Secret coal ash ponds spark legal action

[ensho]

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/12/secret-coal-ash-ponds-spark-legal-action.html


The public does not have access to information about more than 70 coal ash waste storage sites because the Environmental Protection Agency is withholding at the request of the power companies, which claim it represents "confidential business information."

Among the companies demanding that the information be kept secret are North Carolina-based Duke Energy and Southern Company subsidiaries Georgia Power and Alabama Power.

But the EPA may be forced to hand over the information thanks to an action taken this week by three environmental advocacy groups.

The Sierra Club, Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project filed a complaint on Tuesday in federal district court under the Freedom of Information Act to get the withheld information from the EPA, arguing that it's vital to the health and safety of nearby residents.

"Most utilities have already provided EPA with exactly the same data that Duke, First Energy, and the Southern Company subsidiaries are trying to keep the public from seeing," says EIP Executive Director Eric Schaeffer. "Their attempts to hide the size of their ash ponds and other relevant information are absurd, and ought to be quickly rejected by EPA."

Demands by those three groups led the EPA to release data earlier this year showing there are almost twice as many coal ash dumps as previously identified. It also showed that the largest dumps tend to be the oldest and offer the least amount of protection.

-snip-

"The public needs to have all the relevant information about the largest toxic waste ponds in the US -- not only to protect their communities -- but to participate meaningfully in the upcoming rulemaking," says Earthjustice Attorney Todd True.
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this is extremely important info that us citizens need for our own protection.

EPA better get on the ball!

[ensho]

1. giving this important issue a kick before I go

nt

[ThomWV]

2. Each of those companies is a big player in the Department of Energy's "Clean Coal" program

Could it be this is somehow associated with the hiding of materials that might effect results from demonstration facilities into which the DOE has invested billions of dollars. This may very well be worthy of investigation on many levels - is there an implication here that fraud on the scale of hundreds of millions if not billions of tax payer dollars is likely?

[jtrockville]

3. Coal is FILTHY.

[ensho]

4. kicking because this is important

nt

[Odin2005]

5. Coal is frikking evil.