Front Porch Blog

Federal and N.C. coal ash rules under attack

The Dan River, the site of one of North Carolina’s major coal ash spills (Photo: Eric Chance)

Co-authored with Kevin Ridder

In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to dramatically weaken the first-ever federal regulations—created in 2015—to regulate how coal ash is disposed of and stored across the country. Coal ash is the toxic byproduct of burning coal for electricity. More than 130 million tons of coal ash are produced annually, and the Southern Appalachians are where the most egregious coal ash spills in the country have occurred.

Although only three years old, the coal ash rules are under attack, along with many other environmental protections, from the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, and the changes are not modest.

Some of the proposed changes would:
1. Allow weaker groundwater protection standards and remove children’s health protections
2. Make toxic cleanups discretionary
3. Eliminate the requirement to close coal ash ponds that fail safety standards
4. Remove the requirement for polluters to respond immediately to coal ash spills
5. Remove the requirement to post compliance data, leaving citizens in the dark even after the same data revealed widespread radioactivity in coal ash ponds.

Pruitt stated this proposed change would allow states to “incorporate flexibilities into their coal ash permit programs,” and the EPA projects it would save utilities up to $100 million a year. The cost to the environment and the communities adjacent to these unlined toxic pits, however, doesn’t seem to be a consideration to either the EPA or the private utility monopolies.

In addition to the threat of weakening these coal ash rules, Pruitt halved the typical 90-day public comment period to just 45 days.

In April, Appalachian Voices’ North Carolina team carried the testimonies of three North Carolina mothers who have been impacted by coal ash to the EPA hearing in Arlington, Va. The women’s testimonies relayed their personal experiences of the burdens and fears of living on bottled water and the concerns they have for their health and the health of their communities. They asked that the protections put in place by the 2015 federal rules not be removed or altered.

Caroline Armijo, a community member of the Belews Creek Steam Station, said in her testimony, “I am gravely concerned about the rollback of regulations that we see proposed here today. As community members, we know that having access and availability to industry data for these regulations [is] helpful and critical to our health.”

Jeremy Orr, civil rights attorney and recent appointee to the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory council is quoted as saying “Can you really quantify and trade off the disproportionate health impacts that these communities near these ponds are going to suffer?”

Another opponent of the change is Frank Holleman, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Southern Environmental Law Center, who states that weakening the rules is a dangerous move.

Holleman told The Progressive Pulse that existing federal rules “aren’t the strongest, but [they] did set some minimum standards and pretty clear triggers—if utilities exceeded standards in polluting groundwater, they [would] have stop and clean it up. That’s what Pruitt’s trying to attack and soften and weaken. His technique is to grant state agencies and the utilities ‘flexibility’ in determining when and what action must be taken.”

How these changes will impact North Carolina

North Carolina is in an interesting position because the state already has protective legislation in place through the 2014 Coal Ash Management Act, which dictates much of the disposal and cleanup requirements for coal ash ponds in the state. In addition, state agencies are now proposing to introduce new coal ash rules on the state level that would incorporate requirements to mirror the federal rules that the EPA proposes to remove.

However, the proposed changes to North Carolina’s rules have already come under fire. In a press release, the Southern Environmental Law Center stated that the proposed North Carolina rule changes “represents a significant step backwards, creating opportunities for Duke Energy to delay cleanup and snarl citizen efforts in bureaucratic and legal complexities.”

Ideally, the state rules will provide DEQ the authority to protect public health and the environment and enforce their own regulations in a way that can’t be manipulated by Duke Energy’s political pressure. A state rule— without loopholes— that can establish protective, clear groundwater standards (especially for hexavalent chromium) as well as pressure Duke into having a shorter timeline to address problems would be a great first step.

While the extent to which federal changes would affect North Carolina’s rules remains unclear, Dave Rogers with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign states that a strong EPA rule is necessary.

“It’s really important to have that kind of strong federal backstop in case anything does change at the state level, as we’ve seen and experienced in North Carolina,” Rogers said.

Xavier Boatright, an organizer with Clean Water for North Carolina, states that “the Federal CCR rules that are being rolled back on the federal level will allow Duke Energy to determine their own cleanup plan and ultimately cap in place the 100 million tons of coal ash left in the ground.”

The final draft of the state rules will be submitted in July, followed by a 60-day public comment period.

A graduate of Appalachian State University with a B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology, Ridge served as our AmeriCorps Outreach Associate from 2015-17 and is now on staff as the Field Coordinator for our North Carolina program.


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6 COMMENTS
  1. Jorge Arenas says:

    This is asinine. Lowering pollution standards though perhaps good for investor’s bottom line is toxic to people, the environment and our very existence in the long run. Unless we take care of the planet, our very existence is in danger.

  2. Marsha Wilkins says:

    It seems that the federal government and some state governments are in the back pockets of the utility companies. If you drive around Richmond you will see the Dominion Energy name on some venues in the city. Dominion has made many plolitical contributions in Virginia.

  3. Rick Phelps says:

    Tom and Ridge,

    Thanks for another excellent warning about CCR !

    I think Tom has heard my CCR toxicity or rather non toxicity concerns before but I’ll give you the short version. Which has largely been supported by the Duke chemist in the past.

    For Ridges’ benefit, I have over 25 yrs as an environmental lab supervisor at Eastman Chemical. Eastman burned 10 M lbs of SWVA coal per DAY. Thus, it had a bit of a CCR disposal problem. Used dry land fill; mixed and capped with leachate monitoring.

    Why is CCR deemed to be non toxic ? Othr than the political reasoms, RCRA solid waste disposal rules require the materials to be land filled must be deemed nn hazardous by pssing an EPA-developed test know as the Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure or TCLP. This has been used for decades and is totally useless for most of the materials placed in landfills associated with CCR and most chemical wastes.

    Why ?

    First the extraction process which is largely water fails to remove the adsorbed toxics which are not very soluble. Secondly, the analytical methods included are antiquated and relatively insensitive. The toxic substances are dangerous at low concentrations and TCLP simply cannot identify of quantify most of these. Thirdly, TCLP makes no attempt to be representative of the transformations of these toxicants may undergo during disposal such as neutralization into more soluble compounds.

    Thus, it is apparent why CCR escape a toxic designation.

    I know this is a difficult concept but the Duke chemist performed work which more clearly defined the concern and may have offered a solution. TCLP is simply inappropriate for CCR characterization.

    Cary on !!!

  4. W Dechert says:

    This is NOT a good thing. Duke Energy has paid off a lot of people in N.C. already, or so it seems, as they have gotten away with many costs to clean up there mess.

    Without these regulation, they will run wild and the cost to the public will be horrible.

    Another politician in bed with big corporations. This is the SWAMP we need to get rid of..

  5. Grace Neff says:

    Well I see Pruitt is at it again. Dismantling everything that makes sense for the health and well being of citizens to be kept in favor by his polluting donors and the detriment of the rest of us.

  6. Sandra Dreis says:

    This information regarding the possible roll-back of legislation that protects the environment is greatly disturbing, especially as it pertains to coal ash.
    The availability of clean water is our most important right–to life and the pursuit of happiness. Citizens should not be forced to drink bottled water because their water is contaminated!
    Scott Pruitt is totally on the wrong path and puts all Americans in danger. NC has suffered so much due to the Duke spill of coal ash in the Dan River. Our eyes are open! No going back.

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