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 Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans WASHINGTON D.C. — “A congressional effort to rein in federal regulation of coal ash could result in little or no regulation at all, a new report from the Congressional Research Service warns.
The bills, H.R. 2273 and S. 3512, would set up a plan for states to regulate coal ash like landfill waste — pre-empting an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to designate the often toxic combustion byproducts as hazardous waste. But the proposals’ vague language would make it difficult to tell if states are correctly implementing their own programs, says the report, which the green group Earthjustice made public Monday.
Among other fuzziness, the bills leave unclear ‘key issues such as how, when or to which facilities the [state] permit program would apply,’ the report says. ‘That level of uncertainty defeats the purpose of a permit program,’ it adds.”
— Erica Martinson, Politico
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 Dr. Avner Vengosh, Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Duke University, author of a new coal ash study. WASHINGTON D.C. — “Sunday’s Washington Post included the following update from environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin on the important issue of regulating the handling and disposal of toxic coal ash from our nation’s power plants:
In Maryland’s Zekiah Swamp, one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most important tributaries, 8.4 million tons of coal ash in pits from former operations of the Morgantown power plant are leaking into groundwater. Residents on the Moapa River Reservation north of Las Vegas blame a spike in respiratory illnesses on the uncovered ash ponds and ash dump from a generating station nearby.
The ash left after burning coal includes toxic elements such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, selenium and mercury. Produced by 431 coal-fired power plants, which supply 36 percent of the nation’s electricity, coal ash piles up at the staggering rate of 140 million tons a year
More than 40 percent of it is recycled to help make concrete, gypsum wallboard and pavement. But utilities store the rest in landfills, ponds or mines, and evidence has been growing in recent years that leakage is a problem.
‘The time has come for common-sense national protections to assure safe disposal of these materials,’ Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. That was in 2010.
…Study author Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said:
We are saving the sky by putting in more scrubbers to remove particulates from power plant emissions. But these contaminants don’t just disappear. As our study shows, they remain in high concentrations in the solid waste residue and wastewater the coal-fired power plants produce. Yet there are no systematic monitoring or regulations to reduce water-quality impacts from coal ash ponds because coal ash is not considered as hazardous waste.
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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 WASHINGTON, DC — “Today more than 300 public interest groups representing millions of citizens from 43 states sent a letter to the U.S. Senate opposing S.3512, the ‘Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2012.’ The bill, introduced last July by Sens. Hoeven (R-SD), Conrad (D-SD) and Baucus (D- MT), prevents EPA from finalizing its proposed coal ash rule—or ever issuing regulations for the nation’s second largest industrial waste stream.
“This flawed bill fails to mitigate the risk of another human health and environmental disaster and leaves our water sources open to contamination with dangerous heavy metals. While claiming to be a solution to our coal pollution problem, this bill is merely a giveaway to industry that will hurt the health and well being of millions of Americans,” the letter states.
Read a copy of the letter.
The letter represents Americans across the nation who are hurt by coal ash. Coal-burning utilities churn out 140 million tons of toxic coal ash each year, containing millions of pounds of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and more. S. 3512 not only obstructs the EPA from doing its job, the legislation encourages inadequate state programs that preserve the status quo and extend the lives of hundreds of leaking toxic dumps.”
— Lisa Evans, Earthjustice
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NASHVILLE, TN — The Tennessee Valley Authority is liable for a huge spill of toxin-laden sludge in 2008 in Tennessee, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
The decision is a victory for hundreds of plaintiffs who sued after a containment dike at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant burst in 2008. About 5 million cubic yards of ash spilled out of a storage pond, flowed into a river and spoiled hundreds of acres in a riverside community 35 miles west of Knoxville.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan said in a written opinion that TVA was negligent in its conduct and will be liable for damages that will have to be proven in the next phase of the ongoing lawsuits.”
