EPA announces crackdown on toxic coal ash from landfills
The last
The Biden administration wants to close a loophole that had exempted hundreds of inactive coal ash dumps from rules designed to prevent heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic from seeping into groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.
Coal ash, a by-product of the combustion of coal in power plants, contains lead, lithium and mercury. Those metals can pollute waterways and drinking water supplies and have been associated with health effects, including cancer, birth defects and developmental delays in children. They are also poisonous to fish.
The proposed regulation, part of a settlement between the EPA and environmental groups, would require those responsible for the coal ash to monitor groundwater supplies and clean up any contaminants from the landfills.
Michael S. Regan, the EPA administrator, said the rule would help protect low-income communities of color where the overwhelming number of old landfills are.
“Many of these communities have been disproportionately affected by pollution for far too long,” Regan said in a statement.
Why it matters: The EPA says the rule will protect public health.
Burning coal for electricity pollutes the air and releases greenhouse gases that warm the planet, but some of the most dangerous elements are found in the ash, which is stored in ponds or dry landfills. About half of all coal ash in the United States — more than a billion tons, according to one study — is unregulated.
The new rule is expected to meet opposition from utilities and fossil fuel advocates in Congress, including West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin III, who has personal financial ties to the coal industry.
The proposal comes on the heels of a decision by the Biden administration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. That led Mr Manchin, last year’s top recipient of campaign contributions in the oil and gas industry, to accuse the Biden administration of “doing everything it can to regulate coal and gas-fired power plants out of existence”.
The ordinance proposed Wednesday would cover what the agency calls “legacy” coal ash dumps, not the current operation of power plants.
“For far too long, much of the toxic coal ash in the U.S. has been leaching into drinking water supplies without needing to be cleaned up,” said Lisa Evans, senior counsel for Earthjustice, an environmental group that led the lawsuit. to force the EPA to crack down on the unregulated landfills.
Background: A disaster in 2008 led to the first regulations for coal ash.
In 2008, the six-story levee holding back a huge pond of coal waste collapsed at a factory in Kingston, Tenn.
The coal ash spill in Kingston remains one of the largest industrial disasters in U.S. history and helped spur the first federal controls on coal ash disposal, which were introduced in 2015. install technology to protect the water supply from contamination.
But landfills that stopped receiving ash before October 2015 were exempt from the rules.
The EPA said Wednesday that those dormant landfills, which are usually not monitored, are more likely to be unlined, making them susceptible to leaks and structural problems.
In January, the EPA proposed regulations that would force utilities to strengthen safeguards against toxic coal ash pollution from power plants — requirements that had been delayed by the administration of President Donald J. Trump. Under Mr. Trump, who promised a comeback for the coal industry, the EPA tried to ensure that some leaking coal ash storage ponds remained in operation and some unlined ponds remained open indefinitely.
What’s next
The proposed rule, which was published Wednesday in the federal registeris subject to a 60-day public comment period and is expected to be completed next spring.