The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rejected a plan by the Alabama government for a state plan to manage coal wastes, the latest in a long-running battle over how to dispose of the toxic residue of decades of generating electricity with coal.
EPA said the plan state environmental officials submitted was inadequate in multiple ways and was “significantly less protective of people and waterways than federal law requires.” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said, “EPA stands ready to continue working with Alabama so that they can submit an approvable application and implement a program that is as protective of public health as the federal standards.”
The Alabama plan implementing the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act failed in every particular, according to EPA. The agency said it “identified deficiencies in Alabama’s permits with closure requirements for unlined surface impoundments, groundwater monitoring networks, and corrective action (i.e., investigation and clean up) requirements. EPA discussed these issues with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management; however, the state agency has not revised its permits or supplemented its application to demonstrate how such permits are as protective as the federal requirements.”
In the rejection of the Alabama plan, EPA said, “Under federal regulations, coal ash units cannot be closed in a way that allows coal ash to continue to spread contamination in groundwater after closure. In contrast, Alabama’s permit program does not require that groundwater contamination be adequately addressed during the closure of these coal ash units.”
In 2016, Congress authorized EPA to work with states to set up their own coal ash remediation programs, as long as they met federal requirements. Alabama was among the states that chose to submit a state plan. So far, according to EPA, only Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas have EPA-approved state programs. Alabama’s is the first EPA has rejected.
Al.com noted, “Alabama had been locked in a billion-dollar battle with EPA over coal ash since last August, when the EPA issued its proposed rejection of Alabama’s plan.”
In January, as the EPA rejection of the state plan was pending, Alabama Power announced a contract with a Utah firm, Eco Material Technology, to remove ash from the 527-acre coal slurry pond at its 3,426-MW, seven-unit (two legacy coal units and five gas-fired generators) James M. Barry coal-and-gas plant in Bucks, Ala., on the west bank of the Mobile River. At the time, Al.com reported that Alabama Power “still plans to cover its coal ash ponds in place, pending the uncertainties with the EPA” and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.”
Alabama Power has already been fined $1.5 million by state regulators for ash problems, but the state and the utility both support covering the ponds in place, while EPA is pushing for digging up the coal wastes and transferring them to a regulated, lined facility.
Managing coal power plant wastes is a national problem, which emerged most dramatically 15 years ago. Sometime around midnight on Dec. 22, 2008, a dike at the coal ash dewatering pond for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s 1,400-MW Kingston plant in Roane County, Tenn., failed. That led to what has been reported as the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.
While the breach caused no injuries, there was widespread damage, eventually causing TVA more than $1 billion and seven years to clean up.
In 2023, the Yale School of the Environment’s YaleEnvironment360 published an article looking at the nationwide coal waste issue. Noting that about 60% of annual U.S. coal ash production is recycled, the article said that “massive amounts still fill at least 746 coal ash impoundments in 43 states nationwide, with waste sites mostly occurring in rural, low-income areas and often in communities of color.”
Coal ash ponds are not only a threat of collapse and subsequent damage, as occurred at Kingston, they also present a problem of leaching toxins. Coal ash contains heavy metals including lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, and selenium, all of which can endanger human health. Duke University environmental quality professor Avner Vengosh told the Yale publication that the toxic metals “are relatively easily leached out [of coal ash], unlike normal soil.”
The Yale article said, “Rain that falls on unlined coal-ash impoundments — either ponds for storing wet ash or landfills for storing dry ash — can transport those contaminants to underlying groundwater … where it can affect drinking water supplies.”
–Kennedy Maize
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