100 Percent of Fish in U.S. Streams Found Contaminated with Mercury

 by David Gutierrez- staff writer- Wednesday, March 03, 2010

(NaturalNews) In a new study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), every single fish tested from 291 freshwater streams across the United States was found to be contaminated with mercury.

“This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds and many of our fish in freshwater streams,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that builds up in the food chain at ever higher concentrations in predators such as large fish and humans. It is especially damaging to the developing nervous systems of fetuses and children, but can have severe effects on adults, as well. The pollutant enters the environment almost wholly as atmospheric emissions from industrial processes, primarily the burning of coal for electricity. It then spreads across the plant and settles back to the surface, eventually concentrating in rivers, lakes and oceans, where it enters the aquatic food chain.

The number one cause of human mercury poisoning in the United States is the consumption of fish and shellfish.

Researchers tested the water, sediment and fish of the 291 streams between 1998 and 2005. Fish tested were mostly larger species near the top of the food chain, such as largemouth bass. Read entire article.

Disposal of spilled coal ash a long, winding trip

By BILL POOVEY (AP) – 5 days ago

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - More than a year after a Tennessee coal ash spill created one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in U.S. history, the problem is seeping into several other states.

It began Dec. 22, 2008, when a retaining pond burst at a coal-burning power plant, spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash across 300 acres into the Emory River and an upscale shoreline community near Knoxville. It was enough ash to cover a square mile five feet deep.

While the Tennessee Valley Authority’s cleanup has removed much of the ash from the river, the arsenic- and mercury-laced muck or its watery discharge has been moving by rail and truck through three states to at least six different sites. Some of it may end up as far away as Louisiana.

At every stop along the route, new environmental concerns pop up. The coal-ash muck is laden with heavy metals linked to cancer, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering declaring coal ash hazardous.

“I’m really concerned about my health,” said retiree James Gibbs, 53, who lives near a west-central Alabama landfill that is taking the ash. “I want to plant a garden. I’m concerned about it getting in the soil.” Gibbs said that since last summer there has been a “bad odor, like a natural gas odor.”

After the spill, the TVA started sending as many as 17,000 rail carloads of ash almost 350 miles south to the landfill in Uniontown, Ala. At least 160 rail shipments have gone out from the cleanup site, said TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci.

Since the EPA approved that plan, unusually heavy rain — including about 25 inches from November through February — has forced the landfill to deal with up to 100,000 gallons a day of tainted water.

The landfill operators first sent it to wastewater treatment plants — a common way that landfills deal with excess liquid — in two nearby Alabama cities, Marion and Demopolis.

After what the EPA calls unrelated problems with ammonia in Marion, the landfill in January started using a commercial wastewater treatment plant in Mobile, Ala., 500 miles from the original spill.

A month ago, however, after a public outcry about discharging it into Mobile Bay, that company refused to take more of the landfill water.

A private treatment facility in Cartersville, Ga., also briefly took some of the befouled liquid in February, although Georgia environmental officials said Friday the company did not have a required state permit.

Hi-Tech Water Treatment Services stopped accepting wastewater from the Alabama landfill, manager Amalia Cox said, after becoming “concerned about payments and the publicity.”

In a landfill management plan presented to Alabama environmental officials, tanker trucks could haul the dirty water to a non-hazardous waste disposal site in Louisiana and to a public wastewater plant in Mississippi. The plan also says there are “negotiations underway” on taking it to an unspecified facility in Georgia.

Neither the TVA, the companies hired to take the ash, nor environmental regulators want to discuss the disposal problems. Read entire article.

Daily Scandal: Free Big Coal Window Ads in Inhofe and Senate Enviro Committee Office? (Photos)

By- Jeff Biggers- Author, “Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland”-March 10, 2010
Daily Scandal: Free Big Coal Window Ads in Inhofe and Senate Enviro Committee Office? (Photos)

While the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is charged with protecting “the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the products we consume have a direct impact on the health of our families,” some of its staffers apparently feel it should also serve as a front for the devastating pollution of Big Coal.

As hundreds of citizens from ravaged coalfield areas in Appalachia and around the nation fill the corridors of Congress this week, calling on the House and Senate to pass the Clean Water Protection Act/Appalachian Restoration Act to stop the illegal dumping of toxic coal waste into our American waterways, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and his staff on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are reportedly providing free window space for Big Coal ads in our taxpayer financed federal buildings.

Check out this photo of the Senate minority leader’s office window at the E/PW Committee, sent by concerned coalfield residents from West Virginia, who have repeatedly asked the staffers to take down the offensive T-shirt on government property: See photos.

Groups want coal ash labeled hazard; $11 billion a year at stake

By Rick Stouffer, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, March 5, 2010

Rick Stouffer is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7853

Environmental groups and companies are arguing over whether coal ash, the common name for waste from coal-fired power plants, is hazardous to human health.

The coal industry, electricity producers, coal-producing states and the Environmental Protection Agency say coal ash is safe. Regulating it could destroy between $6 billion and $11 billion in annual benefits from using coal waste in its various forms.