— Associated Press
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 Little Blue Run coal ash pond stands out vividly beneath the Ohio River in this 2002 image from space. SHIPPINGPORT, PA — “Little Blue Run’s operator, FirstEnergy, an electricity company based in Akron, Ohio, agreed to develop a plan to shut down the facility in a consent decree filed July 27 in federal court. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) characterized its agreement with FirstEnergy as a proactive move, to ensure the site “will not create an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.” But for years, neighbors have complained about the site’s impact on land, air, and water, detailing the site history and their woes, for example, at a 2010 federal hearing on whether the U.S. government should step in and regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.
Environmentalists praised the plan to shut down the 1,700-acre (688-hectare) Little Blue Run, saying it was the first time a regulatory agency has taken such aggressive action on a coal ash pond. But the larger question of how the United States will address coal ash—at 140 million tons a year, one of the nation’s largest waste streams—is still unanswered. Nearly four years since a dam collapse in Kingston, Tennessee, spilled 1.1 billion gallons (4 billion liters) of coal ash sludge into the Emory and Clinch rivers and the surrounding environment, regulations are stalled at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”
— Rachel Cernansky, National Geographic News
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 Resident in her backyard that abuts Little Blue Run (Environmental Integrity Project, 2010). GREENE TWP, PA — “Pennsylvania and national groups today are calling attention to a major court filing made late July 27 by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) that will result in the closure of Little Blue Run, the nation’s largest coal ash impoundment.
The state action filed the first-ever lawsuit against a coal ash dump operator for causing a potential “imminent and substantial endangerment” to human health and the environment by operating the nation’s largest coal ash impoundment, Little Blue Run, which spans the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border.”
— Little Blue Run Action Group, EcoWatch
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— Stephen Huba, East Liverpool Review
— Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal
— Susan Phillips, StateImpact Pennsylvania
 This diagram from an Army Corps of Engineers permit application shows the proposed location of a coal ash storage facility in Washington County, Illinois. WASHINGTON COUNTY, IL — “On June 26, the Washington County Board met behind closed doors with the lawyer from Prairie State and passed an amendment to an ordinance that granted the company permission to build a 720-acre coal ash landfill on flat farmland near the controversial Marissa, Illinois, plant.
The amendment allowed the company to bypass the normal zoning process, which would have involved public hearings, and negotiate a contract for the landfill with the county—all out of the public eye.
Critics of the company contend that the coal ash landfill jeopardizes air and water quality in the area. They say that it will add huge costs to a project that’s already $1 billion over budget. And they suspect Prairie State pressured Washington County into approving the landfill by threatening legal action if the county didn’t approve it.”
— Dan Ferber, Midwest Energy News
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 State and federal officials consider Captina Creek a high-quality stream in part because it’s the last-known breeding ground for the endangered Eastern hellbender salamander. COLUMBUS — “There are two methods of disposing of slurry. One system forces water from the coal wastes so it can be dumped in a landfill.
In a lagoon, the solid wastes settle to the bottom and clean water drains off the top. There are at least seven lagoons in Ohio, said Brent Heavilin, coal program permit manager for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
When they spill, the results can be devastating.
In October 2000, more than 300 million gallons of coal slurry flooded 70 miles of Coldwater Creek, near Inez, Ky., after the walls of a Martin County Coal Corp. slurry lagoon failed. The spill killed 1.6 million fish.
In 1972, a Pittston Coal Co. dam failed, sending a wave of waste and slurry along Buffalo Creek in West Virginia, killing 125 people.”
— Spencer Hunt, Columbus Dispatch
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 In 2008, one billion gallons of toxic coal ash spilled from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant. WASHINGTON, DC — “Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released information revealing the existence of hundreds of previously unknown coal ash dumps nationwide. The information comes pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) by Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice.
The data released today by the EPA reveal that there are at least 451 more coal ash ponds than previously acknowledged—significantly increasing the known threat from coal ash. The EPA had admitted to 710 ponds, and today’s numbers increase that total to at least 1,161. In addition, the agency previously did not know how many ponds were unlined. Today’s data indicate that at least 535 ponds (46 percent) operate without a liner to prevent hazardous chemicals from reaching drinking water sources.
