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Monday, October 26, 2009
Environment - "Wasted regulations: Oversight of coal hazards largely left to those that produce them"
That is the headline of this story by Mark Wilson in the Oct. 24th Evansville Courier & Press. Some quotes from the lengthy story:
Millions of tons of coal combustion wastes are left over from power generation each year. Although some of it is used for other industrial purposes, more than 73 million tons of it was disposed in landfills and ponds in 2007, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.A long companion story is headed "Coal ash disposal varies from company to company." It begins:Environmentalists long have argued that these disposal sites are hazards and that coal waste needs consistent federal oversight. Jeff Stant, director of the Environmental Integrity Project's campaign to regulate coal combustion wastes, said the utility industry has been resistant to such regulation, especially in the face of the costs for complying with air pollution regulations.
Five of the 100 largest disposal sites for coal combustion wastes are in Southwestern Indiana. And state or federal inspections appear to be lacking. * * *
But it took the December 2008 failure of a dam holding back a Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash pond in Kingston, Tenn., to fast-track the development of regulations — something the EPA now says it will have ready by the end of the year.
The Kingston dam failure spilled more than a billion gallons of coal ash into a nearby river and the surrounding countryside.
Stant, a former director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, has been advocating for stronger regulation of coal combustion wastes in Indiana and nationally since the late 1980s.
"It's too powerful of an industry and the quid pro quo is 'don't step on our toes when it comes to our waste.' That was what ultimately led to (the TVA failure).
Because the government has looked the other way and let the industry handle its waste," Stant said.
"Bottom line is it is out of site out of mind and they manage it as inexpensively as they can. There is probably far more contamination out there than we know because most states still don't have requirements that they do monitoring." Because the EPA currently considers coal waste as nonhazardous, oversight of its disposal has been left to a patchwork of varying state regulations.
But many in the utility industry say that ruling coal ash as a hazardous waste will squash efforts to use it beneficially in products such as cement and wallboard.
For instance, Indiana Michigan Power — a subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP) — sold much of the fly ash from its Rockport, Ind., power plant until recently when the practice of blending its coal to meet other environmental regulations changed the ash's chemical makeup, said Mike Brian, company spokesman.
"AEP does not believe that any fly ash should be classified as a hazardous waste. It is going to curtail secondary markets for using it. That's the one concern that we have," Brian said.
Here is a look at coal ash disposal sites at Tri-State generating stations based on available U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documentation and information provided by the companies. Most say they have had little, if any, inspections other than those by their staff or company-hired engineers. Most also either already are or are shifting to disposing of some of their ash in dry form in landfills instead of ponds.Here is a list of ILB entries concerning coal ash.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 26, 2009 09:14 AM
Posted to Environment