But environmental groups are demanding that the EPA reverse its findings and declare coal waste to be a hazard. They say that’s the only way to eliminate haphazard state regulations and ongoing water contamination from toxic chemicals in coal waste, much of which is contained in excavated pits.

The EPA is expected to issue a decision on coal waste next month.

“The EPA has said and twice before has testified before Congress that coal waste isn’t hazardous,” said Tom Robl, associate director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, in Lexington, Ky. “The EPA would have to reverse itself, when there is no question the reuse of this material is not hazardous.”

Last week, Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice released a report that said four Western Pennsylvania sites are among 31 nationwide allowing waste from coal-fired power plants to pollute nearby rivers, creeks, groundwater and wetlands with toxic substances.

Opponents say coal waste often contains elevated levels of metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and selenium that can cause cancer and neurological damage.

Experts said the impetus for reviewing coal waste regulations was a Dec. 22, 2008, accident near Kingston, Tenn., about 35 miles west of Knoxville. About 1 billion gallons of coal waste sludge broke through a holding pond dike and covered about 400 acres of land around the Tennessee Valley Authority’s coal-burning Kingston power plant.

“The Kingston holding pond … certainly would not have been legal in Pennsylvania, which has some of the strictest coal ash regulations,” Robl said. “That was not a coal ash problem at Kingston, that was an engineering failure, and the reaction to the spill has been based in fear.”

“Science doesn’t support the classification of coal ash (waste) as hazardous,” said Ken Reisinger, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s deputy secretary for waste, air and radiation management.

A 2009 study commissioned by the American Coal Council found the annual economic impact of coal ash and other products — through revenue from selling the material, avoiding disposal costs and using the products as building materials like concrete and drywall — was estimated at between $6.4 billion and $11.4 billion.

One example is the National Gypsum Co. wallboard plant in Shippingport, Beaver County, which gets its raw material from FirstEnergy Corp.’s 2,460-megawatt D. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant. One megawatt can power 800 homes. Read entire article.

Iowans renew call for state coal ash rules

Federal delays, secrecy spark new push for action on disposal of toxic ash

By Jason Hancock 3/3/10 – Iowa Independent

Continued delays in the release of federal coal ash regulations have some in the Hawkeye State once again pushing for state officials to take the lead in order to protect public health.

It’s been more than a year since Iowa regulators decided to abandon their efforts to strengthen rules governing the disposal of coal ash, the toxic byproduct of coal combustion. Their reasoning at the time was that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was going to release federal rules later in the year. Better to wait, officials said, than waste time on state regulations that would be trumped when nationwide standards were instituted.

The Waterloo South Quarry, used by the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University as a coal ash dump. (Photo courtesy of Plains Justice)

The EPA promised rules by December 2009, a deadline that has come and gone. Wayne Gieselman, division administrator with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said the EPA’s goal then shifted to releasing draft rules by the end of February. Now, a tentative deadline has been set for April.

In the meantime, environmental watchdogs and the Wall Street Journal have pointed out that the White House has held an unprecedented number of meetings with coal industry groups since October to discuss whether the EPA should classify coal ash as a hazardous waste. It is unheard of, the groups say, for the White House to get so involved in the process before draft rules are released to the public for hearings and comment, and is an unsettling sign that the EPA may once again take a pass on tough coal ash rules.

State Sen. Dennis Black, who chairs the the Senate Environment and Energy Independence Committee, said he’s attempted numerous times to get clarity from the EPA on their timeline and on what sort of scope the rules may have. He wrote a letter in November and has attempted calling the agency several times. He has received no response to his inquiries.

When contacted by The Iowa Independent, Tisha Petteway, press officer for the EPA, referred to her agency’s December press release announcing an indefinite delay in coal ash rules. Read entire article.

Mountaintop Mining, West Virginia

Below the densely forested slopes of southern West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains is a layer cake of thin coal seams. To uncover this coal profitably, mining companies engineer large sometimes very large surface mines. This time-series of images of a surface mine in Boone County, West Virginia, illustrates why this controversial mining method is also called “mountaintop removal.”

Based on data from NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite, these natural-color (photo-like) images document the growth of the Hobet mine as it moves from ridge to ridge between 1984 to 2009. The natural landscape of the area is dark green forested mountains, creased by streams and indented by hollows. The active mining areas appear off-white, while areas being reclaimed with vegetation appear light green. A pipeline roughly bisects the images from north to south. The town of Madison, lower right, lies along the banks of the Coal River. See entire article

 With the help of Hurricane Creekkeeper, John Wathen, SouthWings has conducted six flights so far in 2010 on the issue of coal ash disposal in Perry Couny, AL. The ash originated from the TVA Kingston, TN environmental disaster in December 2008. At that time, over a billion gallons of coal ash stored near the TVA powerplant flooded into the local community after the earthen dam holding the material failed. See the full report. See coverage from your Hurricane Creekkeeper, John Wathen.

