PIERCE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A large portion of the former Walter C. Beckjord coal plant is advertised for sale, just as Clermont County officials threaten to sue the owners to force the removal of billions of pounds of coal ash before the land can be redeveloped.
The Clermont County Department of Community and Economic Development is marketing up to 460 acres of the former power station site near New Richmond on its website for $13.5 million. The listing highlights 120 to 140 acres that are available now along the northern portion of the site, including the former ash pit known as Pond A, where “no restrictions on development should exist.”
That listing surprised Pierce Township Trustee President Allen Freeman, who said, “to be unrestricted, it troubles me a lot.”
The map was produced by the county’s CED. It listed former coal ash Pond B as likely ready for development in one to two years with restrictions prohibiting sub-grade structures or heavy industrial uses, but suggested warehousing.
The listing may contradict a 50-year environmental covenant filed at the Clermont County Recorder’s office in 2018 at the time Duke Energy sold the retired coal plant. That covenant banned residential, agricultural or any future development that uses groundwater at the site, including industrial use.
“That is a great economic development site. If it’s cleaned up properly, that could be a great asset to southern Ohio for many, many years,” Clermont County Commissioner David Painter said. “If it’s left in the current state, as it is with what, 600 million tons of coal ash residues sitting there, it’s not going to be much good for anyone.”
The Clermont County Board of Commissioners issued a formal Notice of Intent to Sue owners and former operators of the retired power station on June 1 to prevent the coal ash stored in unlined pits along the Ohio River from contaminating the region's drinking water supply.
WATCH: Everything we know about allegations that the Beckjord site is mishandling coal ash
Both Painter and Freeman want the coal ash excavated and removed before any land is sold or redeveloped.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence that our Ohio EPA is actually going to continue to monitor this once they get it sold,” Freeman said. “And we’re stuck with a leaky site that ends up having economic development theoretically on it, and it's polluted.”
Built in the 1950s as a coal-burning giant, the Beckjord plant created electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Southwest Ohio.
Duke Energy closed the plant in 2014 and sold the 1,400-acre site four years later to Missouri-based Commercial Liability Partners and its subsidiary, the New Richmond Development Corp.
CLP did not respond to a request for comment. The company specializes in rehabilitating former power plants, but the Beckjord cleanup has been controversial.
The WCPO 9 I-Team has been reporting on issues and incidents at the site for more than six years.
Residents complained about blowing clouds of coal fly ash in July 2020. Fly ash is the by-product of burned coal. According to the EPA, the powdery substance may contain low levels of radioactivity and contaminants such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic.
During demolition in February 2021, the main Beckjord smokestack crashed into the Ohio River, which is the main water source for 5 million people. Cleanup of the submerged debris took months.
In 2023, the I-Team discovered that two wells for monitoring groundwater for contamination were missing or damaged, but county officials were unaware.
The WCPO 9 I-Team also found that one of two interceptor wells meant to protect county drinking water from a migrating sulfate plume has not been operational since 2023.
Leftover coal ash is stored in unlined ash ponds in the river’s floodplain. They are directly adjacent to and just 1,000 feet away from the county’s primary drinking water wells for 145,000 residents.
“Quite frankly, it’s been a disappointment every step of the way,” Freeman said. “You end up with what we have now, which is a mess.”
Local officials also worried about the lack of disaster drills and an outdated emergency action plan that could leave police and fire departments unprepared if something happened at the Beckjord site.
Pierce and Anderson Township trustees wrote Gov. Mike DeWine a joint letter in 2025 asking for help. They received no response until the WCPO 9 I-Team reached out on their behalf. Since then, Pierce Township first responders have practiced a tabletop exercise at the site.
“We stayed on it unbeknownst while you were doing stories, we were doing letters back and forth to EPA agencies, back and forth to owners because we were concerned,” Painter said. “We stayed on that until it came down to this particular point.”
After consulting with environmental agencies, Painter realized they would not be able to force the changes that the county wanted.
Then land began to change owners in 2023, as New Richmond Development Corporation started to sell property to private owners.
A Brown County business, TBDA Investments LLC, bought eight parcels that total 294 acres of both hillside and riverfront land, close to areas where leftover coal ash is stored.
“One of those owners was not aware of what that would be. Obviously, New Richmond Development Corporation is supposed to manage those pits for legacy, and so there was some concern about that,” Painter said.
“That kind of material along the Ohio River is eventually going to be disastrous one way or another,” Painter said. “We’re just trying to head it off at this particular period so we can ensure that the water quality here stays good.”
Neither CPL nor TBDA Investments responded to requests for comment.
The county also wants updated safety plans, regular exercises for emergency preparedness, better and required groundwater monitoring, and a court-ordered plan to keep contaminants away from the public water supply.
“If that material is left there, and they are allowed to cap that in place and it migrates into the wells which, it will, eventually, it will get there … and if we have to extract that water and treat it to make sure that water is safe for drinking here in Clermont County, we’re going to spend millions of dollars,” Painter said.
He estimated a $30 million cost to clean water of heavy metals or sulfur so that it’s drinkable.
“The commissioners are highly concerned that EPA and OEPA are turning a blind eye and rubberstamping the ‘closure’ of the Beckjord Dump with no actual remedy to protect a public drinking water supply from known harm,” according to the notice of intent to sue former and current Beckjord owners, including Duke Energy, if changes aren’t made in 90 days.
Painter would not say when the county would file the lawsuit.
“Really, I’m not at liberty to be able to put a time frame on that,” Painter said. “But make no bones about it, we’re prepared to go forward with a federal suit here.”
If the county sued, it would be the second case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against CLP involving Beckjord.
A group of 100 Pierce Township residents filed a federal lawsuit in 2020 claiming the company violated a 1986 agreement to inform the public about contaminated waste disposal.
A portion of that case is set for trial on July 27, involving the destruction of trees in a greenbelt.
But U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett dismissed other claims made by the nonprofit Neighbors Opposing Pit Expansion, on technical grounds, ruling that people who lived near the Beckjord site did not have legal standing to sue over its contamination.
Attorneys for NOPE recently asked Barrett to overturn that decision because the case he based his ruling on, a citizen enforcement case originating in Alabama, was overturned on May 18 by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which unanimously ruled that a citizen environmental group did have the right to sue over 21 million tons of toxic coal ash in unlined pits on the banks of the Mobile River.
“When NOPE was hit with not having standing, I didn’t understand through the federal court how residents who are sitting right next to the pits did not have standing,” Freeman said. “If they don’t, then I don’t know who would have standing.”
