New Coal Ash Report

U.S. COAL ASH CRISIS WORSENS: NEW STUDY TO IDENTIFY OVER THREE DOZEN ADDITIONAL COAL ASH WATER CONTAMINATION SITES IN 21 STATES


As Coal Ash Hearings Begin Across U.S., EIP, Earthjustice and Sierra Club Report to Reveal Ineffective State Oversight & Growing Need for EPA to Step Into Gap; Sites Overlooked by EPA Found in AR, CT, FL, IL, IA, KY, LA, MI, NE, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TN, TX, VA and WI.

WASHINGTON, D.C.//NEWS ADVISORY//More than three dozen coal-ash dump sites in 21 states that are contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals are not being monitored properly by state governments and require the intervention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a major new report that will be released at 11 a.m. EDT Thursday (August 26, 2010) by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice and the Sierra Club.

To date, the EPA has acknowledged the existence of 67 coal combustion waste (CCW) disposal sites that have contaminated water with toxic chemicals. However, a February 2010 EIP/Earthjustice report documented 31 additional sites in 14 states that the EPA should have included on its list. The more than three dozen additional sites in Thursday’s report bring the total number of toxic contamination cases to more than 100. Even EPA acknowledges that there are likely many more cases that have not yet been documented.

Set to be released just days before the first in a series of major coal ash rulemaking hearings, the EIP/Earthjustice/Sierra Club report shows that, at every one of the CCW sites equipped with groundwater monitoring wells, concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water, with concentrations at one site in Pennsylvania reaching as high as 341 times the federal standard for arsenic.

The 21 states with more than three dozen additional sites also being ignored by the EPA are (in alphabetical order): Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The first public hearing on pending EPA coal ash rule is set for August 30, 2010 in Washington, DC. Hearings will follow in: Denver, CO on September 2; Dallas, TX on September 8; Charlotte, NC on September 14; Chicago, IL on September 16; Pittsburgh, PA on September 21; and Louisville, KY on September 28.

News event speakers will include:

· Jeff Stant, director, Coal Combustion Waste Initiative, Environmental Integrity Project;

· Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel, Earthjustice;

· Lyndsay Moseley, federal policy representative, Sierra Club;

· J. Russell Boulding, environmental scientist, Boulding Soil-Water Consulting; and

· Barb Reed, whose son was a victim of pollution from FirstEnergy’s Little Blue Run Impoundment, Greene Township, Beaver County, PA.

TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 11 a.m. EDT on August 26, 2010 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “coal ash water pollution" news event.

CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio recording of the news event will be available on the Web as of 4 p.m. EDT on August 26, 2010 at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.

CONTACT: Virginia Cramer, (804) 225-9113 x 102 or Virginia.cramer@sierraclub.org

Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com.



The Environmental Integrity Project (http://www.environmentalintegrity.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. EIP has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as industries , accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection of environmental laws.



Earthjustice (http://www.earthjustice.org) is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. Earthjustice works through the courts on behalf of citizen groups, scientists, and other parties to ensure government agencies and private interests follow the law. On Capitol Hill, Earthjustice works to protect and strengthen federal environmental laws and preserve special places, like the Arctic.



The Sierra Club (http://www.sierraclub.org) is America’s largest, oldest and most influential grassroots environmental organization. Inspired by nature, our 1.3 million members are working together to protect our communities and the planet.

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Arlington, Virginia

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Cancer: Coal's Hidden Cost

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 6, 2007

Contact:

Lisa Evans, Earthjustice (781) 631-4119

Eric Schaeffer, Environmental Integrity Project (202) 296-8800

Jeff Stant, Clean Air Task Force (317) 359-1306

Neil Carman, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter (512) 472-1767 or 512-299-5776

Cancer: Coal's Hidden Cost.

New EPA Risk Assessment finds extraordinary cancer risk; lack of federal regulations endanger U.S. water supplies

Washington, D.C. The risk of getting cancer from coal ash lagoons is 10,000 times greater than government safety standards allow, according to a draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency obtained by an environmental group. Although the EPA acknowledges this risk, it has neglected to adopt regulations that will limit exposure and protect against the health threats of America’s second-largest industrial solid waste stream, coal ash.