EPA’s Lisa Jackson and the Science of Mountaintop Removal

Rob Perks- Director, NRDC Center for Advocacy Campaigns, Washington, D.C.- March 4, 2010

“Certainly it is my belief as we learn more and more from outside scientists and inside scientists, we know that there are clear water quality impacts that come from filling in streams — pretty intuitive — and from the valley fills that result when you have to take this tremendous amount of overburden.”  

                  – Lisa P. Jackson, EPA Administrator

That is what the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday.  Jackson readily ackowledged the established body of evidence suggesting mountaintop removal coal mining harms water quality.

How can it not?  After all, this extreme form of strip mining involves the use of high explosives to blast Appalachian peaks and heavy machinery to scrape out thin coal seams from beneath the surface.  Tons of leftover dirt, debris and rubble then gets dumped down the side of the mountains, filling the valleys below and burying the streams.

That anyone would question the severity of environmental impact is what is astonishing.  Yet the coal industry — and its legislative proponents — continue to insist that the practice can be done in an environmentally responsible manner.  And our federal environmental agencies have permitted the decapitation of some 500 mountaintops — not to mention the nearly 2,000 mountain streams that have so far been irrecovably contaminated or simply obliterated.

Recently, a group of distinguished scientists forcefully came out against mountaintop removal, publishing a research study concluding that the impacts on stream and groundwater quality, biodiversity, and forest productivity were “pervasive and irreversible” and that current strategies for mitigation and restoration cannot compensate for the degradation. Read entire article.

Jeff Biggers Reveals Coal’s Dirty Secrets From the Heartland

In his exhaustively researched illuminating new book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, HuffPost blogger Jeff Biggers, whose family heritage was impacted by surface mining in Illinois, exposes the dark secrets and practices which grew the coal mining industry into a central position in delivering the electricity for a nation- including legalized slavery in the land of Lincoln.

 

 

Jerry Cope- Designer, Filmmaker, Eco Activist- Huffington Post

Modern coal extraction methods in the US today continue a legacy of deception and destruction that the vast majority of Americans are entirely unaware of. In recent years, the environmentally devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal (MTR) has become a flashpoint for an industry under increasing scrutiny for the adverse impacts on health, welfare and the environment directly attributable to coal mining and consumption.
Historically, coal mining has been fraught with labor issues and and dangers to life and property both direct and indirect, MTR is the most extreme example of an industry which from cradle to grave poses a danger to the ecosystems on every continent and a stable global climate system. After publishing a landmark study of MTR in January’s Science, some of the nation’s leading scientists called on the Obama administration to permanently ban the practice of MTR. Their peer-reviewed paper entitled Mountaintop Mining Consequences concluded that MTR causes irrevocable damage to the environment destroying entire ecosystems and invariably results in life threatening endangerment to humans. The resulting environmental degradation is so severe that remediation is impossible.

In his exhaustively researched illuminating new book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, HuffPost blogger Jeff Biggers, whose family heritage was impacted by surface mining in Illinois, exposes the dark secrets and practices which grew the coal mining industry into a central position in delivering the electricity for a nation — including legalized slavery in the land of Lincoln. The same slogans which were first coined over 100 years ago lauding the value of “clean coal” continue to be spun today to a public which now as then, consumes the power and for the most part buys into a greenwashed picture of an inherently dirty industry as essential to preserving the American way of life.

The following interview took place as Jeff Biggers is receiving critical acclaim and speaking on a national tour. Read interview.

EPA Approves Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine

By Patrick Crow, Washington Correspondent- waterworld

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a controversial permit - with water policy implications - for a West Virginia mountaintop removal coal mine.

The permit now goes to the Army Corps of Engineers, which has final authority (see Sept.-Oct. column). The Obama administration has been wrestling with the issue of mountaintop mining’s impact on water quality.

EPA said it supports a Clean Water Act permit for the Hobet 45 mine in Lincoln County after Hobet Mining LLC had agreed to additional significant protections against environmental impacts.

The revised permit for the mine (which would employ 460 persons) would reduce stream impacts by more than 16,000 linear feet, direct contaminated mine drainage away from surface waters, and include more compensation for environmental losses.

The agency also said it has extended talks with Mingo Logan Mining Co. regarding environmental and water quality concerns about its Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County. No additional mining will occur while talks are ongoing.

EPA said the Spruce No. 1 would be one of the largest mountaintop removal mines ever proposed in Appalachia. It would clear more than 2,200 acres of forestlands, bury more than seven miles of headwater streams, and contaminate downstream waters already heavily impacted by previous mining activities.

Citizen lawsuits have delayed the mine more than 10 years. The current Clean Water Act permit for the mine has been held up in federal court since it was issued in 2007.

EPA said Appalachian coal mining has buried an estimated 2,000 miles of streams in states including West Virginia. It said that scientific studies have increasingly identified significant water quality problems below surface coal mining operations that can contaminate surface waters for hundreds of years.

