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Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Environment - Still more on: "Spill renews debate over coal ash: Toxicity, slurry pond safety are questioned" [Updated]
Updating earlier ILB entries, including this latest from Dec. 30th, 2008, James Bruggers reports today in the Louisville Courier Journal. Here are some quotes from the long story, with emphasis added by the ILB:
As Congress goes back to work this week, the head of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, has promised to hold hearings and legislation to make coal-ash ponds safer.[More] Here is a lengthy story by Shaila Dewan,from the front-page of today's NY Times, headed "Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation." Some quotes:At issue is a massive spill on Dec. 22 that sent more than 1 billion gallons of ashy sludge over 300 acres of eastern Tennessee, knocking down homes and polluting water. It’s raising questions about the appropriate response by federal lawmakers.
“It seems to us there’s a regulatory gap,” said Jim Zoia, a senior aide to Rahall, and the committee’s chief of staff.
On Thursday the Senate is due to get involved when its Environment and Public Works Committee is to hold a hearing.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and the Senate minority leader, “is concerned about the impact this spill had on the families in Tennessee and believes it needs to be examined,” said his spokesman, Robert Steurer. “He is currently monitoring the situation and plans to review the comments received at this week’s Senate hearing.” * * *
The issue is important to Kentucky and Indiana. A 2006 Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency study put Kentucky atop the nation in production of ash and other wastes from burning coal, with Indiana third. The two states produce millions of pounds of ash, which can contain concentrations of potentially risky heavy metals.
There are no federal standards governing the disposal of coal combustion wastes. The federal government also doesn’t regulate how coal ash impoundments are designed, and how frequently they should be inspected.
Zoia said Rahall will explore whether the ash ponds could be regulated similarly to impoundments of another type of coal waste – slurries and sludge from coal mining operations. Coal mining slurry impoundments are regulated under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which has specific requirements for design, construction, maintenance and inspections, he said.
Regulation of ash ponds is essentially left to states.
A 2007 EPA national study of coal combustion wastes identified at least eight coal ash impoundments in Indiana, including one at Duke Energy’s Gallagher plant in New Albany, Ind. Indiana Department of Environmental Management spokesman Rob Elstro(cq) could not confirm that number because he said his agency does not maintain a comprehensive list.He was still researching yesterday afternoon whether any Indiana agencies have design and construction standards for coal ash impoundments.
Kentucky has 19 ash ponds at coal-fired plants, Kentucky regulators said last week. Twelve feature some sort of dam, as is the case at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant, site of the Dec. 22 environmental disaster.
The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.Here is more on the Pines Ground Water Plume Site, from EPA Region 5. (Sadly, this is less than 2 miles from where I grew up.)Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.
In fact, coal ash is used throughout the country for construction fill, mine reclamation and other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year — 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990. * * *
Just last week, a judge approved a $54 million class-action settlement against Constellation Power Generation after it had dumped coal ash for more than a decade in a sand and gravel pit near Gambrills, Md., about 20 miles south of Baltimore, contaminating wells. And Town of Pines, Ind., a hamlet about 40 miles east of Chicago, was declared a Superfund site after wells there were found to be contaminated by ash dumped in a landfill and used to make roads starting in 1983.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 7, 2009 12:07 PM
Posted to Environment