Trump EPA Continues To Gut Protections Against Toxic Coal Ash Pollution

The Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is nearing the end of the public comment period in its fast-tracked process for gutting protections against toxic coal ash pollution in surface and groundwaters.

North Carolinians may primarily remember the coal ash issue from the huge coal ash spill in 2014 at Duke Energy’s Dan River Steam Station. By the time the spill was discovered and stopped, “39,000 tons of ash and 27 million gallons of toxic pond water laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other dangerous contaminants had spewed into the river in North Carolina and Virginia, contaminating it so far downstream that the city of Virginia Beach could not use its drinking water intake, and devastating the North Carolina communities that depend on the river and tourism.” 

Trump’s EPA Puts Big Donors First

In early April of this year, the Trump EPA acted on the request of its big donors in the coal industry to propose the wholesale gutting of toxic coal ash regulations that many communities in southern states fought for over years of struggle to address such disasters and prevent new ones. “If these rules are removed, then the federal government would, among other things, no longer require that coal ash be moved into lined and lidded pits, that coal ash contaminated water be monitored and correctly stored, and would allow coal ash to be used as a soil substitute in many more circumstances,” says Olive Burress of the NC Beyond Coal Campaign. 

“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,” comments League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Government Affairs Advocate for Healthy Communities Lizzy Duncan. “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.” 

EPA’s only planned public hearing on this proposal will be online this week (May 28) and the period for written public comments will close June 12. Concerned citizens can submit comments.