WASHINGTON, DC — “Language requiring approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and barring Environmental Protection Agency regulation of coal-ash waste were dropped from a highway spending bill being negotiated by U.S. lawmakers, Republican Senator James Inhofe said.
The deal removes two obstacles preventing agreement on a compromise package paying for bridge and road construction and transit programs. Legislation drafted by a Senate-House committee may be filed tonight, Inhofe, chief Republican negotiator for the Senate on the package, said today.”
— Jim Snyder and Kathleen Hunter, Bloomberg News
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GREENE TWP, PA — “David is slinging with both hands, having begun separate legal actions against energy giants Chesapeake Appalachia and FirstEnergy.
…The Little Blue Regional Action Group is seeking to protect the land. Members, in the intent to sue notice, wrote that the coal ash deposit “has caused widespread pollution in local groundwater, springs and surface water.” The group intends to sue in federal court 90 days after delivering the notice to FirstEnergy.
The coalition challenging Chesapeake Appalachia wants to use the land. Plaintiffs said in court papers that by failing to develop wells on land leased between 2003 and 2008, Chesapeake is holding them “hostage.” The coalition also is challenging the validity of some of the leases.”
— Bill Utterback, Beaver County Times
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 American Electric Power plans to raze the Picway power plant near Lockbourne and two others in Ohio after closing them. COLUMBUS — “The shutdowns will eliminate toxic compounds, including mercury, along with pollutants that cause smog and soot. But what will become of these plants after the lights go out?
There are other environmental hazards at coal-fired plants, including asbestos, contaminated soil in coal yards, ash lagoons and landfills, and even old transformers filled with PCBs.
‘There’s going to be issues with groundwater contamination,’ said Nachy Kanfer, a deputy director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, which supported the clean air regulations.
‘One of our problems is we don’t know everything that is at these sites.’
The ultimate fate of these plants is something that power companies and Ohio officials say they are just now starting to address. ”
— Spencer Hunt, Columbus Dispatch
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CHARLESTON, WV — “Local citizens on Wednesday threatened to sue FirstEnergy Corp. over a huge coal-ash impoundment along the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border, alleging the operation is polluting area streams, tainting groundwater, and violating federal waste disposal requirements.
The Little Blue Regional Action Group sent Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy a formal notice of intent to sue the company over what is believed to be the largest such coal-ash disposal site in the nation.”
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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 Pollutants in coal ash, as from Tampa Electric’s Big Bend plant, are poisoning the waters at nearly 200 U.S. sites. TAMPA BAY — “Florida’s drinking waters are slowly being poisoned by a silent toxic menace. If certain members of Congress have their way, federal regulators will never be able to do anything about it. At Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Station near Apollo Beach, arsenic, boron, molybdenum and other toxic chemicals that can cause cancer and organ damage have already contaminated groundwater supplies. The cause: coal ash.
Big Bend and hundreds of other coal-fired power plants just like it burn millions of tons of coal every year. The resulting ash is often filled with toxic chemicals like arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium and more. Enough coal ash is generated each year to fill train cars stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole. This toxic waste is dumped into unlined and unmonitored landfills and ponds that contaminate nearby lakes, rivers, streams, creeks and aquifers that supply local residents with drinking water.”
— Dr. Lynn Ringenberg commentary, Tampa Bay Times
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GREENE TWP, PA — “Residents of Greene Township, Beaver County, are opposing Little Blue’s proposed expansion – the creation of new disposal facility adjacent to the existing impoundment.
They believe serious health problem have already resulted from ground and well water contamination — something First Energy denies.
‘And it’s unlined so that is definitely going into our water table,’ Marcia Hughes, of Greene Township, said. ‘No matter what they tell us, it’s going into our water table.’”
— Andy Sheehan, CBS Pittsburgh
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Mountaintop removal coal mining
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman 6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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