A solid waste permit for the Chesterfield site could come this year, before the Jan. 1 deadline for Dominion to submit a progress report on the assessments to lawmakers and state officials.

“If they’re allowed to continue along this path, they’ll go ahead and get their solid waste permit,” said Chase, whose district borders the power station.

“My constituents are going to be up in arms about this, because we have not had time to do the cost-benefit analysis. And yet we’re going to proceed with sealing and capping this in place,” she said.

The discrepancy stems from differences in how sampling is conducted, said Nate Benforado, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has pushed for Dominion to excavate and recycle its coal ash, as is happening in other Southern states in some, but not all, circumstances.

Benforado said much of DEQ’s sampling is done in surface waters, such as the James River, where the heavy metals that ash can contain, such as chromium, lead and arsenic, already have been diluted.

“If you want to understand the problems at this site, you need to look at different ways to test the site,” Benforado said. “That’s what we’re doing in Chesterfield. That’s what we’ve proved in the Chesapeake case.”