The Sierra Club urged the Obama Administration to begin a rulemaking to exclude mining waste from the definition of “fill” as a material that can be dumped in streams.

Meanwhile, more than 120 groups have urged EPA to adopt strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal.

EPA is working on such a regulation for coal ash, the waste produced from burning coal for electricity.

The action came on the one-year anniversary of the December 2009 spill of more than a billion gallons of coal ash near Harrimon, Tenn. The spill occurred after a dam failed and coal ash sludge was released from a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant retaining pond.

Cleanup of the spill is continuing. It is not expected to be completed until 2013. Estimated cost is more than $1 billion.

The Sierra Club said adequate federal protections could have prevented the mishap. It said, “There are hundreds more coal ash sites nationwide whose failure may lead to an even greater disaster than happened last December in Tennessee.

“The arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium that Harriman (Tenn.) residents have been exposed to, and the millions of dollars spent so far on clean up, remind us that coal is not clean, or cheap,” it said.

The issue of drinking water pollution from coal ash disposal was explored at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing in December.

Lisa Evans, with the Earthjustice legal firm, said improper disposal of coal ash poses a deadly, pervasive and increasing threat to the environment.

She said coal ash contains concentrated toxic elements such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, and thallium.

“It is not the mere presence of these dangerous toxins in ash that pose the threat - it is their propensity to leave the ash when the waste comes into contact with water,” she said.

Evans said EPA should regulate coal ash in landfills as a hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), not as a non-hazardous solid waste.

She said, “Enforceable minimum waste management requirements for dry disposal of coal ash in landfills should include siting restrictions, liners, groundwater monitoring, leachate collection, and financial assurance, closure requirements, post-closure care, and corrective action.”

Evans said EPA should phase-out the use of coal ash surface impoundments (waste ponds) at existing coal-fired plants and ban them at new plants. She said it also should prohibit coal ash disposal in sand and gravel pits.

Ken Ladwig, a project manager with the independent Electric Power Research Institute, said the U.S. electric utility industry burns more than 1 billion tons of coal annually, producing 125 million tons of residues - of which 92 million tons are coal ash. Read entire article.

Group: EPA must act on coal ash because Consumers Energy is polluting Lake Huron

By Eartha Jane Melzer-2/25/10

The delayed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule on coal ash disposal must be released because groundwater contamination has already spread at more than 100 dumps across the country, the Environmental Integrity Project said this week.

As evidence of the pressing need for EPA action the group pointed to the Consumers Energy Karn/Weadock complex near Bay City where arsenic levels 44 times the federal limit have been detected in groundwater beyond the ash dump. The ash piles at the plant are a major source of arsenic pollution in Lake Huron.
According to state documents, groundwater contamination from the two impoundments has resulted in elevated levels of arsenic, boron, and lithium. Mercury and phosphorous are also identified as constituents of concern although no exceedances of standards were provided in the information reviewed. A groundwater mound has developed beneath the impoundments, and as a result the contamination is flowing into both the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay. Arsenic levels up to 0.997 mg/L have been measured in the groundwater between the berm of the impoundment and Lake Huron (MDEQ, 2009a). The contamination plumes are estimated to extend 100 to 500 feet from the dike of the Karn Landfill and 100 to 300 feet from the dike of the Weadock Landfill.

The area where the Saginaw River flows into Saginaw Bay has been designated an Area of Concern (AOC) by the International Joint Commission, which is a joint American and Canadian board that addresses issues regarding the Great Lakes and Boundary Waters area. An AOC is declared due to impairments of beneficial uses by contamination, which, in the case of the Saginaw Bay AOC, includes damage to fish and wildlife populations and restrictions on drinking water consumption. The AOC is a result of multiple sources of pollution, but studies have found that the Karn and Weadock Landfills are major contributors of arsenic contamination to the AOC (MDEQ, 2005).

The discussion of the Consumers Energy plant is part of a new report  Thirty-one New Damage Cases of Contamination from Improperly Disposed of Coal Ash Waste  in which EIP gives details about coal combustion waste sites that are known to have contaminated groundwater, wetlands, creeks or rivers. Read entire article.

Coal Ash Controversy

By Cynthia Gould- CBS 42- 2/25

See coverage from your Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen  

Neighbors who live across from the Arrowhead Landfill in Uniontown say they’re afraid for their health and their property.

80 year old Ruby Holmes says what should have been the best days of her life, have turned into the worst days.

The landfill spans nearly a thousand acres. It was first pitched as a landfill for household garbage; now coal ash from one of the worst environmental disasters is being hauled in here and dumped everyday. It is brought by train from Kingston, Tennessee through Birmingham to Uniontown in Perry County.

Residents say the coal ash should have stayed in Tennessee. The coal ash is a by product of coal fired power plants. It is a mix of arsenic, lead and other chemicals and heavy metals. Both the EPA and ADEM approved plans to dump the coal ash here, along with the Perry County Commission.

Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner says the agreement has meant new jobs for the depressed area and will eventually mean about $3.5 million dollars for the county budget to use for things like infrastructure and schools.

