Southern Co. shareholder vote to address coal ash

By Margaret Newkirk

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Southern Co. investors will decide Wednesday whether the utility holding company should respond more robustly to a 2008 coal ash spill at another utility's power plant in Tennessee.

A shareholder resolution on the coal combustion byproduct is on the agenda of Wednesday's annual meeting at Callaway Gardens.

The company recommends voting against both that resolution and another shareholder proposal related to carbon emissions.

Shareholder resolutions don’t typically pass. Instead, investor activists aim for a respectable percentage of votes in the hopes of getting corporate leaders to respond.

Coal ash measures began making the rounds of annual meetings for coal-fired utility companies this year. Backers got a 25.6 percent vote in support of a resolution at a Montana company last month.

Green Century Capital Management, a Boston environmental investment group, is behind the Southern Co. push. RiskMetrics Group, a large proxy analysis firm that advises institutional investors, has recommended that shareholders vote for the coal ash resolution.

Coal ash is what burning coal leaves behind. Like many utilities, Southern stores much of it in ponds. It has more than 20 ponds in its four-state territory.

Coal ash got national attention in December 2008 when a dam collapsed at a Tennessee Valley Authority pond, spilling tons of ash sludge on nearby property.

Dozens of lawsuits followed, Green Capital's Emily Stone said. Then, this year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced two proposals for regulations that could change how Southern handles coal ash.

The shareholder resolution says ash ponds contain heavy metals, and that a 2009 EPA report found that ash could leach into groundwater. It asks Southern to prepare a report on its efforts, beyond current regulations, for reducing risk to shareholders.

Southern Co. referred questions to its proxy filing, which said Southern has "an extensive system in place to ensure the safe and proper management” of coal ash.  It said the environmental risks of the ash are minimal and that Southern is recycling significant amounts of ash into concrete production.