Mar 5 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rick Stouffer The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review



Environmental groups and companies are arguing over whether coal ash -- the common name for waste from coal-fired power plants -- is hazardous to human health.

The coal industry, electricity producers, coal-producing states and the Environmental Protection Agency say coal ash is safe. Regulating it could destroy between $6 billion and $11 billion in annual benefits from using coal waste in its various forms.

But environmental groups are demanding that the EPA reverse its findings and declare coal waste to be a hazard. They say that's the only way to eliminate haphazard state regulations and ongoing water contamination from toxic chemicals in coal waste, much of which is contained in excavated pits.

 The EPA is expected to issue a decision on coal waste next month.

"The EPA has said and twice before has testified before Congress that coal waste isn't hazardous," said Tom Robl, associate director of the University of Kentucky's Center for Applied Energy Research, in Lexington, Ky. "The EPA would have to reverse itself, when there is no question the reuse of this material is not hazardous."

Last week, Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice released a report that said four Western Pennsylvania sites are among 31 nationwide allowing waste from coal-fired power plants to pollute nearby rivers, creeks, groundwater and wetlands with toxic substances.

Opponents say coal waste often contains elevated levels of metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and selenium that can cause cancer and neurological damage.

Experts said the impetus for reviewing coal waste regulations was a Dec. 22, 2008, accident near Kingston, Tenn., about 35 miles west of Knoxville. About 1 billion gallons of coal waste sludge broke through a holding pond dike and covered about 400 acres of land around the Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-burning Kingston power plant.

"The Kingston holding pond ... certainly would not have been legal in Pennsylvania, which has some of the strictest coal ash regulations," Robl said. "That was not a coal ash problem at Kingston, that was an engineering failure, and the reaction to the spill has been based in fear."

"Science doesn't support the classification of coal ash (waste) as hazardous," said Ken Reisinger, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's deputy secretary for waste, air and radiation management.

A 2009 study commissioned by the American Coal Council found the annual economic impact of coal ash and other products -- through revenue from selling the material, avoiding disposal costs and using the products as building materials like concrete and drywall -- was estimated at between $6.4 billion and $11.4 billion.

One example is the National Gypsum Co. wallboard plant in Shippingport, Beaver County, which gets its raw material from FirstEnergy Corp.'s 2,460-megawatt D. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant. One megawatt can power 800 homes.

"Our facility in Shippingport was built specifically to handle the material from the flue gas desulfurization process at the FirstEnergy power plant. It's moved by conveyor to our plant," said Nancy Spurlock, spokeswoman for Charlotte-based National Gypsum.

FirstEnergy sells 400,000 tons of the 1 million tons of material produced annually at Bruce Mansfield to National Gypsum.

"We could truck in natural rock to make wallboard, but that would be much more expensive," Spurlock said. "If the material is classified hazardous, it would have a major impact on us, plus impact other businesses, like trucking." The plant at peak production employs more than 80, she said.

Environmental groups say laws on the books to regulate toxic substances are too lax, according to Lisa Marcucci, a Pleasant Hills resident and Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for the Environmental Integrity Project, based in Washington.

"The industry always states it's complying with the state's regulations, but those regulations are riddled with loopholes," Marcucci said.

Marcucci says the coal ash-producers perform too much self-testing, that the state Department of Environmental Protection's system allowing self-testing is "too much the fox guarding the henhouse."

"We've had programs in place for decades to deal with coal ash, and we've significantly improved our process over decades of regulation," said DEP's Reisinger.

Coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania annually produce about 20 million tons of various types of coal-burning waste. Nearly 65 percent of the total is reused, according to data provided by Sen. Bob Casey's office. Eleven coal-fired power plants owned by four different companies are located in Western Pennsylvania.

"If the byproducts created from burning coal are classified as hazardous waste, it will take huge amounts of money to create the infrastructure to handle that waste," said Mark Durbin, spokesman for Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy. "Those costs would be passed on to customers."

Rick Stouffer is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7853 or via e-mail.

(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services