Steven Fox of Chesapeake, Va. says the first he heard of a coal ash dump site near his home was when he read a local newspaper story about how the material was used as structural fill for a newly-built golf course.
Environmental advocates plan to organize citizens by the busload for a series of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency meetings on its proposal to regulate the disposal of coal ash, an environmental hazard that was the subject of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity last year.
A bipartisan majority of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is voicing “strong opposition” to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to regulate the disposal of coal ash — an environmental hazard that was the subject of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity last year.
Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced much-anticipated proposals to regulate the disposal of coal ash — an environmental hazard that was the subject of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity last year.
An agitated citizen’s group met with White House officials on Monday to press for long-delayed action on the dangers of coal ash — an environmental hazard that was the subject of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity last year.
Last February, in a four-month investigation into the dangers of coal ash, the Center covered the notorious, ash-laden water in Colstrip, Montana, home to a behemoth coal-fired power plant known by the same name. Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has revealed that the Colstrip plant’s ash ponds — the ones responsible for all that toxic water — are on its much-anticipated list of 44 potentially highly dangerous coal-ash dumpsites nationwide.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Dem, stirred excitement last Friday when she decried the “huge muzzle” the Obama administration placed on her by deciding not to disclose the whereabouts of more than 40 dumpsites full of coal ash — the often toxic combustion waste from coal-fired power plants.
Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has ended years of delay and pledged to regulate coal ash — the often toxic combustion waste that’s caused damage nationwide — Congressional attention is turning toward other ways to tighten federal oversight of the ash. Of specific interest: the Clean Water Act (CWA), which is the primary law protecting streams, lakes, and wetlands from pollution.
A massive, late-December coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee helped publicize the many dangers of the often toxic solid waste generated by burning coal for electricity.
Coal ash — the often toxic solid waste generated by burning coal for electricity, and the focus of a recent Center investigation — has largely been viewed as a regional problem, limited to the coal-heavy eastern United States. Indeed, the Center’s map of 194 ash landfills and 161 ash ponds seems concentrated up and down the East Coast. But it turns out it’s a mistake to view the issue through a regional lens.