John Wathen of the environmental group Hurrican Creekkeeper in Tuscaloosa calls the dumping of coal ash in Alabama an environmental crime

A lawsuit on behalf of more than 150 residents is now in the works. Even Governor Bob Riley says it may be time for the state to take a more active role in regulating big landfills. Read entire article.

More Than 40 Rallied at EPA Today; Asking Agency to End Mountaintop Removal

Philly EPA Considering 16 New Mining Permits

PHILADELPHIA - March 1 - As part of a growing movement against the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, dozens staged a rally today at Philadelphia’s EPA Region 3 building. Those in attendance were asking the EPA to take immediate action to veto new Mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining permits, which Region 3 is largely responsible for. The participants successfully met with EPA representative, Jeffrey Lapp, and delivered a letter to Shawn Garvin, the EPA’s regional administrator.

In recent months, the EPA has wavered in their position on mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR); in particular with the recent approval of the high profile Hobet 45 Mine permit. Philadelphia’s EPA has oversight of MTR permits for Virginia and West Virginia, which includes the Hobet 45 Mine. Philadelphia’s Region 3 EPA is considering 16 upcoming MTR permits and is responsible for the enforcement of the Clean Water Protection Act at existing MTR sites, which makes it a critical agent in ending the mining practice.

“As the body responsible for mine permits in Virginia and West Virginia, the Philadelphia EPA has a leadership role to play in ensuring the end of this outdated and egregious practice of blowing up whole mountains and contaminating drinking water for a very tiny amount of coal,” said Annie Sartor of the Rainforest Action Network, which organized the rally.
An increasing number of Americans oppose the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, including a majority of Appalachians. Called the worst of the worst strip mining, the practice blows the tops off of whole mountains to scoop out the small seams of coal that lie beneath.

“With resounding scientific consensus against the practice, hundreds of mountains destroyed and thousands of miles of streams contaminated, the EPA can and must end mountaintop removal coal mining,” said Robin Markle, who helped organize today’s rally.

A paper released by a dozen leading scientists last month in the journal Science, concluded that mountaintop coal mining is so destructive that the government should stop giving out new permits to do it. “The science is so overwhelming that the only conclusion that one can reach is that mountaintop mining needs to be stopped,” said Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and the study’s lead author.

Mining companies are clear-cutting thousands of acres of some of the world’s most biologically diverse forests, burying crucial headwaters streams and contaminating groundwater with toxic levels of heavy metals. According to the EPA, this destructive practice has damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of forest by 2020.

Today’s rally was organized by Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Philly Against Coal and concerned Philadelphia residents. In conjunction with the rally in Philadelphia, RAN also organized a sit-in at the Atlanta Region 4 EPA offices.

 Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is headquarted in San Francisco, California with offices staff in Tokyo, Japan, and Edmonton, Canada, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime, and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children.  

Report claims water contamination from Four Corners Power Plant

By James Monteleone- The Daily Times- 02/26/2010

FRUITLAND — Toxic seepage from coal ash ponds at Four Corners Power Plant is contaminating the neighboring Chaco Wash, which provides water for area livestock, according to a report published this week by national environmental advocacy groups.

The coal-fired power plant operated by Arizona Public Service Co. has deposited the waste byproduct from coal combustion in unlined pits surrounding the site since 1968, deposits that are believed to seep into groundwater and deposit high levels of boron, copper, lead, mercury and zinc, according to the report compiled by Oakland, Calif.-based Earthjustice and the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project.

The report details 31 sites across the U.S. where coal waste is believed to have contaminated neighboring water supplies. Four Corners Power Plant is the only New Mexico location featured in the document.

The contaminated water supply, Chaco Wash, is used primarily for wildlife and livestock watering, according to the report.

“For these uses, the elevated concentrations of boron, selenium and zinc are about twice recommended levels for freshwater aquatic organisms, and concentrations of copper and lead slightly exceed levels recommended in New Mexico for livestock,” the report states.

Chaco Wash is not a designated source of human drinking water.

No regulatory action is pending to require a clean-up of the chemicals and toxic metals being found in neighboring waterways, Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project claim.

APS officials said the newly released report is under review.

“We are committed to protecting the environment around the Four Corners Power Plant. The plant meets or exceeds all federal and state environmental regulations, and we are interested in solutions that help achieve environmental goals while keeping the plant financially viable,” APS spokesman Damon Gross said in a prepared statement.

Officials with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pollution from the Fruitland power plant, did not return calls for comment on Thursday. Read entire article.

Residents plead for tougher fly ash rules

 By SUSAN HYLTON -World Staff Writer-2/28/2010 

BOKOSHE — Oklahoma asserts it already does a good job of managing coal combustion waste under existing laws, but residents who live near a fly ash disposal site are pleading for the EPA to adopt tougher standards they believe are needed to protect their health.

“There is a lot of respiratory illness and cancer,” said Bokoshe resident Susan Holmes in a conference call last year to the Office of Management and Budget, which conducts the regulatory review.

