EPA Promotes Use of Coal Ash Without Assessing Risks

[GoLeft TV]

From DeSmogBlog -

A new report by the Inspector General claims that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promoted the use of coal ash without properly analyzing the risks. Coal ash is the byproduct produced when coal is burned, also referred to as “fly ash” or “bottom ash.”

The EPA began promoting the “recycling” of coal ash waste during the Bush administration, when energy companies and federal officials worked out a deal where the EPA would allow companies to sell their waste without federal oversight. The EPA held numerous town hall meetings last year to get citizens’ input on the matter before they issue a ruling on whether or not the coal ash waste should be considered “hazardous.”

DeSmogBlog and Polluter Watch published a report last year that details the lobbying blitz launched by coal producers to fend off EPA oversight of hazardous coal ash, including the suspiciously cozy relationship between the coal industry and the Bush EPA. The new Inspector General report confirms that the Bush EPA erred in its review of the safety of the widespread re-use of coal ash in many products and other applications.

You can read the full report here - http://www.desmogblog.com/epa-promotes-coal-ash-without-considering-risks

[Buzz Clik]

1. Is coal ash hazardous for industrial recycling uses?

Should we minimize the amount of coal ash sitting around in piles and in retention ponds by finding a productive re-use, or should we declare it hazardous with no basis?

[tech9413]

5. Damned straight it's hazardous

“For their current report, the team collected over 220 surface water and sediment samples during an 18-month period of TVA’s clean up. They measured concentrations of five leachable coal ash contaminants, including arsenic and selenium. The researchers found that anaerobic bacteria in the sediments produce conditions that reduce arsenic from the common pentavalent form to the more toxic trivalent form, As3+. Meanwhile, selenium leeches out of these anoxic sediments and migrates to the more-oxygenated surface water.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-waste-hazardous-standard-regulation

http://wvhighlands.org/wv_voice/?p=3278

There ain't nothin ever been clean about coal and never will.

[Buzz Clik]

6. You'll find arsenic and selenium in your drinking water.

And in the soil around your home.

These are hazardous, too?

[hunter]

2. Radioactivity of fly ash:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html

('cause it always comes up in these discussions...)

Of greater concern is the safety of miners, massive environmental destruction caused by mining, other crap in coal (acid mine waste, mercury, organic toxins) and, of course, the climate changing carbon dioxide.

[crickets]

3. Anybody want to go bowling?

Coal ash is now sold for numerous applications, including as a concrete filler, as wallboard, and even to make bowling balls. This nets the industry a whopping $11 billion a year.

:(

[txlibdem]

4. K&R, coal ash concentrates Uranium and Thorium 10 to 100 times that of the original coal

It's unconscionable that the EPA could consider "fly ash" anything but nuclear waste and require the utmost of containment for it. And due to the toxic mercury, lead and arsenic content of fly ash it should further be considered a hazardous waste dump and require removal and remediation as superfund sites.

Evans said state regulation hasn't protected people living near the waste sites from health problems. Many states have allowed the dumps to be built without adequate liners or monitoring and have done little when contamination was discovered, she said.

Of the 39 sites analyzed, 35 had groundwater monitoring wells on the grounds of the waste-disposal area. All of them showed concentration of heavy metals that exceeded federal health standards.

The other four had only water-monitoring data from rivers or lakes where the waste sites discharged water. Scientists found contamination that damaged aquatic life.

The new report, following a previous study by the environmental groups and EPA's own tally, brings the number of contaminated coal-waste sites to 137 in 34 states.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-27/news/22237163_1_coal-ash-environmental-integrity-project-waste-sites

Why the coal industry continues to be able to push the costs of their toxic poisonous by-products onto the rest of us is a question I want answered.

[Nihil]

7. +1 (n/t)

[kristopher]

8. you think since coal is bad, it means that we need more of what you say is bad about coal?

Is that really your point?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/asia/30japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[txlibdem]

9. Logical fallacy. We need to treat Uranium equally, regardless of source

If one must be tightly controlled and contained (nuclear power plants) while coal plants are free to dump theirs into open pits and slurry ponds (at least that portion that does not escape freely into the air that is), then we have a double standard. Why? Radiation is radiation. Uranium is Uranium. Thorium is Thorium. There is no difference in what the coal plants dump openly out onto the ground versus what nuclear power plants need to keep in 10,000 year containment.