While EPA has not yet formally released the revised assessment, environmental groups received a summary of the draft, which indicates that the cancer risk for adults and children drinking groundwater contaminated with arsenic from coal combustion waste dumps can be as high as 1 in 100 – 10,000 times higher than EPA’s regulatory goals for reducing cancer risks

EPA’s failure to limit pollution from coal combustion waste, or coal ash, has poisoned surface and groundwater supplies in at least 23 states, by EPA’s own admission. Coal combustion waste is the solid waste produced by coal-fired power plants, which produce approximately 129 million tons of the waste each year. The waste is contaminated with toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium and selenium. There are currently about 600 existing coal ash landfills and surface impoundments in the U.S.

There are currently plans to build over 150 coal-fired power plants in the United States by 2030. Pollution from coal ash impoundments will undoubtedly worsen unless EPA takes the necessary steps to protect neighborhoods and communities from this dangerous pollution source. EPA acknowledges that coal ash landfills and surface impoundments have contaminated water above federal drinking water standards in: Texas, Maryland, New York, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The agency also acknowledges that more cases of drinking water damage occur, but that monitoring systems are not in place to detect contamination at a large percentage of the existing dumps.

“Texas ranks Number One for burning more coal and lignite than any other state in the nation and next to Kentucky, Texas is Number Two in hazardous coal-combustion waste generated at 12,943,000 tons per year!” said Neil Carman, Clean Air Program Director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Now, energy companies want to build many more coal plants in the state and that presents another serious problem. Besides dirty air from the millions of tons of smokestack emissions, we would have to contend with polluted surface and groundwater from unsafe coal ash waste disposal if we build these plants. Not a good idea.”

“We've seen surface water contamination by coal combustion waste and we’re concerned that without better rules governing disposal of this waste, both our surface water and groundwater resources are in danger,” said Travis Brown of Neighbors for Neighbors, a grassroots citizens' group.

Neighbors for Neighbors ranchers, farmers and rural residents based in Lee, Bastrop, and Milam counties in Texas have been fighting strip-mining, air pollution and coal waste dumping practices by Alcoa Corporation operating in their area for many years. TXU plans to build an additional coal fired power plant in the area – TXU Sandow 5.

“The E.P.A. report should cause great concern for Texans, especially those who live near seventeen existing coal plants and the related dumping grounds for coal combustion waste.” said Brown.

A broad coalition of 27 environmental and public health groups, led by Earthjustice, Clean Air Task Force and the Environmental Integrity Project, recently submitted a proposal to EPA detailing ways to protect against pollution from the millions of tons of coal ash disposed annually by U.S. coal-fired power plants. The groups also requested that EPA take immediate action to investigate and abate pollution at coal ash dump sites.

“It’s very simple,” said Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans. “Coal combustion waste currently disposed without adequate safeguards poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment in dozens of communities throughout the country. EPA has made no effort to protect the public against these pollution sources for over seven years. We believe it is time to act.”

In 2000, EPA committed to establishing regulations for coal ash disposal. Since then, the agency has met repeatedly with industrial polluters and will soon issue a Notice of Data Availability (NODA), which is expected to defer federal waste regulation in favor of a voluntary industry agreement. However, the voluntary industry agreement, announced by a consortium of coal-fired electric utilities last fall, promises no controls on the hundreds of existing waste dumps and gives industry three years to place monitoring wells around dumps within a mile of drinking water sources.

Simple measures such as isolating the waste from groundwater, prohibiting dumping of coal ash in sand and gravel pits, and lining landfills and surface impoundments would have a huge impact on limiting pollution from these facilities.

“The people who are exposed to a greater cancer risk by drinking water poisoned by coal ash landfills and surface impoundments need to be heard,” said Jeff Stant, Director of the Power Plant Waste-Safe Disposal Project for the Clean Air Task Force. “EPA has ignored affected communities for far too long.”

“Many coal ash disposal sites lack the most basic safeguards such as liners, covers, and groundwater monitoring--standards that are routinely required for household trash at sanitary landfills,” states Eric Schaeffer, Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. “In fact, in many cases, the operators are simply dumping the waste straight into groundwater and face no cleanup requirements by states.”

The National Academies of Science (NAS) found in a March 2006 report studying the practice by utilities of dumping coal combustion wastes in coal mines, that high contaminant levels in leachate, or runoff, from coal ash dumps has contaminated drinking water and caused considerable environmental damage, including the local extinction of multiple species. The NAS report cited EPA’s commitment in 2000 to promulgate federal regulations to require adequate safeguards for disposal of toxic ash and called for the development of regulations mandating safeguards for minefilling. The Environmental Protection Agency, nevertheless, has neglected issuing these much needed safeguards.