by Sue Sturgis
The December 2008 impoundment failure at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant inundated a nearby community with toxic coal ash.Photo: United Mountain DefenseA special Facing South investigation.
When a billion gallons of coal ash
broke loose from a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s
Kingston power plant near Harriman, Tenn. in December 2008, registered
nurse Penny Dodson was living nearby with her 18-month-old grandson,
Evyn.
Like most of her neighbors, Dodson never gave much thought to the
impoundment until it collapsed, destroying three homes, damaging 42
others and inundating the nearby Clinch and Emory rivers with the sludgy
coal waste.
The Dec. 22 spill blanketed Dodson’s property, but
TVA assured residents it wasn’t toxic, so she and Evyn stayed put. But a
week after the disaster, Evyn—who suffers from cerebral palsy—
became very ill.
He refused to play or eat, his eyes turned red
and watery, and he began coughing and wheezing. He eventually landed in
the hospital, where tests showed his body had high levels of arsenic and
lead, contaminants in the coal ash. The doctors blamed his troubles on
airborne ash and advised them to move.
“I carry guilt because we stayed,”
Dodson said in
testimony to state lawmakers at a hearing held two months after the
disaster. “Because I was told that we were going to be safe, and I
believed them.”
Evyn Dodson, shown here at the 2009 state hearing on the TVA disaster, suffered serious health problems that doctors blamed on toxic substances in the coal ash that blanketed his family’s property. Still shot from WSMV video of the hearingSince that fateful incident, other energy
disasters have grabbed headlines: the blast
at a West Virginia coalmine that left 29 miners dead, and an
explosion on BP’s offshore oil drilling rig that killed 11 workers
and has released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Coal
ash isn’t receiving as much attention nowadays. But a six-month
investigation by Facing South finds that it poses a growing threat to
public health and the environment—even as coal ash remains
unregulated by the federal government due in large part to political
pressure from energy companies.
But the days of coal ash escaping
the scrutiny of federal regulators are numbered. Earlier this month,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—after months of delay due to
maneuvering among the EPA, White House Office of Management and Budget,
and the politically powerful electric utility industry—took the
unusual step of releasing
two different proposals for how to regulate coal ash.
EPA is
now asking the public to weigh in on the two options during a 90-day
comment period that will begin once the proposed rules are published in
the Federal Register. (For a pre-publication version of the rules, click
here.)
As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said when the regulatory options were
rolled out, “We look forward to the participation and the comments of
the American people.”
What happens in the coming months will
determine whether communities will be protected from the prospect of
another coal ash disaster like the one that struck eastern Tennessee, as
well as from less visible but no less dangerous coal ash disasters
unfolding in communities nationwide.
Hazards in our midst
A coal ash spill from another Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Alabama the month after the disaster contaminated Widows Creek.Photo: Hurricane Creekkeeper John WathenWhen coal is burned to produce
electricity, it leaves behind a variety of wastes—fly ash, bottom
ash, boiler slag, and more—known collectively by regulators as coal
combustion waste, or more commonly as coal ash.
U.S. coal plants
generate more than 150 million tons of coal ash each year, according to a
recent Environmental Protection Agency analysis.
That makes it the second-largest industrial waste stream in the U.S.
after mining waste.
Because coal ash is not regulated by the
federal government, the EPA had never set out to count the number of
impoundments for disposing of coal ash waste nationwide.
But
after the Kingston disaster, the agency launched a search that turned
up a total of 584 impoundments and similar disposal sites at more
than 200 facilities, mostly power plants.
Of the more than 580
impoundments the EPA discovered, it rated the hazard potential of about a
third of them. Of those, 49 units have been rated as high hazard—
meaning a failure like the one at Kingston would likely kill people.
Another 60 units are rated as significant hazards, meaning their failure
could lead to widespread destruction like the Kingston disaster. Many
of the communities at greatest risk from hazardous impoundments have higher-than-average
poverty rates.
These ratings are significant, because
failures of coal ash impoundments are not rare occurrences:
In
July 2002, a
sinkhole developed in an impoundment at the Georgia
Power/Southern Company’s Plant Bowen in Bartow County, Ga., covering
four acres and reaching 30 feet in depth. The sinkhole released 2.25
million gallons of a water and coal-ash mix to a tributary of the
Euharlee Creek; that creek feeds the Etowah River, which provides
drinking water to local communities and habitat
to imperiled species.
In August 2005, an
impoundment failed at PPL’s Martins Creek power plant in
Pennsylvania’s Northampton County, sending more than 100 million gallons
of contaminated water and coal ash into the Delaware River, which provides
drinking water for downstream communities.
In January 2009
—less than a month after the catastrophic collapse at the Kingston
plant—a pipe inside a coal ash impoundment at TVA’s Widows Creek
plant in northeastern Alabama leaked,
sending as much as 10,000 gallons of coal ash waste into nearby Widows
Creek, a tributary of the Tennessee River. The intake for Scottsboro,
Ala.‘s water supply lies
about 20 miles downstream of the spill site.
Despite the
clear hazards, many of these coal ash dumps are unregulated not only by
the federal government—they’re virtually unregulated at the state
level as well. For example, most states don’t require groundwater
monitoring and runoff collection at coal ash impoundments, and more than
half don’t require liners or financial assurances to guarantee the
owners can pay for cleanup of any contamination that might occur.
“It’s
a situation that needs to be fixed,” said attorney Lisa Evans, a former
EPA official who now works with the environmental law firm
Earthjustice. “We’re talking about a potential loss of human life.”
