It must have seemed like Armageddon: Trees snapped like
twigs, houses were torn off their foundations, power was knocked out, and
everything was covered with a viscous black mud. This scene, straight out of a
horror movie, played out when the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil
Plant spewed millions of cubic yards of coal ash into the surrounding town. A
year later, the Obama administration has yet to decide if coal ash waste is “hazardous.”
It would seem to be an easy question to answer: Billions of
gallons of water were contaminated and coal dust permeated the air. Chemicals
and harmful metals were introduced to the air, land and water surrounding the
TVA plant. But “hazardous” here is a political label with political
ramifications.
If the EPA declares that coal ash is hazardous, it would
throw into place strict regulations of the coal industry, including requiring
landfill liners, groundwater monitoring and leak controls at coal ash dumps. It
would likely ban wet storage ponds, like the one that broke free at the TVA
Kingston plant. The cost of ash disposal would add an extra $10 billion to $15
billion burden to the coal industry.
Beyond this, however, “beneficial use” proponents say that such
a move would jeopardize an ash recycling program that brings in billions of
dollars in revenue for the coal industry each year.
Almost half of the ash generated by the industry is reused
to fill mines and make concrete to secure eroding embankments on highways. The
coalition that sets material and building standards in the United
States, the American Society for Testing and
Materials International, told the EPA in no uncertain terms that it would not
support the use of coal ash if it is deemed hazardous.
But Jeff Stant, director of the Environmental Integrity
Project’s effort to regulate coal combustion waste, says, “I have never seen
the first study or piece of data to substantiate the claim that there would be
this stigma that would stop recycling of coal ash. It’s important to note that
the people who have been making that claim are the ones who have a financial
interest in not having the designation.”
Many, including Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans, hope that
the EPA gives coal ash a designation as hazardous and imposes strong disposal
regulations but encourages recycling efforts. “People are acting as if this is
the first time that hazardous waste would ever re-enter the stream of commerce.
That’s really far from true,” Evans notes, arguing that other hazardous wastes,
like spent solvents, are routinely recycled.
The EPA’s self-set deadline for its decision of December
2009 has come and gone, and it is still wrestling with the question of how to
say that coal ash is hazardous but allow and encourage recycling.
