More than 1 million Americans reside within 3 miles of a coal plant, like this one. And most of the country’s coal ash ponds are unlined, according to the legal nonprofit Earthjustice. To date, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not deemed coal ash hazardous, even though many of the chemicals in it are acknowledged toxins. Thus, unlined coal ash ponds deep enough that they close in on the water table can contaminate local groundwater supplies, said Chris Groves, a Western Kentucky University hydrogeology professor. A recent report by the Southern Environmental Law Center, or SELC, found that Scherer’s coal ash was at least 75 feet deep, fewer than 5 feet above the water table. It stated that coal ash in an unlined pond “will be capable of leaching toxic metals into Georgia’s groundwater.” In homes that have private wells, a pump is used to draw water up a pipe, which is then filtered for sediment. Some residents have purchased additional water filters to reduce the levels of heavy metals that may be in the water, while others boil their water as a precaution, though Hilburn notes that neither fully eliminates the threat.

During the Obama administration, a series of regulations designed to protect the environment sent shockwaves through the coal industry. Rules governing air pollution and the spewing of toxic chemicals like mercury from plant smokestacks prompted utilities like Georgia Power to retire plants in part due to the costs of complying with regulations. While the plant in Juliette will remain open, Georgia Power announced plans to shutter 29 ash ponds in early 2016, including Scherer’s, as a result of the administration’s 2015 coal ash rule, the nation’s largest set of regulations for the byproduct. The utility currently recycles about three-quarters of newly-produced coal ash at Scherer and other plants for use in products like cement, drywall, and cinder blocks, but for the existing waste, Georgia Power intends to “dewater” millions of cubic yards of ash and pack it into a smaller space. The Altamaha Riverkeeper believes Georgia Power’s disposal strategy is flawed — specifically because it doesn’t involve adding a lining as the pond transitions to what would essentially be a landfill. Chris Bowers, an SELC attorney, said allowing Scherer’s coal ash disposal site to remain unlined would exacerbate what he describes as a “slower moving, but equally concerning, kind of disaster” on par with headline-grabbing coal-ash spills at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant, half an hour west of Knoxville, and Duke Energy’s Dan River site, near North Carolina’s border with Virginia. (Just after the New Year, North Carolina announced that in the wake of the 2014 Dan River accident, it had come to an agreement with Duke on “the largest coal ash cleanup in the nation’s history,” with the utility pledging to excavate close to 80 million tons and move it to lined landfills.)

Over the course of the past year, Hilburn and Sams have gathered water samples that they say show coal ash has leaked into both Lake Juliette as well as groundwater consumed by residents. They’ve tested 29 wells, and nearly every sample has contained potentially unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium, which is linked to ulcers, liver and kidney failure, and cancer. Sams says those initial findings suggest groundwater near Scherer could be more widely contaminated than the utility has previously reported.

Under the Obama-era coal ash rules, Georgia Power has had to monitor for potential leaks. The company’s own tests have detected elevated levels of cobalt — which can cause thyroid damage — according to a 2018 analysis of the utility’s data by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project, or EIP, a watchdog group made up of ex-EPA staffers. The two environmental organizations also found that 11 of Georgia’s 12 coal-fired plants, including Scherer, have contaminated nearby groundwater. That finding is all the more alarming, environmental experts and advocates say, considering that nearly two years ago the state requested permission to take over regulation of coal ash disposal from the federal government. The move would exempt Georgia plants from having to line their coal ash ponds and potentially limit the ability to sue over environmental concerns.

Sams hopes the Riverkeeper’s testing will pressure Georgia Power into creating what they believe is a safer coal ash-disposal plan. This past summer, Hilburn and Sams joined a small army of residents, advocates, and scientists who spoke at an Atlanta EPA hearing, and asked the three-person panel from the agency to deny the state’s coal ash regulation request. Hilburn warned that Georgia’s environmental regulators have too little funding and staffing to properly monitor how the ash was disposed of. The opponents said they worried the state would limit public input on future permits for waste sites. (A Georgia Environmental Protection Division spokesperson declined to comment.)

Advocates say Juliette shows how listening to locals is necessary: Georgia Power’s own monitoring of Scherer’s wells had detected “elevated concentrations” of cobalt and boron, according to Earthjustice and EIP’s analysis of the data. But Hilburn said the results were buried deep in complex reports that left many Juliette residents in the dark. Further, Hilburn and Sams believe that Juliette’s reliance on groundwater as its primary source of drinking water amplifies the threat from unlined coal ash ponds.

Holly Crawford, a spokesperson for Georgia Power, said that “the company has identified no risk to public health or drinking water.” Last month, the EPA’s top boss, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, approved Georgia’s permit. The Altamaha Riverkeeper has already plotted its next steps in Juliette. More home visits. More well testing. More evidence. “Georgians deserve better,” Sams said.

Neither Hilburn nor Sams ever imagined squaring off with Georgia’s largest utility, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, the United States’ second-largest energy provider. Hilburn, an Oregon native who grew up loving the outdoors, spent most of her career as an ornithologist studying macaws in Costa Rica, loggerhead shrikes on California’s San Clemente Island, and red knots in St. Catherines Island off the Georgia coast. Restless with the slow pace of research, she started to look for work that could more quickly produce tangible results. In 2014, the Altamaha Riverkeeper hired Hilburn to oversee its coastal initiatives. As the months passed, she learned the tiny 137-mile river had one of the East Coast’s largest drain basins, stretching from the Georgia coast, 60 miles south of Savannah, up to the Blue Ridge Mountains’ foothills. The following year, she took over the entire operation.

It was an attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance, an association of over 300 environmental organizations, who turned her attention to coal ash. He took her to Lake Juliette, a Georgia Power reservoir that’s filled by pumping water from the nearby Ocmulgee River. Hilburn learned to collect water samples and spot surface leaks. She was soon asking veteran riverkeepers about the intricacies of ash, filing open records requests for state environmental data, and following the changing regulations in Washington, D.C. In 2016, Hilburn received an anonymous tip that heavy rains had forced Georgia Power to pump coal ash from the shuttered Plant Branch site in Milledgeville — an hour east of Scherer and also along the Altamaha drainage basin — into a nearby recreational lake overseen by the utility. Hilburn flew a drone overhead, captured images, and complained to state officials. Though a Georgia Power spokesperson said the company complied with its permits, Hilburn believes her documentation pressured the utility to excavate Branch’s coal ash from an unlined pond to prevent future leaks.

As she learned more, Hilburn kept visiting Juliette to speak with homeowners who kept asking her to test their water. She began collecting samples under homes, from kitchen sinks, and in backyard wells. This past spring, she gained some much-needed help in the form of Sams. A ninth-generation Georgian, Sams was raised in a deeply conservative family, and joined the U.S. Army after the 9/11 attacks. After returning from a deployment in Iraq, Sams grew disillusioned with the Republican Party and started working on Democratic campaigns across the South. In the summer of 2017, Sams joined the Cajun Navy, helping to track down residents and bring them to safety in Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath. The chance to work with Altamaha Riverkeeper allowed him to repurpose his political chops to protect his home state’s waterways. “When I first heard about coal ash, I’d never been pissed off about something that much — even about fighting wars over oil,” Sams said. It wouldn’t be long until he’d call on his connections in the state legislature to look into it.