“There are approximately 15 households within two miles to the north and east of the dump and 14 of them have cancer.”

The Bokoshe residents’ main complaints are the dust that billows from the site and water pollution, both of which have been documented in violations issued to Making Money Having Fun’s Thumbs Up Ranch ash disposal site near Bokoshe.

Records show the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality cited the company in May 2009 for violating air quality laws in its seven years of operation.

The DEQ memo states that the company failed to submit an emission inventory, failed to apply for a construction permit, failed to apply for an operating permit, failed to obtain a construction permit and failed to take reasonable precautions to minimize pollution.

Trucking companies transport fly ash from the nearby AES Shady Point coal-fired plant to the company’s land where it is dumped into an old strip-mining pit.

“MMHF is not taking reasonable precautions to minimize pollution, the water truck was not in operation when the inspectors arrived at the site, and when in operation, the water truck was not watering the driveway to the truck unloading area enough to control the dust,” the DEQ memo states.

Ken Jackson, one of the owners, said that as a result of the air violations, the company installed an enclosure to reduce dust.

“We had to do something,” he said. Read entire article.

Groups Say EPA Missed Contaminated Coal Ash Sites
By: Clean Skies News; compiled from other sources, Published: 02/25/10 1:30pm
The EPA is working on new regulations for coal ash, but two environmental groups say the agency isn’t doing enough.

The Coal Combustion Waste Initiative for Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice say the EPA has missed dozens of cases where coal ash may have polluted the surrounding area.  The groups say they have found 31 sites in 14 states — areas they say aren’t on the EPA’s recent list of 71 contaminated sites.

The agency produced the list in December, about a year after a Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash dam ruptured in December 2008, spilling about 1 billion gallons of sludge across 300 acres.

“While the catastrophic spill at TVA’s Kingston plant has become the poster child for the damage that coal ash can wreak, there are hundreds of leaking sites throughout the United States where the damage is deadly, but far less conspicuous,” said Jeff Stant, director of the Coal Combustion Waste Initiative. Read entire article.

Coal ash problems spread as EPA dithers, groups say

Environmental groups are complaining about delays in federal action on coal ash, saying improper disposal of waste from power plants continues to contaminate streams and ground water, threatening the health of people and wildlife.

The Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice released a report identifying 31 coal-ash contamination sites in 14 states, including one in Maryland, where it said toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium, selenium and lead were leaking from disposal sites into ground water, wetlands, creeks and rivers.  For more on their report, go here.

The Maryland site is the Brandywine coal ash landfill in Prince George’s County, which takes waste from the Chalk Point power plant on the Patuxent River (pictured above). The Maryland Department of the Environment last month formally warned the plant’s operator, Mirant Mid-Atlantic, that it faces a lawsuit over alleged water pollution violations for letting high levels of cadmium and selenium get into Mattaponi Creek, which flows through the state’s Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary.

Environmental groups had previously threatened to sue the Atlanta-based power company over the landfill. The company has declined comment on the threats of legal action, though a spokeswoman has said its landfill is in compliance with existing permits.

Most of the 31 ash sites identified yesterday are still active, environmental groups say.  Many are so-called “dry” disposal sites like Brandywine, rather than ash ponds or reservoirs such as the one that breached disastrously in December 2008 at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant. Read entire article.

COAL-ASH WASTE CONTAMINATION STUDY:  31 NEW WATER POLLUTION SITES FOUND IN 14 STATES, SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASING PRESSURE ON OMB TO RELEASE DELAYED EPA RULE

Arsenic, Other Deadly Pollutants Found in Water From Additional Sites in DE, FL, IL, IN, MD, MI, MT, NC, NM, NV, PA, SC, TN and WV; Toxic Metals Found at Levels Up to Nearly 150 Times Federal Limits.

WASHINGTON, D.C.///February 24, 2010///The case for the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to stop sitting on a delayed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coal-ash site contamination rule is even stronger than it first appeared to be, according to a major new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice. The analysis by EIP and Earthjustice identifies 31 additional coal-ash contamination sites in 14 states, which, when added to the 70 in the EPA’s justification for the pending rule, brings the total of coal-fired power plant waste storage sites with poisoned water to 101.

With data showing arsenic and other toxic metal levels in contaminated water at some coal-ash disposal sites at up to 1,450 times federally permissible levels, the EIP/Earthjustice report identifies 31 coal-ash waste sites where groundwater, wetlands, creeks, or rivers have been polluted with “wastes (that) contain some of the earth’s most deadly pollutants, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, selenium, and other toxic metals that can cause cancer and neurological harm (in humans) or poison fish.”  The 31 sites are located in the following 14 states: Delaware (1); Florida (3); Illinois (1); Indiana (2); Maryland (1); Michigan (1); Montana (1); Nevada (1); New Mexico (1); North Carolina (6); Pennsylvania (6); South Carolina (3); Tennessee (2); and West Virginia (2).   

