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In February 2014, workers at a retired coal-burning power plant in Eden, North Carolina, discovered that a corrugated metal drainage pipe running beneath a 27-acre containment pond was leaking coal ash, a byproduct of burnt coal.
It took six days for the workers to successfully seal the leak. During those six days, more than 27 million gallons of contaminated water and 39,000 tons of coal ash flooded into the nearby Dan River, coating 70 continuous miles of the river with a toxic slurry.
For six days in the spring of 2014, more than 27 million gallons of contaminated water and ash flooded the Dan River, coating 70 continuous miles of it with toxic coal ash slurry.
The Dan River spill, at a plant run by Duke Energy, was just one in a string of troubling incidents plaguing coal ash disposal sites around the country. For years, pressure had been mounting for the EPA to issue regulations as the risks surrounding coal ash-filled ponds, lagoons, and landfills became increasingly apparent.
In 2015, just over a year after the Dan River spill, the first-ever EPA rule governing coal ash disposal went into effect. But these landmark regulations are now set to become the latest casualty in the Trump Administration’s assault on the Obama Administration’s environmental legacy.
On March 1, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced plans to roll back the 2015 ash rule, the only existing federal protections for communities living near coal ash disposal sites. While environmental and citizens advocacy groups feel the Obama-era regulations fell short of providing effective federal oversight, the Trump team believes they go too far. Pruitt said the move “embodies EPA’s commitment to our state partners by providing them with the ability to incorporate flexibilities into their coal ash permit programs based on the needs of their states.”
In reality, rolling back the regulations will save utilities nearly $100 million dollars a year in compliance costs—and put hundreds of U.S. communities near coal ash disposal sites at even greater risk.
Ironically, just one day after Pruitt announced the EPA’s intent to roll back these regulations, utility companies operating coal-burning power plants around the country released an unprecedented amount of data on groundwater quality near coal ash disposal sites. This disclosure was required under those same rules now facing repeal.
Historically, few states have mandated independent monitoring of coal ash disposal sites, limiting public knowledge about the extent to which toxins at these sites have contaminated local ecosystems and nearby groundwater.
The newly released reports are expected to confirm what many communities already suspect—that coal ash presents a grave threat to public health and safety. Exhibit A is what happened in Uniontown, Alabama.
In 2008 the largest coal ash spill in U.S. history coated hundreds of acres of Tennessee land and water with toxic slurry. As coal ash was dredged up from rivers near the spill site, Uniontown’s local landfill became a dumping site for the waste. According to EPA records, at least four million tons of wet coal ash slurry were shipped 330 miles from Tennessee to Uniontown, where the population is predominantly black and living below the poverty line.
In addition to oppressive odors and airborne dust that forced residents to stay indoors, locals experienced persistent nosebleeds, respiratory issues, and other health problems including kidney disease and cancers. In 2015, the Obama Administration opened investigations into two civil rights complaints filed by the people of Uniontown against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
But before the investigations could be resolved, the clock ran out on the Obama Administration. Since taking office, the Trump team has taken steps to roll back coal industry regulations at every stage of production, while the EPA’s enforcement rate against against polluters has fallen to its lowest level in a decade.
The battle to regulate coal ash has been a long time coming.
For decades, coal-burning power plants were primarily viewed as a hazard due to what they spewed into the air. So while emissions from coal plants faced increasingly stringent oversight during the 1960s and 1970s, coal ash slipped under the radar. And thanks to a vigorous lobbying effort by the energy industry, coal ash was exempted from legislation passed by Congress in 1980 giving the federal government otherwise broad powers to regulate solid waste.
The battle to regulate coal ash has been a long time coming.
Instead, coal ash that was captured in or “scrubbed” from smokestacks was buried in landfills, syphoned into unlined pits and ponds and, in some cases, dumped back into empty mines with little to no oversight. The amount of coal ash produced only increased with efforts to reduce emissions by trapping coal ash before it left the smokestacks.
Until the Obama Administration passed its landmark coal ash rule in 2015, coal ash disposal was subject only to a haphazard patchwork of state regulations. Some states required constant monitoring of groundwater quality around disposal sites; other states, including South Carolina and Texas, did not even require the artificial ponds used to dump wet coal ash slurry to be protectively lined.
In 2014, U.S. coal-fired power plants produced nearly 130 million tons of coal ash making it one of the largest sources of waste in the country.
In 2014, U.S. coal-fired power plants produced nearly 130 million tons of coal ash making it one of the largest sources of waste in the country.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that regulatory agencies and communities living near these artificial ponds and old mines began to recognize the potential dangers. Among the potent contaminants found in coal ash are mercury, arsenic, and lead—toxins linked to an increased risk of cancer, respiratory illness, kidney disease, birth defects, and other serious health conditions.
Low-income and minority communities like Uniontown are disproportionately impacted. According to EPA estimates, at least 1.5 million people of color live in the catchment zone of a coal ash disposal site.
On March 1, the same day that Pruitt announced the EPA’s intent to reverse the course on federal coal ash regulations, the agency ended both investigations in Uniontown. It said it had found “no causal connection” between the four million tons of landfilled coal ash and nearby residents’ claims of undrinkable groundwater and deteriorating public health.
Two weeks later, on March 16, the independent, non-partisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a response to the EPA’s decision. The commission said its own investigation had revealed a clear failure to consider the civil rights impacts of coal ash storage in Uniontown, adding that the EPA’s move perpetuates “environmental injustice.”
Meanwhile, Duke Energy, the company responsible for the 2014 slurry spill in Eden, North Carolina, has reported initial findings of groundwater contamination at forty-eight of its coal ash basins and landfills. Some residents near Duke coal ash disposal sites in the greater Charlotte area have been using bottled water for more than 1,000 days, ever since nearby well water tested positive for elevated rates of potentially toxic metals.
Duke maintains that its coal ash ponds are not the source of this contamination.
Jenna Ruddock is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and documentary filmmaker covering science, the environment, and civil liberties. Follow her on Twitter @natlsciservice.