The U.S. EPA issued instantly controversial regulations on power plant coal ash lakes and ponds Friday. Green groups complained, but FirstEnergy said the rules were "appropriate" given that the agency did not declare coal ash as a hazardous waste, allowing the material to be recycled into concrete, asphalt bricks and wall board.
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View full sizeFirstEnergy's Bruce Mansfield Plant. Shippingport, Pa., near the Ohio River. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday issued federal standards requiring states to closely regulate how utilities dispose of toxic ashes from their coal-fired power plants.
The EPA, which initially proposed the regulations in 2010, said coal ashes are laced with mercury, arsenic and cadmium and chromium -- heavy metals associated with cancer, respiratory diseases and stroke.
The regulations come six years after a Tennessee coal ash storage site holding tons of ash from a power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority failed -- pouring more than 5 million cubic yards of sludge into a river. Earlier this year a pond storing coal ash from a Duke Energy power plant in North Carolina leaked 27 million gallons of contaminated water into a river.
FirstEnergy Corp, which produced a little more than 9 million tons of coal ash in 2013, noted in a statement that the EPA's decision to regulate the material as "non-hazardous" solid waste was appropriate.
That designation, to the dismay of environmental groups, permits the recycling of coal ash as an additive to concrete, wall board, bricks and as a filler in abandoned mines.
FirstEnergy recycled a little over 30 percent of the ash its power plants produced in 2013.
FirstEnergy disposes of ash at eight sites across Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, said FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young in an email. Three are in Ohio.
Groundwater contamination of lakes and ponds near coal ash storage has also been a frequent complaint.
In a formal statement, FirstEnergy said it has extensive groundwater monitoring in place at it disposal sites.
"In addition, the company complies with rigorous dam inspection requirements multiple times each year. We are reviewing the rule to better understand any additional steps we need to take," the company said.
FirstEnergy is on schedule to close its 1,000 acre Little Blue Run coal ash storage lake in Pennsylvania by the end of 2016, said Young. Clean-up of the lake, which sits in what was once a forested valley, will take 14 years. The company and its predecessor have dumped 118 million tons of ash into the lake since 1976.
Columbus-based American Electric Power also found the new standards reasonable.
"We believe the EPA's regulation of coal combustion residuals as non-hazardous waste is appropriate to ensure the continued disposal of these materials in an environmentally sound way and to allow for continued application of important beneficial uses of these materials. Where closure of impoundments will be needed under this rule, the EPA is providing adequate time to implement the closures safely."
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, in a teleconference, said the regulations are designed to protect groundwater contamination and prevent structural failure of dams that hold coal ash lakes and ponds in place "while providing facilities a practical approach for implementation."
U.S. utilities annually produce about 140 million tons of coal ashes and cinders as well as ash-like materials from smoke stack scrubbers.
The EPA's release of the final rules kicked off a flurry of complaints from environmental groups that sued the EPA to prod the agency to finalize its 2010 proposals.
"While EPA's coal ash rule takes some long overdue steps to establish minimum national groundwater monitoring and cleanup standards, it relies too heavily on the industry to police itself, " said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project. "The devil is in the details, and we will review the regulation closely for loopholes."
"The EPA is bowing to coal-fired utilities' interests and putting the public at great risk by treating toxic coal ash as simple garbage instead of the hazardous waste that it is. Too much of the agency's new rule is left to the discretion of states, which all too often have favored powerful utility companies instead of the public," Schaeffer's statement continued.
"Unlike the majority of environmental standards -- which are backstopped by federal enforcement -- this rule all but leaves people who live near coal ash dumps to fend for themselves," said Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Some members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, also complained, charging either that the rules -- the first ever federal regulations for coal ash -- do not go far enough to protect the public or leave unanswered issues that will probably lead to more litigation.