundwater monitoring wall network.

14:55
And while the rule defines a minimum number of wells for the evaluation of the groundwater as you can see.

15:03
So the rule requires a minimum of four wells and, you could see that we have installed a thorough network.

15:12
We have over 20 monitoring wells at the Bailly station and those are have been evaluated and expanded and implemented to help us understand what the groundwater characteristics are at this particular station.

15:30
Next slide please.

15:37
So if you do have any questions regarding our groundwater monitoring and the corrective measure process, you can send those to me directly.

15:46
You can use the contact information here on the screen.

15:51
Also the contact information and the e-mail address is on our website, as previously mentioned on our CCR website.

16:00
So just because this screen disappears doesn't mean that you're going to miss your opportunity for comment.

16:06
So next slide please.

16:11
And that's really the culmination of what I wanted to mention today as far as the status of our groundwater program.

16:19
As far as this public meeting, again focusing on the closure process and the closure application and design, the public has the ability to submit comments to Item for 30 days and comments can be submitted to item up through November 29th of this year.

16:38
The contact information for IDEM Adam being our project manager, his e-mail address, telephone number, all that is here.

16:46
I believe all this information is also on our website as well as you can see on the 4th bullet item.

• 
  16:56
  That item has maintained and placed a fact sheet on their website https://www.in.gov/idem/fact-sheets/#olq

17:04
Searching at IDEM items website you can find the pertinent information and contact information for submitting public comments to item, submitting questions to our team and we and Item would gladly answer those for you.

17:22
Lastly, if you did want to view a copy of our application for the pond closure, a hard copy is at the Chesterton Library or you can access on our CCR web page at the link that's provided there on the screen. (https://www.nipsco.com/our-company/about-us/our-environment/ccr-rule-compliance)

17:46
Next slide please.

17:51
And with that, I believe my portion is complete and I'm going to turn it back over to Megan and Tara for our question and answer.

18:02
Yeah, absolutely.

18:03
Thanks, Jeff.

18:04
So I'm Tara McElmurry with NIPSCO Communications and I'll be facilitating any questions that have come in.

18:11
Right now, we are not showing any questions, but as we, as Megan shared at the beginning, you can go ahead and use that little Q&A chat bubble on your screen and go ahead and submit a question in that box in the bottom of the box there.

18:27
And you have the option to do it anonymously as well.

18:30
So we'll give it a couple minutes here to see if there are any questions.

18:36
And as you see here on the page, that website that our presenters have been referring to as nipsco.com/environment and that'll take you to all this good information that was just shared.

19:31
All right.

19:32
So we're not seeing any questions live, but if you do think of a question after we wrap here, Please remember you can e-mail us at nipsco_environmental@nisource.com.

19:48
So thanks everybody for attending this evening.

19:52
And yeah, have a good evening.

19:55
Thank you.

19:58
Thank you everyone.

20:01
Thank you very much.

20:52
Have a good evening.