So far, the coal ash project in Narrows hasn't done any harm to the groundwater beneath it.

That's according to a report released by the Giles County Partnership for Excellence and American Electric Power, parent company of Appalachian Power Company.

The project, called Cumberland Park, has been controversial since it became public in the fall of 2007. The plan is to put 254,000 cubic yards of ash in the 100-year flood plain along the New River.

That's three years' of ash from Appalachian Power's coal-fired Glen Lyn electric generating plant. It's enough to raise roughly seven acres of riverbank by about 30 feet, making it even with U.S. 460.

The Giles County Partnership for Excellence, which owns the property, says it plans to sell the resulting building site and use the profits to benefit vocational education in county. That is the reason the partnership exists, though the school board has at times claimed to have no affiliation with the group, despite the fact that the assistant superintendent of schools was the group's president for a time.

The project is a benefit for Appalachian Power because it is much cheaper to haul the 200 tons of ash its Glen Lyn plant produces each day to Narrows than to haul it to a the former mine site near Charleston, W.Va., where it used to go.

A group calling itself the Concerned Citizens of Giles County has opposed the project in supervisors' meetings and in court, claiming that the project endangers the New River, residents of the county and anyone and anything that lives downstream of the site. Coal ash contains a long list of toxins, including lead, mercury and arsenic. Those things are apt to stay in the ash unless the ash becomes wet. Then the toxins leach out.

The citizens group questions the wisdom storing such a thing in a flood plain, particularly when there is no liner beneath the ash to contain it and whatever may seep out of it.

If the ash were simply being dumped at the site, it would be treated as solid waste, and a liner and test wells would be required. Since this ash is being used as construction fill, the project is exempt from those requirements. Two bills that would have required coal ash placed in a flood plain to be treated as solid waste failed in last year's General Assembly. Both the House of Delegates and the State Senate have approved such bills this year. They will have no effect on Cumberland Park.

When supervisors requested a liner and monitoring wells, Appalachian Power rejected the notion of a liner, saying that would cost too much. But the company agreed to drill two monitoring wells.

Those wells were sampled in March, June, September and December, testing for a range of contaminants. Some metals -- including lead and chromium -- were detected, but none exceeded levels allowed by various government standards.

"The groundwater monitoring results indicate no mobilization or leaching of pollutants attributable to the CCB Placement project," Robin Reash, AEP's principal environmental scientist, Certified Fisheries Scientist, said in a news release. "Groundwater science is complicated, but these results show no inherent risks from the project."

Joe Ryder, environmental coordinator at the Glen Lyn Plant, said, "The results support the conclusion that the facility has not impacted ground water."

One year's tests do not prove the long-term safety of the project, and the company says it will continue to monitor the wells this year. The next sampling is scheduled for next month.

Members of the Concerned Citizens are skeptical of the results and have installed their own test wells at the edge of the property, though they haven't tested samples yet.