Poisoned
waters
Catastrophic collapses like the one
at the Kingston plant in Tennessee aren’t the only threat posed by
unregulated coal ash impoundments. Most of the more than 100 known and
suspected cases of environmental damages caused by coal ash that have
been documented by the EPA and environmental groups involve contaminants
from the ash seeping into nearby groundwater and surface water supplies
from impoundments, which are typically unlined.
In fact, a
recent EPA
risk assessment found that people who live near coal ash
impoundments and drink from wells have as much as a 1 in 50 chance of
getting cancer due to contamination with arsenic, one of the most common
and dangerous pollutants in coal ash. The same risk assessment found
that living near coal ash impoundments also increases the risk of damage
to the liver, kidneys, lungs and other organs.
And as a
consequence of efforts to make burning coal cleaner, new technology to
collect airborne coal ash from the smokestacks of power plants has
increased the concentration of toxic contaminants in coal ash,
heightening its public health and environmental risks.
The
dangers of coal ash aren’t just hypothetical—it’s been linked to at
least 100 cases of toxic contamination across the country. The following
examples were detailed in a recent
report by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project:
At Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Station near Apollo Beach in
Florida’s Hillsborough County, thallium and manganese leaching from a
coal ash dump have contaminated off-site groundwater at levels exceeding
federal drinking water standards, while arsenic has contaminated
on-site groundwater at levels 11 times above standards.
At SCE&G’s
Wateree Station in Eastover, S.C., arsenic contaminated groundwater
at the site at 18 times the federal drinking water standard, according
to the same report. The contamination has migrated to adjacent property
and is accumulating in catfish in the nearby Wateree River.
Selenium discharges from ash impoundments at AEP’s John Amos Plant along the Kanawha River in Winfield, W.Va. have exceeded the facility’s
permit limits, according to publicly available monitoring data, while
fish taken from nearby Little Scary Creek have registered selenium
levels above what the state considers safe for human consumption.
Exposure to excessive levels of selenium over the short term can cause
nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and over time can result in neurological
effects.
Arsenic in groundwater beneath Progress Energy’s
Sutton Steam Plant on the Cape Fear River near Wilmington, N.C. has
been detected at levels as high as 29 times the federal drinking water
standard and is migrating off-site, according to state monitoring data.
And Sutton is no exception: An
independent analysis of state data found that every one of 13 coal
ash impoundments located next to North Carolina power plants owned by
Progress Energy and Duke Energy that were tested are leaking
contamination to groundwater.
Communities can be exposed to the
hazardous ingredients of coal ash through means other than the water
supply. At Progress Energy’s Skyland plant near Asheville, N.C.,
dried-out ash from a poorly managed impoundment blew through the air
onto a neighboring condominium community, accumulating on residents’
homes, lawns and cars. A lab
analysis done as part of the state’s investigation into the
incident found that the material contained highly toxic, cancer-causing
elements including arsenic, chromium, and radioactive strontium.
Dry
coal ash in landfills, as well as the use of coal ash as a substitute
for fill dirt in construction projects, have also been proven to cause
environmental damage.
The health consequences of the public’s
exposure to coal ash can take years to develop, but in some cases the
impact has been more acute. For example, leaking coal ash impoundments
at PPL Montana’s Colstrip power plant in Rosebud County, Mont.
contaminated a well at a nearby Moose Lodge, where members suffered
stomach ailments from drinking the water. Fifty-seven Colstrip
residents, including members of the Moose Lodge, filed a lawsuit against
the company that was eventually settled
for $25 million.
“These companies fought every step of the
way,” plaintiffs attorney Jory Ruggiero said at the time. “You can’t hide the facts when you’re testing wells and
they’re coming up contaminated.”
What’s at stake
These
growing public health and environmental concerns—along with the
Kingston disaster in Tennessee—have brought the country to a
watershed moment in confronting the dangers of coal ash.
The two
regulatory alternatives put forward by the EPA this month include stark
differences. Both proposals would regulate coal ash under the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, the primary federal law governing solid waste. But one
option would regulate it more strictly as a “special waste” under RCRA
Subtitle C, which governs hazardous waste, while the other would
regulate it less strictly under RCRA
Subtitle D, which applies to ordinary waste. Regulating coal ash
under RCRA Subtitle C would give EPA clear enforcement authority, while
placing it under Subtitle D would give EPA the power only to set
guidelines for managing coal ash, leaving oversight programs to the
states and enforcement to citizen lawsuits.
Energy companies have
lobbied fiercely against treating coal ash as hazardous waste, arguing
that such an approach would be too costly and would discourage efforts
to recycle coal ash into other products. Meanwhile, environmental groups
make the case that coal ash is clearly hazardous and should be treated
that way under law.
With the EPA now putting the future of coal
ash regulation up for public debate, environmental advocates like Scott
Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, say citizens must speak up if they want to avoid another
tragedy like the one that devastated the lives of Penny and Evyn Dodson
and their neighbors.
“The catastrophic failure of the dam in
Kingston, Tenn. finally got the nation’s attention to regulate toxic
coal ash,” said Slesinger. “We learned in Kingston, as we recently
learned in the Gulf, that catastrophic failures associated with dirty
carbon happen with tragic results.”
* * *
TOMORROW:
Disaster in East Tennessee: It’s been nearly a year and a half since
the massive TVA coal ash spill. But for communities touched by the spill, it’s an ongoing catastrophe.
Sue Sturgis is an investigative reporter and
editorial director of Facing South. This piece is the first installment
in an in-depth, week-long series on the growing national problem of coal
ash and the political battle over regulations.
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