EPA Move Reignites Coal Ash Disposal Controversy
While Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality is in charge of coal ash from the state’s coal-fired power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to let 11 coal plants around the U.S. dump toxic coal ash into unlined pits for the next five years.
The EPA decision prompted environmental groups to voice concerns, the same kind of concerns that some groups raised when the Oklahoma DEQ was granted authority in June 2018 to take control of the oversight of the toxic coal ash under the U.S Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Environmental Groups Warn of Extended Pollution Risks
Filed in Washington, D.C., the suit contended the Oklahoma program runs directly counter to a federal court appeals court ruling the same groups won that bans unlined toxic coal ash ponds from continuing to operate.
Federal Rules, State Oversight and Legal Challenges Collide
As Canary Media pointed out in a recent article, the latest EPA decision allows the toxic coal ash system to remain for a full decade later than allowed under current federal rules. The EPA held a public hearing last week on its proposal to give the plants an additional three years to stop dumping coal ash in unlined pits and some of the same groups that challenged the ability of the Oklahoma DEQ to administer coal ash in the state are threatening challenges to the latest action by the Trump administration. They argue the plan is “illegal” and “another tactic by the Trump administration to prolong the lives of polluting coal plants,” reported Canary Media.
Critics Say EPA Action Prolongs Coal Plant Pollution
An attorney for Earthjustice, the same group that sued over the 2018 decision that supported Oklahoma’s DEQ administering coal ash monitoring stated, “If the proposal is not finalized, the plants would have to close their [coal ash] impoundments and cease burning coal by 2028.”
Lisa Evans, a senior attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice charged“the plants will continue to burn coal, thus creating additional air pollution,” and contamination from coal ash.
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