cleanup · Chautauqua County
Dunkirk Fly Ash Landfill
Pomfret
Separately located industrial ash landfill associated with the retired Dunkirk generating station. DEC records a lined 42-acre disposal cell, leachate collection and recirculation, groundwater monitoring, and continuing solid-waste permitting.
The documented story
What happened here?
The Van Buren Road facility in Pomfret received coal-combustion ash associated with the Dunkirk power station. It is regulated as industrial solid-waste facility 07N21, not as a State Superfund or federal NPL site.
The landfill is mapped separately because it is several miles from the waterfront generating station.
DEC permit materials connect the site not only to Dunkirk but also to combustion residuals and emission-control byproducts from the Huntley and Oswego generating plants. Permitted streams have included fly ash, bottom ash, pyrites, treatment sludge, trona, grit-blasting waste, demineralizer resin, activated carbon, urea, and coal-yard debris.
A lined disposal footprint, borrow area, leachate systems, monitoring points, and future final-cover area are different features within the property. The pin marks the regulated facility, not an assertion that all land around Van Buren Road contains ash.
A retired power plant still has an active waste-management landscape
Dunkirk's coal ash traveled inland to a separate lined landfill in Pomfret
42 acreswithin the lined disposal cell
Power-generation era
Combustion residuals moved away from the lakefront station
Fly ash, bottom ash, pyrites, treatment sludge, trona, activated carbon, and other permitted plant wastes were managed at a separate inland facility rather than at the generating-station pin.
2015-2022
Plant retirement did not close the landfill automatically
The generating station entered mothballed status and later permanent retirement, but the landfill retained monitoring, permit, leachate, closure-planning, and financial-assurance responsibilities.
Present
Liners and leachate systems remain operating safeguards
The facility uses lined containment, primary and secondary leachate management, groundwater monitoring, annual reporting, and planning for final cover and post-closure care.
Chronology
Timeline
- Power-generation era
The facility managed fly ash and related coal-combustion residuals from Dunkirk generation.
- 2015
The generating station entered mothballed status, prompting review of the landfill's future.
- 2022
DEC processed the generating station's permanent-retirement notice, further separating the retired waterfront plant from the landfill's continuing waste-management obligations.
- 2023 report
The landfill continued regulated operation, leachate management, monitoring, and permit-renewal review.
- 2024-2025
DEC records continued water-discharge and landfill permit review, while financial-assurance estimates addressed eventual final cover and closure work.
Environmental record
Documented impacts
- The DEC annual report documents a lined disposal cell, primary and secondary leachate systems, groundwater monitoring, and financial planning for final cover.
- Those engineered systems and sampling obligations are safeguards for managing buried ash; their existence alone does not establish an off-site release.
- Coal ash should not be labeled radiological or Superfund without a separate site-specific regulatory finding.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- The facility uses double-liner and leachate-management systems and submits monitoring and annual operating information to DEC.
- Closure, post-closure care, and financial assurance remain part of the long-term solid-waste framework.
Then and now
The site today
This is continuing waste infrastructure linked to a retired power plant, not a completed brownfield cleanup or a radiological site designation.
The landfill and waterfront station therefore remain separate pins even though one industrial history connects them.
Atlas connections
Connected places
These collections explain documented material, facility, waterway, ownership, or cleanup relationships. Inclusion does not imply that every place shares one contaminant source or plume.
Dunkirk power generation and ash management
The retired Lake Erie generating station and its separately located Pomfret fly-ash landfill are historically connected but regulated as different facilities.
The waterfront station produced the coal-combustion residuals and relinquished its major air permits after retirement.
Industrial ash landfillDunkirk Fly Ash LandfillThe Van Buren Road landfill has its own liner, leachate, monitoring, permitting, and eventual closure obligations.