Dive Brief:

The Dumfries, Va., town council voted unanimously last week to press the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a criminal probe into Dominion Virginia Power's discharge of more than 30 million gallons of water from a coal ash facility last year, the Bay Journal reports.

The town wants regulators to scrutinize not just Dominion's discharge, but also the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality's decision to allow the water to be sent into the Potomac River.

The Bay Journal reports both Dominion and the DEQ say the discharge was allowed under the utility's permits, but Potomac Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks has argued the state agency has shown lax oversight and federal intervention is required.

Dive Insight:

Coal ash continues to vex Dominion, and now the utility is facing a potential criminal investigation following Dumfries' 6-0 town council vote. And according to the Bay Journal, elected officials calling for an investigation could carry weight.

“Elected officials getting involved is helpful in terms of bringing credibility to the issue,” Naujoks told the newspaper. “The more EPA gets pressured to look into it, the more likely it is they’ll do it." He also said there has been changing information coming out of DEQ director David Paylor's office, as to whether the discharge occurred and at what levels it was allowed.

An EPA spokesperson told the newspaper it could neither confirm nor deny it was conducting a criminal investigation.

In February, Dominion confirmed to news outlet InsideNoVa.com that it released 33.7 million gallons of untreated water from a coal ash pond into Quantico Creek. It's not clear whether the discharge was a violation of its permit, which Dominon denies. A Dominon spokesman told the Bay Journal that the discharge occured when it was allowed by the company's permit at the time. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality concurred.

Environmental advocates are now calling for an investigation into whether the utility had authorization to do so.

In April, Dominion will begin the process of draining 11 coal ash disposal ponds into Virginia waterways, but the utility continues to face protests, challenges to permits and calls for stricter standards.The utility is working to close ponds at four power plants, and is currently constructing a filtration system that aims to produce cleaner water than regulators have required.

Draining the ponds is expected to cost about $500 million.

A U.S. District Court last year rejected the utility's bid to dismiss a Sierra Club lawsuit for alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act and a state permit. The suit claims that arsenic and other pollutants are migrating from coal ash stored at its shuttered Chesapeake Energy Center into the Elizabeth River.