May 8--It's becoming harder to believe Dominion Virginia Power when it discusses a Chesapeake golf course built atop fly ash. The utility is suffering from major credibility problems over what it knew, when it decided to share information with city officials and the public, and how the urgency to unload the growing fly ash mound at its Deep Creek landfill influenced its decisions.

Of course, we don't think Dominion officials wanted to harm the health of people living near Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville. But with each revelation about the course, it becomes easier to argue that nearby residents -- many of whom use wells for drinking water -- were part of a troublesome experiment: Could they live safely with the course?

Beginning in 2002, developers built the course using 1.5 million tons of ash supplied by Dominion to sculpt the greens and fairways. Fly ash, a product of burning coal to produce electricity, contains a variety of heavy metals and toxics.

Because the golf course doesn't have a liner beneath the fly ash, rain and other water draining through has picked up all kinds of poisons, carrying them into the water table.

Over the past 13 months, The Virginian-Pilot has chronicled the history of the site's development. City consultants last year found high levels of arsenic, lead, aluminum and other contaminants in groundwater under the course. Those toxins are linked to health problems. Tests by the Environmental Protection Agency also found elevated levels of arsenic and lead in some groundwater samples.

This week, Virginian-Pilot writer Robert McCabe reported that as early as December 2001, just a few months before fly ash was first trucked to the site, Dominion consultant URS Corp. noted in its initial findings that building the course atop fly ash might pose environmental risks. One costly option: Extend city water to homes ringing the course. About 200 potable wells lie within a 2,000-foot radius.

Dominion officials then sought what a company spokesman called more "sophisticated" tests, including enhanced modeling. The results of the additional testing found that using fly ash mixed with a binding agent should protect the groundwater, the consultant said.

"Dominion was not required to conduct these studies," J. David Rives, a senior vice president, said in a statement published Sunday. "Dominion voluntarily had this study performed because we wanted to make sure we fully understood the effects of this beneficial use project."

This begs several questions: Why did Dominion order the initial report unless there were serious concerns about the effects of the fly ash? Did Dominion plan to keep ordering updates until it received a positive result?

"That is an erroneous conclusion," said Jim Norvelle, a Dominion spokesman. "Modeling is expensive to do." Yet it's noteworthy that the initial modeling cited in the December 2001 report warned of potential risks -- something that appears to have come true.

Another issue: In June 2001, the Chesapeake City Council voted unanimously to grant a permit for the project. Members were assured by a Dominion executive that there were no environmental concerns they needed to fear. Was that executive, Max Bartholomew, in the dark? Shouldn't he have returned, that December, when the consultant's findings raised red flags?

These are not idle ruminations, given what we now know. Dominion didn't release the 2001 reports to Chesapeake officials until September 2008, several months after The Pilot's articles began spotlighting serious problems.

Last fall, Dominion pledged to pay $6 million to extend water lines to the homes near the golf course. Its credibility -- and residents' confidence -- would have been much higher if that pledge had occurred in 2001.

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