Remember coal ash? In December of 2008, the people around Kingston, Tennessee got a good look at a billion gallon spill of coal ash sludge when an earthen dike broke at the Kingston Fossil Plant.
Stories that followed the accident called coal ash the dirty little secret of coal-burning electric industry. Those coal-fired electric plants that politicians and corporations say will be "clean" sometime in the glittery future produce approximately 130 million tons of coal ash every year.
After the Kingston spill, the media began to question the regulation of coal ash. Reading the stories, you might get the feeling that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was unsure how toxic coal ash was and how to regulate it. A more accurate story is that the coal industry helped write the regulations under the Bush EPA.
An environmental watchdog group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), published a report based on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Washington, DC — For years U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publications and reports about uses and dangers of coal combustion waste have been edited by coal ash industry representatives, according to EPA documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Not surprisingly, the coal ash industry watered down official reports, brochures and fact-sheets to remove references to potential dangers and play up “environmental benefits” of a wide range of applications for coal combustion wastes – the same materials that EPA is currently deciding whether to classify as hazardous wastes following the disastrous December 2008 coal ash spill in Tennessee.
During the Bush administration, EPA entered into a formal partnership with the coal industry, most prominently, the American Coal Ash Association, to promote coal combustion wastes for industrial, agricultural and consumer product uses. This effort has helped grow a multi-billion dollar market which the industry worries would be crimped by a hazardous waste designation.
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The EPA under the Clinton administration was considering regulation of coal ash as a hazardous waste, but those regulations were not enacted before Clinton left office. In galloped Bush and the EPA forgot all about those pesky regulations of coal ash. A nice summary can be found here.
Documents obtained by PEER illustrate how intimate the coal ash industry became with the EPA under Bush. Some of the bastard children produced by the alliance include:
-- Removal of “cautionary language” about application of coal combustion wastes on agricultural lands in an EPA brochure to be replaced with “exclamation point ! language” “re-affirming the environmental benefits…that reinforces the idea that FGD [flue gas desulfurization] gypsum is a good thing” in the word of an American Coal Ash Association representative;
-- A draft of EPA’s 2007 Report to Congress caused industry to lobby for insertion of language about the need for “industry and EPA [to] work together” to weaken or block “state regulations [that] are hindering progress” for greater use of the coal combustion wastes;
--EPA fact-sheets and PowerPoint presentations were altered at industry urging to delete significant references to certain potential “high risk” uses of coal combustion wastes.
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This email exchange between an industry representative and an EPA regulatory official gives you an idea of the pillow talk between the parties.
After the Kingston mess, Jim Roewer became the official industry spin doctor and is quoted in many of the stories related to the spill. This particular story in National Geographic illustrates the disinformation campaign in action.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long held that coal ash poses no substantial risks to the environment.
Currently, the EPA has produced no coal-ash regulations and strongly supports the substance's use in commercial products such as paints, kitchen countertops, concrete, and agricultural products such as mulch.
Jim Roewer, executive director of the industry-funded Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, said that while the EPA may not have broad-ranging regulations governing the ash, individual states do.
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A Newsweek story casts doubt on the notion that the EPA always viewed coal ash as not hazardous and hints at the influence of the industry on regulations.
In the wake of the Kingston spill, the fight over how to regulate the 129 million tons of coal-combustion waste produced in the U.S. each year has intensified. The EPA came close to regulating it as a hazardous waste in 2000, during the final months of the Clinton administration—a decision that would almost certainly have mandated dry storage of ash in double-lined landfills. But after coal lobbyists howled in protest, the EPA backed off, deciding to regulate it as a nonhazardous waste instead—the option favored by pro–coal lobbying groups like Roewer's. The agency never followed through on that determination, though. And once the Bush administration came to power, all movement on the issue ceased, thereby preserving the status quo: a patchwork of inconsistent state regulations that environmental groups consider, for the most part, anemic (though Roewer would dispute that).
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Unfortunately it took PEER to connect the dots on why the EPA regulations on coal ash came to be so lax. Despite noting a relationship between lobbyist howls and EPA gyrations, the media missed the larger story. The coal ash industry even got ponies under Bush.
A strategic partnership, known as the Coal Combustion Product Partnership (C2P2), is working to reduce or eliminate nearly 80 tons of coal ash that ends up in America's landfills annually.
This partnership of coal-fired power plants, state highway departments, builders and other organizations have agreed to use and promote the beneficial uses of coal ash -- a byproduct of utility combustion -- in road and building construction. On January 29, 2004, the 109 C2P2 members were recognized at the Coal Ash Association meeting by Bob Springer, Director of EPA's Office of Solid Waste.
"The industry has made a major commitment to create a model for selling coal ash for reuse," said John Glenn, an EPA partnership coordinator. "These companies are the people who will bear the brunt and get it done. They will be the innovators and champions of this effort."
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The EPA released the following statement in response to the PEER report.
The American people deserve to know their EPA is protecting them and their children, not the interests of industry lobbyists. When Administrator Jackson took office she ordered an immediate review of the health and environmental concerns raised by coal ash, including “beneficial use.” The Agency will issue a proposed rule to address those concerns shortly. EPA is also considering whether the C2P2 partnership should be continued. We will review all documents and emails in question to determine whether this process served the American people.
Clean coal is a myth and always will be a myth. No matter how much carbon gas emissions can be eventually sequestered, coal extraction and coal ash waste will always be environmental hazards. To give you some sense of the magnitude of the problem posed by coal ash, here is the summary from the EPA.
Where are Coal Combustion Residues (CCRs) being disposed?
Answer: CCRs from utilities are being disposed of in 41 states, in approximately 300 landfills for dry CCRs and approximately 580 surface impoundments or similar management units for “wet” or slurried CCRs. EPA’s original estimate was 300 surface impoundments based on a 2005 Department of Energy survey; however, based upon the responses to the information request letters, companies have identified additional management units.
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In other words, there are 580 coal ash sludge impoundments like the one that spilled in Kingston. Of these 580, the EPA has classified 49 as high risk for failure. Dry solid wastes are filling up 300 landfills. In addition to toxic heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, coal ash can also contain high levels of radioactivity. Clean coal, my ash.