Washington Watch: EPA Could Greenlight Coal Ash Pollution
Coal ash pollution? No problem, the Trump EPA wants to say.
The Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is trying to administratively rewrite the Clean Water Act to narrow the pollution it restricts. Their proposed changes could give a greenlight to seeping contamination from coal ash pits. Other implications of the change would be even broader, and seriously damage our nation’s ability to protect clean water.
The change in question would revise an earlier EPA opinion that pollution which reaches a surface water via pollution which seeps into groundwater is regulated as a discharge under the Clean Water Act. That earlier EPA opinion has been important to several federal court decisions controlling pollution from coal ash pits.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which has been a leading pro-environmental litigator in several of these cases, condemned the proposed reinterpretation of the Clean Water Act. SELC senior attorney Frank Holleman said, “This is the latest evidence that Mr. Pruitt and the EPA have become the agents of polluting industry. The Clean Water Act protects our rivers, lakes and drinking water supplies from toxic pollution discharged by irresponsible industries. Administrations of both parties for decades have made clear that polluters don’t get amnesty for dumping pollution into our nation’s waterways.”
“The Clean Water Act is absolutely clear that this kind of dangerous pollution is illegal and political appointees at EPA don’t have the power to change it. Courts across the country from Hawaii to North Carolina have held polluters responsible for this kind of contamination of our waterways. Polluters have obviously run to Mr. Pruitt to protect themselves from the consequences of their unlawful pollution but the Clean Water Act stands and protects our country and our clean water despite what the polluters may think.”
Up next, get ready to speak out against off-shore drilling at Raleigh public hearing >>