Certain posters use the spectre of radiation as a fear mongering tactic when discussing nuclear power. Yet when the topic is the exact same Uranium and Thorium, but coming from a coal plant, not a peep from the fear mongers. How strange that coal gets a free pass on the very thing they want us all to be quaking in our boots with fear about when it's a nuclear power plant...

:tinfoilhat:

I wouldn't call 1/100th of what coal pours out with no rules and no controls into the air, open pits or slurry ponds "putting out more." Is that really your point???

[kristopher]

10. What is the difference?

Case in point, "There is no difference in what the coal plants dump openly out onto the ground versus what nuclear power plants need to keep in 10,000 year containment", you say.

Dosing, concentration, MASSIVELY trimmed data on radiation released by nuclear, inappropriate presentation of virtually every single relevant variable related to safety associated with exposure to radiation are all problem areas with your discussion.

Again.

We need to get rid of coal but the reason isn't radioactivity.

We need to get rid of nuclear because of radioactivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/asia/30japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[txlibdem]

11. That article said nothing about the radiation from coal at all

It proves nothing and took all of 2 minutes to read.

Your post seeks to steer the debate away from the question of radiation from coal. Again, attacking only nuclear power while pointing none of the blame at coal at all.

Your posts all seem to tread very gingerly when coal's faults are brought into the discussion. Curious... If I hated coal as much as I state that I do, I'd be posting about the toxic emissions from coal plants:

Lead, which causes neurological damage to the unborn and to children. Gosh, that sounds like something an "environmentalist" would be squarely against.

Mercury:

Mercury causes brain, lung, and kidney damage, as well as reproductive problems, and even death in
humans and other animals. Mercury is found in fish after it falls into a lake or stream. Just one drop of
mercury can contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat, making mercury
contamination the most common reason for fish advisories issued by States and Native American tribes.
The EPA estimates that at least six million women of childbearing age have levels of mercury in their
bodies that exceed what the EPA considers acceptable and that 375,000 babies born each year are at
risk of neurological problems due to exposure to mercury in the womb.

http://www.rockymtnsolar.com/Deaths_and_Injuries.pdf

Just one drop of Mercury makes all the fish in a 25-acre lake unsafe to eat!

Gosh! If I were an environmentist I'd be pounding on every desk in D.C. to make them stop allowing the coal power plants to freely pollute as they do.

Here's more about coal's wonderful emissions:
------------------------------------------------------------
Solid waste

Waste created by a typical 500-megawatt coal plant includes more than 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. Nationally, more than 75% of this waste is disposed of in unlined, unmonitored onsite landfills and surface impoundments.

Toxic substances in the waste -- including arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium -- can contaminate drinking water supplies and damage vital human organs and the nervous system. One study found that one out of every 100 children who drink groundwater contaminated with arsenic from coal power plant wastes were at risk of developing cancer. Ecosystems too have been damaged -- sometimes severely or permanently -- by the disposal of coal plant waste.

Cooling water discharge

Once the 2.2 billion gallons of water have cycled through the coal-fired power plant, they are released back into the lake, river, or ocean. This water is hotter (by up to 20-25° F) than the water that receives it. This "thermal pollution" can decrease fertility and increase heart rates in fish. Typically, power plants also add chlorine or other toxic chemicals to their cooling water to decrease algae growth. These chemicals are also discharged back into the environment.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02d.html
---------------------------------------------------------------

Wow! Coal power plants are allowed to just spew out all that toxic crap into the air, into the water, and onto the land (which my earlier post shows causes ground water pollution). Coal is a deadly enemy even without global climate change taken into account. Even if coal had to pay for the damage caused by its CO2 emissions alone, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal power, wave power, and increased efficiency would all be cheaper by comparison. Now what if it also had to pay for the clean up costs, the lives lost each year, cleaning up the poisoned lakes and rivers... there would be no hope of coal being anything but the most expensive form of electrical power there is.

But coal gets a free pass on all of that toxic crap it puts out into our air, the air that good and decent hard-working American's kids need to breathe, and the water they need to drink to stay alive and grow, etc. And some posters here on DU want to only talk about the radiation coming from a 50 year old nuclear plant halfway across the world? Double standard, much?