2024: Cleanup & safety rules expanded to more sites

In 2023, the EPA finally designated coal ash as a national enforcement priority and released a draft “Legacy CCR Rule” to close a major loophole for utilities by requiring groundwater monitoring, cleanup and safe closure at previously unregulated ponds and landfills. I traveled with a cohort of folks from East Tennessee to provide testimony to the EPA at a hearing in Chicago on a day when the air was filled with heavy smoke from Canadian wildfires. 

Betty Johnson, whose late husband and Kingston worker Tommy had passed away just six weeks earlier, was with us. Betty called on the EPA to take accountability for what happened at Kingston and to mitigate the danger of continued coal ash pollution by finalizing the legacy rule. Julie Bledsoe also provided testimony with her husband, Ron, supporting her in the audience. Ron worked on and was sickened by the spill, along with his brother Doug, who passed away a few years prior. Julie held up a photo of a worker covered in coal ash while she spoke. These women captured the attention of everyone in the room and left us all speechless with their powerful statements. 

Dozens of impacted community members from across the country provided testimony that day, and tens of thousands of people submitted written comments to EPA asking for a strong Legacy Coal Combustion Residual Rule that would finally force power companies to clean up their toxic messes.

The legacy rule was finalized in 2024 when Earthjustice reached a settlement agreement with EPA in another lawsuit that included the Sierra Club and their members living near the Bull Run Fossil Plant. It was a joyous occasion for communities and advocates, as federal regulation expanded to more than 150 legacy ponds and more than 770 older coal ash disposal areas called CCR Management Units that include inactive landfills, dry ponds and fill areas. But industry representatives immediately got to work on a plan to undo the safeguards.