Fix the Pollution

To the editor:

Austin Power and the LCRA have many choices they need to make to remedy their pollution mess at the Fayette Power Plant. Austin is wanting to go green and divest of their 50% share of the FPP. Current legacy cost to their share is roughly $127 million. To abandon the site and leave the Coal Ash ponds and forever monitor them could cost $300 million or more, That’s if they don’t have further watershed contamination in the future or some other River pollution clean up. It could go as high as $2 billion.

The Materials company currently removing the dry ash claims to use 80-100% for cement, however the approx. 2 million metric tons they removed has only equated to 78,000 metric tons of cement. Clearly very inefficient.

The economic comparison between building a beneficiation plant (to convert pit/pond ash into cement) and performing site cleanup (closure-inplace) is effectively a trade-off between high upfront investment with potential profit versus a guaranteed sunk cost with long-term liability.

For a facility like the Fayette Power Project (FPP), where large volumes of ash are available near high-demand construction markets, the “Plant” option is typically the superior longterm financial strategy. While it requires significant CAPEX (estimated $30M–$100M), it turns a waste liability into a revenue stream (selling ash at $60–$120/ton), often resulting in a positive Net Present Value (NPV). In contrast, site cleanup is a pure expense (estimated $150k–$300k per acre) that leaves the owner with perpetual environmental liability.

Economic Breakdown by Scenario Option A: Ash Recycling Plant Option B: Site Cleanup (Capping) Upfront Cost (CAPEX) High ($30M - $150M) Requires specialized kilns (e.g., STAR technology) to dry and process ash.

Medium ($10M - $50M) Earthmoving, grading, and installing engineered synthetic caps.

Net Financial Impact 

Revenue Generating Sales of fly ash ($60-$120/ton) can offset all costs and generate profit.

100% Sunk Cost No revenue generation. Pure expense to the owner.

Liability Profile 

Eliminated ash is physically removed and encapsulated in concrete infrastructure.

Perpetual ash remains onsite; requires indefinite groundwater monitoring.

Execution Time 

10-20 Years Limited by market demand and daily plant throughput.

1-3 Years Rapid construction project.

Critical Feasibility Factors 

Market Price of Fly Ash $60 - $120 per ton Est. Closure Cost $250,000 per acre The “pit ash” Constraint: The viability of the plant depends heavily on the chemical composition of the “pit ash.”

Fly Ash (Fine): Highly desirable for cement. Justifies the plant cost.

Bottom/Pit Ash (Coarse): Requires extensive grinding and processing.

If the ash is contaminated with high sulfur or carbon, the processing costs may exceed the market value, making Site Cleanup the only viable option.

Real-World Context: FPP 

If FPP = Fayette Power Project (Texas): This site is a prime candidate for a recycling plant due to the booming Texas construction market.

Similar projects in the US have used beneficiation technologies (like Charah or SEFA) to process millions of tons of pond ash.

This is just an overview, but it shows there is really no good reason to further pollute the Colorado River or its tributaries. The State should make the FPP do some real problem solving instead of postponing the inevitable. No matter what, they have a mess and are adding to it daily. Kicking the can down the road won’t fix it. Investing now will save them money in the future.

Austin going green should inspire them to try and fix this pollution, it is half theirs.

Where, in the future, will the billions of dollars come from to monitor and clean it up?

Jerry Moerbe Nelsonville