DUMFRIES, Va. (ABC7) -- Dan Marrow has lived in his Dumfries home, near the Possum Point Station, for 21 years.

Since January, his life has changed dramatically.

He uses bottled water for drinking, and has a water filter in the shower, because he fears his water is contaminated.

"They warned us not to drink the water anymore," he says.

After reading media reports about coal ash water concerns by environmental groups, he had his water, which comes from a well in his backyard, tested in a lab.

"They no longer blessed the wells, that they're contaminated they're talking about hexachromium, lead, arsenic, boron, the typical coal ash contaminants," he added.

Marrow was among dozens of people who appeared for a community meeting Tuesday night to discuss the Possum Point facility and its impact on the area.

"I haven't felt comfortable drinking or even brushing my teeth or cooking with the water," says Brian West, a neighbor of Marrow's. "I'm certainly concerned for my health, the heath of my children raised in that residence."

The meeting comes just about a month after a settlement between Prince William County officials and Dominion Power.

Under that agreement, the utility pledged to go beyond state and federal standards in treating water from coal ash ponds prior to discharge.

Dominion also agreed to take hourly samples, and if high chemical levels were found, promised to provide additional treatment

Permit-required sampling and testing would be done by a state-accredited independent laboratory.

"This is really all very much of a good thing," Dominion spokesperson David Botkins told ABC7 News back in February. "It's an environmental stewardship story."

In January, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved a permit for Dominion to release 215-million gallons of treated coal ash water into Quantico Creek, part of a nationwide EPA effort to dispose of old coal ash.

The coal ash water is stored in five ponds at Possum Point.

Once they are drained, Dominion says, all five will be permanently sealed.

The utility says the heavily treated water will be environmentally friendly.

"We share in the love and reverence for the Potomac, and the James, and Quantico Creek. We're going to do nothing to harm that," Botkins said.

But the modified permit still faces legal challenges from the state of Maryland, and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, an environmental watchdog group.

Especially troubling, a Riverkeeper spokesperson says, is the release of 27-million gallons of untreated coal ash water in Quantico Creek in March and April of 2015.

"This is untreated, contaminated ash water that was pumped into Quantico creek," says Dean Naujoks. "We've raised concerns to the EPA. We've called for a criminal investigation, and so has the town of Dumfries."

InsideNova.com reports the Dumfries Town Council is calling for a federal investigation into whether Dominion broke the law by releasing the water.

In a statement, Dominion says the discharge was done 'within the legal parameters of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality permit,' and 'the water that was released was tested before it was released, as we have asserted many times before.'

InsideNova reports a Dominion representative told Dumfries Council members that plant workers 'stopped short' of releasing water that had direct contact with coal ash.

"Dominion Virginia Power is not dumping coal ash wastewater into any creek, river, or waterway," stated company spokesperson Charles Penn, in an email statement. "As part of the process to close coal ash ponds, water will be filtered, treated, monitored and discharged in a controlled manner into nearby waterways."

The InsideNova website also says it's unclear if Dominion 'informed DEQ it was releasing the water' in the first place.

"We want answers as to why that happened, why it wasn't reported when it should have been, and why DEQ seems to be taking no action on it," Naujoks says.

Virginia State Senator Scott Surovell (D-36th Dist) proposed a failed bill calling for Possum Point coal ash to be stored in 'modern, synthetically-lined landfills'.

Surovell hopes state and federal regulators make smart choices about the future of Possum Point.

"We get once chance to do this right," he says. "Once we decide how to store this stuff, this coal ash, it's going to be stored that way for the next one hundred years."

But what about concerned homeowners like Dan Marrow and Brian West?

"Our groundwater testing indicates no evidence of any contaminants," Penn says, in a statement." No impacts to human health or the environment have been identified."

Penn says groundwater monitoring will continue at the site, as required by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

Both Marrow and West say at this point, they'd like to get hooked up to city water.

"We want answers," Marrow says. "And we're having a hard time getting them. Truthful answers."