EPA Announces Plans to Regulate Coal Ash

[kpete]

Source: Environmental Protection Agency Press Release

EPA Announces Plans to Regulate Coal Ash / Agency proposals would address risks of unsafe coal ash disposal, while supporting safe forms of beneficial use

Release date: 05/04/2010

Contact Information: LaTisha Petteway, [e-mail], 202-564-3191, 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today is proposing the first-ever national rules to ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants.

Coal combustion residuals, commonly known as coal ash, are byproducts of the combustion of coal at power plants and are disposed of in liquid form at large surface impoundments and in solid form at landfills. The residuals contain contaminants like mercury, cadmium and arsenic, which are associated with cancer and various other serious health effects. EPA’s risk assessment and damage cases demonstrate that, without proper protections, these contaminants can leach into groundwater and can migrate to drinking water sources, posing significant health public concerns.

Today’s action will ensure for the first time that protective controls, such as liners and groundwater monitoring, are in place at new landfills to protect groundwater and human health. Existing surface impoundments will also require liners, with strong incentives to close the impoundments and transition to safer landfills, which store coal ash in dry form. The proposed regulations will ensure stronger oversight of the structural integrity of impoundments in order to prevent accidents like the one at Kingston, Tennessee. Today’s action also will promote environmentally safe and desirable forms of recycling coal ash, known as beneficial uses.

The dangers associated with structurally unsafe coal ash impoundments came to national attention in 2008 when an impoundment holding disposed waste ash generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority broke open, creating a massive spill in Kingston that covered millions of cubic yards of land and river. The spill displaced residents, required hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs and caused widespread environmental damage. Shortly afterwards, EPA began overseeing the cleanup, as well as investigating the structural integrity of impoundments where ash waste is stored.

Read more: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/4eca022f6f5c501185257719005dfb1b!OpenDocument

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Be damned. Cautiously optimistic here.

[SpartanDem]

2. Coal Ash Regulation Proposals Announced By EPA

Source: Huffington Post

After months of deliberation, US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson announced today the first-ever national rule to regulate toxic coal ash.

Coal ash, which is a byproduct of the burning of coal in power plants, can pose serious threats to public health and the environment if it is improperly managed. Until now, there has been no nationwide standard for the regulation of the material.

Jackson outlined two different proposals to regulate coal ash described under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Under the first proposal, coal ash would be regulated as a "special waste," meaning the wet storage of the material at impoundments would be entirely phased out in favor of landfills. Under the second, more lenient proposal, impoundments would be required to use a composite liner for coal ash storage, which would prevent toxic materials from leaking into the groundwater.

The proposals will be subject to 90 days of public comment before a final rule is submitted to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. A senior EPA official said the rules could take anywhere from six months to two years to take effect.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/04/coal-ash-regulation-propo_n_562925.html

[bluesmail]

3. Applause and ovation for kpete Thanks to you I know way more than I would have otherwise. (eom)

[Robbien]

4. And how long have coal fired power plants been in existence?

Wonder what the chances are of this actually will be enacted into law.

A real breakthrough if it were to pass.

[kristopher]

7. This is a regulatory change, it is based on existing law. nt

[webDude]

5. CHECK BAGS OF TOPSOIL! Mine had "fly ash"(coal ash which goes up the...

...the chimney and is caught by filters) as one of the ingredients. This has been linked to substantial degrade in germination. Wanna eat vegetables or fruit from that?

[NoSheep]

6. So soon?

:crazy: