2015: First federal coal ash rule & its shortcomings

A lawsuit filed by the environmental law organization Earthjustice, on behalf of a host of other nonprofit organizations (including Appalachian Voices), resulted in a settlement with the EPA to finalize the first-ever federal regulations on coal ash, known as the 2015 Coal Combustion and Residuals rule. 

This rule brought hundreds of coal ash sites under regulations for the first time and set requirements for groundwater monitoring and protections, closure of unsafe sites and coal ash cleanup where corrective action was required. However, industry lobbying resulted in hundreds of additional “legacy” coal ash ponds and dry piles being exempted from this initial rule. For TVA, 29 of its coal ash sites were regulated by the 2015 rule, but 27 “legacy” ponds and inactive landfills were exempted.

This loophole allowed utility companies to point to these unregulated ponds as the cause of contamination found in monitoring wells, helping them drag their feet to avoid cleanup for years.

Also in 2015, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued a commissioners order that required TVA to follow a process for monitoring its coal ash units and making a plan for corrective action. However, the order was not prescriptive about specific actions and treatments for problems, and allowed TVA to mostly choose its own remedy for addressing its coal ash pollution under TDEC’s approval. 

Over the last nine years, I’ve attended several funerals and memorials for workers and advocates in East Tennessee who spent their final years fighting for stronger coal ash protections and justice for the Kingston workers. I’ve worked with communities advocating for TVA to safely move its coal ash to lined storage, instead of capping the waste in unlined, wet impoundments that leak into groundwater. Along the way I’ve met attorneys, scientists and journalists who have dedicated their careers to this cause. I’ve also seen TDEC and TVA delay the monitoring and clean-up plan process required under the commissioners order almost every year since I started working at Appalachian Voices in 2017, although this process may be nearing “completion” this year. 

In 2019, the Environmental Integrity Project released a report that showed 91% of coal plants across the country were causing groundwater contamination above safe federal limits, and the group confirmed these results after analyzing two additional years of data in 2022. These data underscore the shortfalls in the original Coal Combustion Residuals rule, and why the hundreds of unregulated coal ash units across the country needed to be brought under federal safeguards.