All coal-fired power plants must dispose of the toxic by-products of burning coal: ash that is full of heavy metals like mercury and arsenic. The coal ash is collected in a landfill at the site of the plant, where rain and other water seeps through and collects at the bottom of the landfill.

MidAmerican Energy is in the process of developing a new plan to dispose of its coal ash wastewater from its George Neal coal plant near Sioux City. They recently published their proposal, which is to pipe the untreated contaminated wastewater, called leachate, directly into the Missouri River. MidAmerican's own testing of this water shows that it has mercury, arsenic, lead, cyanide, aluminum, lithium, antimony, barium, and more than a dozen other dangerous pollutants.

In total, MidAmerican is proposing to discharge up to 171,000 pounds of chemical waste from the coal ash landfill directly into the river, with no filtering or treatment, every year the plant remains in operation.

MidAmerican is required to take public comments on its plan before it applies for approval by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the comment period is open until April 14th. Use the form below to send official comments to MidAmerican, telling it to stop its plan to dump poison in the Missouri River, to treat its wastewater, and to shut down the Neal 3 coal plant to stop creating more toxic coal ash. The message sent through this form will be copied to several others, including DNR staff, IUB staff, and MidAmerican Energy staff.

You can also use the copy below to send your own message directly to the MidAmerican representative collecting the comments: Jacob Arnold, Senior Environmental Coordinator, at jacob.arnold@midamerican.com.

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