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Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Environment - Still more on: "EPA secrecy on coal-ash list worries lawmakers: Some of 44 'high hazard' sites might be in Kentucky, Indiana"
Updating this ILB entry from Monday, Shaila Dewan of the NY Times has a story today on the EPA list. Some interesting points from the story:
The “high hazard” rating applied to sites where a dam failure would most likely result in a loss of human life, the environmental agency advisory said, but did not assess the structural integrity of the dam or its likelihood of failure. * * *The E.P.A. list was based on responses to a questionnaire that the agency sent to utilities and power plants. Environmentalists said they did not believe the list was complete because it was based on self-assessment.
“T.V.A. ranked its own dams, and it didn’t rank any of its dams ‘high hazard,’ ” said Lisa Evans, a lawyer for Earthjustice. * * *
Ms. Evans said dam integrity was not the only or even the central problem with coal ash dump sites. In 2007, an E.P.A. report identified 63 sites in 26 states where the water was contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps, including three other Tennessee Valley Authority dumps. Experts say coal ash should be stored in lined landfills to prevent contamination, but the agency questionnaire did not ask whether the sites were lined.
David Merryman of the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation in Charlotte, N.C., said two of the sites on the “high hazard potential” list discharge into Mountain Island Lake, the primary source of drinking water for 750,000 people in the Charlotte area. Those sites, which belong to Duke Energy, are unlined ponds.
Jason Walls, a Duke Energy spokesman, said the company’s two newest coal ash ponds were lined.
Ten of the sites on the high hazard list belong to Duke Energy. But Mr. Walls said those sites were sound.
For years, the E.P.A. has failed to regulate the disposal of coal ash despite promises to do so. Under the Obama administration, agency officials have pledged to issue regulations by the end of 2009.
But Stephen Smith, the director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said withholding the list, even temporarily, raised questions about the agency’s intentions. “It’s still unclear to me what the E.P.A.’s ultimate goal here is to do,” Mr. Smith said. “Are they really going to aggressively regulate this material like they need to, or are they taking more of a hands-off approach?”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 1, 2009 10:08 AM
Posted to Environment