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Prince William County has ordered additional water tests at two houses near Dominion Virginia Power’s coal ash ponds despite a report from a county-hired contractor that concluded the ponds “do not represent a potential source in connection with lead or other constituents identified in the private well samples” taken earlier by the state.

The county hired Ashland-based Resource International as experts to help review test results from wells at homes near the ash ponds and help advise the county as Dominion Virginia Power prepares to close the ponds at Possum Point Power Station and three other sites around the state.

Resource International’s review of six Health Department well tests found no evidence of coal ash contamination and concluded that the tests were scientifically sound and valid. Those tests had been called into question by some residents, politicians and environmentalists.

Further, Resource International found that groundwater from the Possum Point plant and coal ponds could not naturally move toward the nearby homes with wells.

But additional outside tests of some of the same wells yielded vastly different results, which were not available to Resource International when it prepared the report.