We know coal is dirty. Burning it pollutes our water and air and affects human health. (Learn more about the drawbacks of coal-fired power in our Energy 101.) It also leaves behind a mess called coal ash. Coal ash contains all of coal’s heavy metals and contaminants—like arsenic, lead, mercury, and more—but in a more concentrated form. Our long history of coal use has produced billions of tons of ash that are now sitting in slurry ponds and landfills across the country.

But if it’s so toxic and there’s so much of it, we can assume it’s strongly controlled and regulated, right? In reality, the management, re-use, and disposal of coal ash is mostly unregulated or tremendously under-regulated across the country.

And apparently, some members of Congress want it to stay that way.

But first, a little background. In 2008, after a catastrophic coal ash spill in Tennessee and several other spills across the country, the Bush Administration decided to regulate coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). RCRA gives states, with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight, the responsibility to manage hazardous and non-hazardous waste.

In 2010, the EPA published a notice that it was considering regulation of coal ash under solid waste or hazardous waste rules. Since then, some Congress members have launched efforts to stop the EPA from regulating coal ash at all. As a result, the EPA has not published a proposed rule.

The first successful effort to block the uniform regulation of coal ash, H.R.2273, passed the House of Representatives on October 14. The bill gives states, without EPA oversight, the final authority to regulate coal ash. Because state regulation is inconsistent and spotty at best, this would be a big blow to human health and the environment. The Senate is now working on a similar bill (S.1751).

According to Earth Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, both of these bills would have dramatic effects on human health because they

• don’t protect human health (the cancer risk from drinking water contaminated by arsenic near some coal ash ponds is 1 in 50, 2,000 times greater than the EPA’s acceptable risk level),
• enact regulations that are weaker than those for household waste landfills,
• will not phase out dangerous ash ponds or prevent another tragedy like the coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008,
• will cost American jobs (a recent study by a Tufts University senior economist found that strong coal ash regulations, such as the one proposed by the EPA in 2010, would generate 28,000 jobs annually), and
• fail to recognize that as the second largest industrial waste stream in the United States, coal ash is a national problem.

There’s no time to waste on this issue, as the likelihood of coal ash spills increases the longer we wait. On October 31, many decades’ worth of coal ash collapsed and spilled into Lake Michigan. This occurred after the State of Wisconsin had a chance to require reasonable management of the ash but decided that there was no need to do so. When a state like Wisconsin, which has an excellent track record in managing solid and hazardous waste, declines to adequately regulate coal ash management, what can be expected of other states that have a poor track record? How many spills have to occur before policy makers realize coal ash requires a national solution?

The industry argues that managing coal ash will make coal power too costly, though both the EPA and economists dispute that claim. But if it’s true, it’s just one more reason to ditch coal and look to cleaner electricity options. This time around, let’s choose sources like wind and solar—energy production that doesn’t produce piles of toxic waste product.

Photo: NRDC

Burning coal pollutes our water and air and affects human health. But it also leaves behind a mess called coal ash. Coal ash contains all of coal’s heavy metals and contaminants—like arsenic, lead, mercury, and more—but in a more concentrated form.