Coal Ash Spill Reveals Risks, Lapses in Waste
Regulation
Jan 08 - McClatchy Washington Bureau
The coal ash spill in Tennessee last month is putting a spotlight on whether
the ash from 450 other power plants around the country could be
contaminating the nation's drinking water supplies.
Some coal ash is recycled into products such as cement or placed in secure
landfills, but much of it ends up in gravel pits, abandoned mines and
unlined landfills - or in ponds like the one that burst in Kingston, Tenn.,
on Dec. 22. In the Tennessee incident, 5.4 million cubic yards of sludge
laced with arsenic and other toxic materials poured over 300 acres - making
it one of the nation's worst environmental spills.
The EPA in 2000 decided that coal ash wasn't hazardous waste and left
regulation up to the states. Now, however, environmental activists say the
Tennessee spill shows the need for federal standards for how coal waste is
handled at the coal-fired power plants around the nation.
"It's an insanely dangerous scenario that's been allowed to develop, but
it's all under the radar screen," said Jeffrey Stant of the Environmental
Integrity Project, a group formed by former EPA enforcement attorneys that's
compiling data on coal ash disposal sites.
Stant said most states have lax regulations and that much of the monitoring
is done on a voluntary basis by the utilities that own the plants that burn
the coal.
He and other activists want the EPA to start with banning the common
practice of sluicing coal waste into ponds and storing it there.
"When you put it along a river in an unlined lagoon, you threaten to
contaminate the shallow alluvial aquifer that's right under the river,"
which provides drinking water, Stant said. He said he had no faith in the
scientific evidence produced by the utility companies.
The Tennessee Valley Authority says tests show Kingston's drinking water is
safe.
"We're not doing anything different than other utilities that have coal
plants," said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. About half of the TVA coal waste is
put in wet ponds like the one at Kingston, and the rest is compacted in dry
ponds. TVA inspects the ponds annually, the state checks them quarterly, and
TVA employees look at them daily, he said.
TVA, a corporation owned by the federal government, operates the plant at
Kingston where spill occurred. The Kingston Fossil Plant was the largest
coal-burning power plant in the world when it began operating in 1955. The
plant normally consumes about 14,000 tons of coal a day.
TVA is the largest U.S. public power company, providing electricity to 9
million people in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama and Virginia. It produces 60 percent of that electricity from coal
at 11 plants completed mostly in the 1950s. The newest came online in the
mid-1960s.
The House Committee on Natural Resources this week started considering
whether to propose a law that would impose federal regulations on coal ash
waste stored in ponds such as the one in Tennessee, said committee chief of
staff Jim Zoia.
Steve Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said that states have
tended to defer to utility companies to take care of the waste, and the EPA
has depended on industry to fill out voluntary surveys.
"It's clearly been neglected for the past eight or nine years but it's a
problem that's only going to get worse as we do a better job of controlling
air pollution," he said. "As you clean coal up, you can't just make the
dirty stuff disappear. It's got to go somewhere."
Smith said he wants "some federal leadership to properly characterize this
problem and get aggressive in setting up regulatory standards that people
have some confidence in."
EPA spokeswoman Tisha Petteway said the American Coal Ash Association, which
is made up of coal-fired power utilities and others that produce coal
combustion waste, is the source of information about how much coal ash is
generated in the country each year. EPA also measures toxic releases from
individual plants.
Petteway said the latest data, an EPA and Energy Department survey from
1993, estimated there are about 300 surface ponds at electric power plants
like the one in Tennessee.
"The majority of states" require controls on the site, liners in landfills
and groundwater monitoring, Petteway said. The effectiveness of the
protection, however, depends on whether states use the authority they have,
she said in a written response to questions.
States are regulating coal ash more as new plants are added, she said.
Jim Roewer of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, a lobby group
devoted to keeping the non-hazardous status of coal combustion waste, said
he expects the Tennessee spill will be used in a new discussion of what
national standards might be imposed, but his group believes they're not
needed because state regulation works.
"Utilities are working to manage the ash responsibly," he said.
Roewer said there are about 600 coal ash disposal sites - about 45 percent
of them surface ponds, and the rest landfills.
Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a law firm, said it's easier to
say which state does a good job of regulation - Wisconsin - than to list the
many who handle it poorly.
Nationally, coal combustion waste is estimated at more than 129 million tons
a year, she said. The problem, she said, is that because of a lack of
federal oversight, "we don't know where it goes."
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