GLEN ALLEN -- The state Department of Environmental Quality took another step Wednesday toward the possible toughening of regulations governing coal-ash projects.

In a meeting that lasted more than four hours, DEQ officials brainstormed with a panel of about a dozen experts on potential changes to existing regulations. Ideas included a state public notice requirement as well as more rigorous enforcement of rules maintaining a distance between fly ash and water.

DEQ officials will consolidate the recommendations, which could eventually go before the department's Office of Regulatory Affairs and begin a review process that could take as long as two years before becoming finalized.

The session Wednesday followed one like it in June, at which representatives from Dominion Virginia Power, fly-ash recycling executives, professors from Virginia Tech and an environmental advocate weighed possible changes to the rules.

Both meetings were driven in part by news coverage of two fly-ash projects in different parts of the state -- the Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville, located in Chesapeake, and Cumberland Park, a riverside development in Giles County -- both structural fill projects involving fly ash from coal-burning power plants.

Fly ash is a powdery residue left from the burning of coal for electricity. It contains heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury that can pose environmental threats to air and water.

At Battlefield Golf Club, 1.5 million tons of fly ash from a Dominion Virginia Power plant in Chesapeake were used to contour the 18-hole course.

In Giles County, the plan is to use about three years' worth of fly ash from Appalachian Power Co.'s Glyn Lyn power plant to raise more than 7 acres along the New River about 30 feet. The land, owned by the Giles County Partnership for Excellence, is zoned for industrial use.

Among the ideas broached Wednesday: toughening the requirements regarding the minimum distance between fly ash and the "maximum seasonal water table," the highest point at which groundwater on a site rises; revisiting the flood-plain restrictions on fly-ash projects; and establishing a state requirement for public notification before projects can move forward.

A memo from Lee Daniels, a Virginia Tech professor and fly-ash expert, stated: "We should focus on limiting water migration into and through the ash."

Darlene Cunningham of Pearisburg drove with two other members from Concerned Citizens of Giles County to sit in on the session Wednesday.

They were concerned that a public notification requirement -- which is now left up to individual localities -- become part of the state's regulations.

"I was really glad to hear some of the panelists who were concerned about the environment," she said.