U.S. coal-fired power plants generate nearly 140 million tons of fly ash, scrubber sludge, and other combustion wastes every year.   The EPA has indicated that coal ash dumps significantly increase risks to both people and wildlife.  For example, EPA’s 2007 risk assessment estimated that up to one in 50 residents living near certain wet ash ponds could get cancer due to arsenic contamination of drinking water. 

Highlights of the EIP/Earthjustice report include:

·        Arsenic, a potent human carcinogen, has been found at 19 of 31 sites at extremely high levels, with one site found at nearly 150 times the federal water standard. Arsenic causes multiple forms of cancer, including cancer of the liver, kidney, lung, bladder, and skin.  Offsite arsenic levels in ash-contaminated groundwater from the Reid Gardner plant (Nevada) have been measured at 31 times the EPA drinking water standard of 10 micrograms per liter.  

      ·        At least 26 of these 31 sites report contamination that exceeds one or more primary drinking water standards.
·        25 out of the 31 sites are still active disposal sites.    

·        At 15 of the 31 sites, contamination has already migrated offsite at levels that exceed drinking water or surface water quality standards.  The remaining 16 sites show evidence of severe onsite pollution.

·        The damage is not limited to “wet” ash ponds that received extensive attention after the disastrous ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant in December 2008. No fewer than 13 of the contaminated sites documented in the EIP/Earthjustice report involved so-called “dry” disposal, including two “structural fills” that were advertised as “beneficial reuse” of coal ash.

·        Examples cited in the report include:  a boron- and sulfate-contaminated drinking water supply that sickened people in Montana and had to be abandoned; major arsenic pollution from a coal ash dump that contributed to a Great Lake Bay becoming an “International Area of Concern”; a mile-long plume of contamination in Florida; mercury contamination of residential wells in Tennessee; and selenium levels in West Virginia surface waters at 4-5 times what is permitted under federal law.

·        The poisoned water damage could easily have been prevented with available safeguards, such as phasing out leak-prone ash ponds and requiring the use of synthetic liners and leachate collection systems.  As the report notes:  “Incredibly, ash and other coal combustion wastes are not subject to any federal regulations.  The EPA promised to close this loophole by proposing new standards before the end of 2009.  Instead, EPA’s draft rule is stalled at the Office of Management and Budget, where an avalanche of lobbyists hope it will stay buried.” 

Jeff Stant, director, Coal Combustion Waste Initiative, Environmental Integrity Project, said:  “While the catastrophic spill at TVA’s Kingston plant has become the poster child for the damage that coal ash can wreak, there are hundreds of leaking sites throughout the United States where the damage is deadly, but far less conspicuous.  This problem needs an immediate national solution – in the form of federally enforceable standards that protect every community near coal ash dump sites.  Water sources contaminated by coal ash may eventually be cleaned up, but only at great expense over long periods of time.  Injury to human health or wildlife, however, cannot always be reversed.  The data are overwhelming, and these 31 sites sound a clear warning that the EPA must heed before much more damage is done.”

Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel, Earthjustice, said:   “The data are overwhelming: these unregulated sites present a clear and present danger to public health and the environment.  If law and science are to guide our most important environmental decisions, as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has promised, we need to regulate these hazards before they get much worse.” 

J. Russell Boulding, principal, Boulding Soil-Water Consulting, Bloomington, Indiana, said:  “The 100 some damage cases that are now well documented are just the tip of the iceberg.  Our experience in compiling these damage cases is that if there are data available on surface and groundwater quality in the vicinity of a CCW disposal area, you will find contamination.  How many hundreds more damaged sites are out there waiting to be identified?  A federal policy that allows each State to address the complex issues of how best to regulate disposal of CCW so as to protect human health and ecosystems has failed.  It is irresponsible to further delay the development of national standards by EPA.”

Donna Marie Lisenby, Upper Watauga Riverkeeper, Appalachian Voices, and board member of Waterkeeper Alliance, Boone, North Carolina, said: “The pollution present in this waste is among the earth’s most harmful to aquatic life and humans – arsenic, lead, selenium, cadmium and other heavy metals, which cause cancer and crippling neurological damage.  If these poisons can be kept out of the fish we eat, the water we drink, bathe in, and need to survive, simply through regulation, than we must take that long overdue step, not only for the sake of our public waters but for humanity’s sake as well.”

 OTHER KEY STUDY FINDINGS

      ·        Concentrations of toxic pollution at many of these coal-ash sites are shockingly high.  Groundwater monitoring data show that pollutant concentrations have exceeded federal drinking water standards by a factor of 10 or more at the following sites: Indian River Power Plant Burton Island Landfill (arsenic, 145 times the standards); Grainger Generating Station (arsenic, 92 times); TransAsh Landfill (arsenic, 27 times); Seminole Generating Station (arsenic, 19 times); Karn Weadock Generating Facility (arsenic, 100 times); Brandywine Landfill (cadmium, 100 times); Big Bend Station (arsenic, 11 times); Seward Generating Station (antimony, 17 times); Fern Valley Landfill (arsenic, 36 times); Lee Steam Plant (arsenic, 44 times); Sutton Steam Plant (arsenic, 29 times); Hunlock Power Station (arsenic, 12 times); and Wateree Station (arsenic, 18 times).   (See the full EIP/Earthjustice report for the location of specific coal ash dumpsites.)

