Waste from coal-fired power plants

Citizens Coal Council

January 2001 

Many people are aware of the severe damage caused by mining and burning coal in power plants to make electricity. But most don’t know about the damages caused by dumping the huge amounts of waste that remain after the coal is burned. 

Utility and manufacturing companies in the U.S. burn almost one billion tons of coal a year and that produces a lot of waste, 115 million tons a year. These companies dump 70 percent of the waste with few restrictions and environmental controls. 

In more and more states, these power plant waste dumps are damaging homes, polluting water, degrading communities, and destroying property values. The Citizens Coal Council is working for national rules to stop this damage. 

Pollution and Waste 

Coal is one of the dirtiest fuels used, only wood is worse. Burning coal produces high amounts of air pollution that cause very serious effects on health and the environment: people get sick, weather patterns change, acid rain kills forests and lakes, and mercury poisons fish in lakes and streams and those who eat them. 

The national clean air law allows power plants to burn coal but requires many of them to remove some of the pollutants by “scrubbing”. Although scrubbing certainly does improve the quality of the air released from the plants, there are no national rules that forbid utility and manufacturing companies from polluting the land and water when they dispose of the waste and so they do. 

A ‘Witches’ Brew 

Made up of both ash and scrubber sludge, this waste is a witches brew. It contains concentrated amounts of boron, sulfates, chlorides, radioactive compounds, and heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, chromium, molybdenum, beryllium, and other toxins. 

New rules will soon go into effect that require power plants to remove more air pollution: nitrogen oxides and mercury. Removing these from the air will increase the concentration of toxic chemicals in the waste and add millions of tons each year to the total amount of power plant wastes. 

At Least 600 Dumps 

Throughout the country, many coal-fired utility and manufacturing plants are dumping coal ash and scrubber sludge into quarries, lagoons, landfills and both abandoned and active coal mines with few if any safeguards. These practices are poisoning water supplies, particularly where plants dump the waste directly into ground water. 

Most states don’t have any safeguards. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with enforcing pollution controls and protecting public health. A 1999 EPA report estimates that 450 power plants are operating over 600 waste dumps, but the agency has largely relied on information from the utility industry, which opposes national rules on waste disposal. 

EPA officials don’t know and have not made a serious effort to find out even such basic information as the number or location of most dumps taking the power plant wastes. 

Citizens Find More Damage Sites 

Over the past two years, citizen groups have started doing the work that EPA has neglected. They searched the records of several state and federal agencies and found more than 60 sites in 23 states with documented pollution of water supplies. The pollution caused severe problems such as undrinkable well water and death to fish and other aquatic life; some of the damage has been known for over 20 years. 

A thorough search and testing program would find many more cases of pollution. Here are some examples: 

Illinois, Indiana and North Dakota: High sulfate and chloride levels in once-drinkable ground water near power plant dump sites make the water saltier than seawater. 
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Virginia: Pollution from waste dumps has forced residents to abandon wells used for drinking water.

Massachusetts and Ohio: Public water supplies are threatened by power plant waste contamination.

Texas: Toxic levels of selenium in discharges from fly ash settling ponds owned by Texas Utilities Generating Co. caused massive fish kills in Martin Lake in the late 1970’s. In the early 1990’s, the state began warning people about the danger of eating fish caught at three popular recreation reservoirs. The fish have dangerous levels of selenium from power plant waste.
South Carolina: Heavy metals in discharge from the Savannah River Power Plant’s ash lagoons poisoned adjacent wetlands. The poisons concentrated in plants and aquatic insects and still caused mutations 10 years after the discharges stopped. Today, scientists find fish with deformed fins, salamanders without <N>legs or feet, and bullfrogs with deformed spines. 
Tennessee: Scientists found deformed fish downstream from the US Department of Energy’s ash pond at Oak Ridge.

North Carolina: Duke Power dumped power plant waste into Belews Lake in the 1970’s that wiped out 16 of the 20 fish species in this popular fishing lake and made two of the remaining species sterile. 

Utilities and manufacturers create the pollution but don’t bother to learn how much and what kinds they create. Half the power plant waste in the nation is dumped in unlined waste lagoons and 75 percent of those lack any ground water monitoring. Industry admitted to EPA that it still doesn’t monitor the ground water at many dump sites but claims the wastes don’t pose risks. 

Waste Can Be Recycled 

The EPA says about 30 percent of power plant waste is being beneficially reused. Recycling plants are turning millions of tons into cement, road pavement, concrete, and wallboard. These are safe, useful products and companies make money selling them. 

Other reuses may not be so beneficial. In Appalachia, companies are dumping large amounts of the alkaline waste into coal mines to combat acid drainage. Without careful testing and monitoring, however, such projects can release more toxic metals into streams than the acid did. Midwestern mining and utility companies are dumping the waste into mines that don’t have an acid problem, polluting the groundwater. 

The Citizens Coal Council wants EPA to write and enforce national rules on the disposal of power plant waste that contain safeguards and controls. Such rules would protect water supplies, public health and property values around disposal sites. Rules would also help encourage more companies to reuse the waste in truly beneficial ways rather than just dumping it. 

EPA Does a Flip-flop 

The industry’s clout in protecting its profits has temporarily won out over the need to protect water. Despite growing evidence of more contaminated sites and rising public concern over lax state rules, EPA chief Carol Browner decided in April 2000 against writing national rules. This happened just two months after she had told Congress that the agency would regulate power plant waste as a hazardous waste. 

Browner beat a hasty retreat when the industry turned up its lobbying heat. Unless we continue pushing for strict rules, this flip-flop will allow irresponsible waste dumping to mushroom in the next five years as new air pollution controls produce more waste. 

EPA Wants Citizens To Police Dumps 

Instead of rules, Browner decided EPA would write guidelines by the end of 2001 to define safe disposal practices that companies should meet. EPA, however, will not have the legal authority to enforce these guidelines. The states could choose to enforce the guidelines but most states have refused to enforce any standards for years. 

If EPA and the companies have their way, it will be up to citizens to ensure that their communities and water resources are protected. If dumpers fail to follow the guidelines, they will be guilty of open dumping, this violates the U.S. Resources Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), but citizens will have to sue the dumpers. 

Citizens Push For Clean Water 

The Citizens Coal Council helps its members find out about dumps in their communities and take action against the problems. Also, we sued in August 2000 and asked the federal court to make EPA write and enforce rules. Working together we can protect our water. 

Please join us.