Trump Administration Proposes Weakening Coal Ash Rules
The Trump EPA last week proposed weakening key rules on the handling of coal ash, including standards for cleaning up contaminated sites and protecting groundwater and surface waters from contamination by dangerous heavy metals.
Dirty, Risky Coal
“Burning coal produces tremendous amounts of ash, a waste product that contains heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cobalt. If not stored properly, coal ash can contaminate groundwater,” notes the Associated Press. “Coal plants are often situated on the banks of rivers or other waterways, with waste ash sitting nearby.”
The rules on storage and cleanup of coal ash were first strengthened during the Obama Administration, sparked in part by disasters like the partial collapse of a Duke Energy coal ash storage pond and massive contamination of the Dan River in North Carolina in 2015. The standards for storage and cleanup were further tightened during the Biden Administration. The gutting of these standards now proposed by the Trump Administration is the latest of its broad weakening of environmental protections, intended to boost coal use and block the transition to cleaner sources of power.
EPA Could Expose Communities to Health Risks
“For decades, the coal industry has dumped hazardous coal ash into piles and unlined pits that foul our drinking water resources, lakes, streams and rivers. Now, Trump’s EPA is trying to roll back the few recent protections communities have against this toxic substance, exposing more people, primarily in low-income communities and communities of color, to heavy metals, carcinogens, and neurotoxins that make people sick,” said Lizzy Duncan, League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Government Affairs Advocate for Healthy Communities. “We urge the Trump EPA to abandon this proposal and hold power plant owners responsible for cleaning up health-harming waste from coal-fired power plants, before we see more avoidable heart and thyroid disease, reproductive failure, neurological harm, and cancer.”
“Letting coal-burning utilities set the agenda has been a disaster for communities across the South, resulting in coal ash spills and hundreds of families forced to live on bottled water for years under the threat of coal ash pollution,” said Nick Torrey, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which represented community groups in litigation for coal ash cleanup. “The Trump administration and coal ash polluters want to take us back to the bad old days of arsenic, lead, and mercury from coal ash contaminating our water.”
“EPA is proposing to turn back the clock on basic protections that have helped keep toxic coal ash pollution out of our groundwater and drinking water supplies. Re-setting the clock on these dirty ash ponds is a big deal: the longer they operate, the longer they contaminate people’s water. And stopping the monitoring just continues to keep the problem hidden as it impacts communities across the country,” noted Becky Hammer, senior attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Consider this rollback of basic protections that have helped limit coal ash pollution to be the latest in a long, long, line of Trump Administration giveaways to fossil fuels industries.”
