Southern Environmental Law Center - January 30, 2009
Blueprint to Safeguard the Environment, Public
Health & Safety from Coal Waste
The catastrophic waste spill at the Kingston Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Tennessee
unveiled the urgent need for regulation of large quantities of solid and liquid waste generated by
coal-fired power plants. For decades, the waste--known as coal combustion waste and containing
several toxic materials—has spewed from coal-fired power plants and been stored without
adequate regulation.
Coal combustion waste
Often mixed with water and disposed of in surface ponds or landfills, coal combustion waste is
known to contain a variety of toxic chemicals and metals. A 2007 Environmental Protection
Agency study, on which the EPA requested comments in August of 2007, examined 181 coal
combustion waste disposal sites throughout the country and found that the waste disposal sites
release arsenic, lead, boron, selenium, cadmium, thallium, and other pollutants at levels that
endanger human health and the environment. The EPA report also found that unlined coal
combustion waste ponds pose a cancer risk 900 times above what the government considers
"acceptable."
Lack of national regulation
Despite clear evidence showing that coal combustion waste poses serious and extensive hazards
to people’s health and the environment, the EPA has not regulated it as hazardous waste. In fact,
the EPA has failed to set nationally applicable regulations for the disposal of coal combustion
waste, resulting in an insufficient and inconsistent patchwork of lax and ineffective state
regulations. In the Southeast, for example, there are at least 46 unlined coal disposal units,
inadequately regulated by state or federal law (see map).
Recommendations
The EPA should establish national safeguards for the disposal of coal combustion wastes through
enforceable regulations. Once established by the EPA, states must follow with regulations at
least as stringent, if not mor