·        Low-income communities shoulder a disproportionate share of the health risks from disposal of coal combustion waste.  A majority of the 31 sites in this report are located in communities that that are above the national median for percent of low-income families. Similar high poverty rates are found in 118 of the 120 coal-producing counties, where coal combustion wastes increasingly are being disposed in unlined, under-regulated mines, often in direct contact with groundwater. 

·        Monitoring data for 15 of the disposal sites identified in the report show significant offsite pollution.  At least 8 coal ash dump sites contaminated groundwater beyond site boundaries: Big Bend Station (Florida), Gibson Power Plant (Indiana), Karn and Weadock Generating Facility (Michigan), Colstrip Power Plant (Montana), Swift Creek Landfill (North Carolina), Reid Gardner Generating Facility (Nevada), Phillips Orion (Pennsylvania), and Trans Ash, Inc. (Tennessee).

·        Lead, a deadly neurotoxin that can damage the central nervous system, especially in young children, was found at eight sites at up to 10 times the federal safe level.  

·        Selenium, a chemical deadly to fish at very low levels, was found at eight sites, exceeding federal water quality criteria at one West Virginia stream by more than 9.5 times. 

·        The data also show extremely high levels of other contaminants, such as sulfates and boron.  High sulfate concentrations make water undrinkable, and an EPA health advisory warns that ingestion of boron above 3 milligrams per liter can sicken small children.  Sulfate levels at some sites are up to 24 times above EPA “secondary” standards for drinking water, while boron concentrations have been many times higher than the EPA’s health advisory.   Three of the 31 facilities polluted drinking water at levels above health advisories and drinking water standards for boron (Gibson and Colstrip), and mercury (Trans Ash).  Contamination from the Colstrip site sickened people, forced the closure of the drinking water well at a nearby Moose Lodge, and triggered a $25 million settlement with nearby residents.  At the Gibson site in Indiana, Duke Energy is supplying bottled water to residents of East Mt. Carmel. Lastly, near the Trans Ash facility in Tennessee, a new water supply was piped to a resident after mercury levels in her well were measured at more than 5 times the drinking water standard.

·        At least eight coal ash dumps cited in this report polluted wetlands, creeks and rivers. According to publicly available monitoring data, offsite contaminant levels at six sites were above federal or state water quality criteria:  Indian River Power Plant (Delaware), Brandywine Landfill (Maryland), Four Corners Power Plant (New Mexico), and Seward Generating Station (Pennsylvania), and the Mitchell Generating Station and John Amos Power Plant ash sites in West Virginia. For example, groundwater from the Brandywine Landfill in Maryland discharges to adjacent Mattaponi Creek, and cadmium levels frequently exceed thresholds established to protect aquatic life.  An onsite well at the landfill recorded cadmium concentrations up to 100 times the drinking water standard.  At the Four Corners Power Plant, boron and selenium concentrations downstream from the plant’s coal ash ponds are much higher than upstream levels and approximately twice the levels established to protect aquatic life.

·        The Mitchell and John Amos plants in West Virginia discharge large quantities of selenium into Connor Run and Little Scary Creek, respectively, and the State of West Virginia has identified both as “fly-ash influenced streams.”  Selenium levels in each stream were more than 6 times the level the EPA has determined is safe for aquatic life.  Toxic selenium in fish taken from Connor Run averaged about 3 times the fish tissue limit that the EPA has proposed, while selenium concentrations in fish from Little Scary Creek exceeded the proposed limit by 7-fold.

·        From the Karn Weadock ash disposal site in Michigan, groundwater heavily laden with arsenic flows to Saginaw Bay at a level that contributed to the designation of part of Lake Huron as an “International Area of Concern.”  Data indicate that high levels of arsenic are also found in drainage from the Wateree site in South Carolina, as documented in onsite groundwater wells and in arsenic-filled catfish in the adjacent Wateree River.

 For a copy of the full EIP/Earthjustice report, go to http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.

ABOUT EIP AND EARTHJUSTICE

The Environmental Integrity Project (http://www.environmentalintegrity.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. EIP has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection of environmental laws.

Earthjustice (http://www.earthjustice.org) is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment.  Earthjustice works through the courts on behalf of citizen groups, scientists, and other parties to ensure government agencies and private interests follow the law. On Capitol Hill, Earthjustice works to protect and strengthen federal environmental laws and preserve special places, like the Arctic.

 CONTACT:  Leslie Anderson, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com; and Raviya Ismail, (202) 667-4500, ext. 221 or rismail@earthjustice.org.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  A streaming audio recording of the news event will be available on the Web as of 4 p.m. EST on February 24, 2010 at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.