Rule Proposed to Manage Coal Ash Dumps at Defunct Power Plants

The EPA is proposing new regulations for coal ash management at inactive coal-fired power plants, the agency announced Wednesday.

“Because this proposal applies to legacy contamination or inactive units that no longer support current power plant operations, it is not expected to affect current power plant operations,” the EPA said in a news release.

Coal ash is waste created by coal-fired power plants. It can pollute streams, groundwater, and drinking water, and it can pollute the air if poorly managed. Coal ash and the arsenic found in it have been linked to cancer and other public health threats, according to the EPA.

Inactive coal ash surface impoundments are more likely to be unlined and unmonitored, and therefore more prone to leaks, the agency said.

The draft of the rule, published Wednesday in a Federal Register pre-publication notice, is open to public comments for 60 days.

The agency said the need to regulate coal ash became clear after spills near Kingston, Tenn., in 2008 and Eden, N.C., in 2014 caused widespread water pollution.

The proposal stems from a 2015 EPA coal ash rule that set minimum standards for existing coal ash landfills and other surface impoundments at active coal-fired power plants, but the rule didn’t address coal ash dumped at inactive coal-fired power plants.

A federal court in 2018 vacated the exemption for inactive power plants and surface impoundments and remanded it to the EPA.

“This proposed rule represents a crucial step toward safeguarding the air, groundwater, streams, and drinking water communities depend on,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

The proposed rule would define legacy impoundments of coal ash—also known as coal combustion residuals (CCR)— and require them to comply with other related coal-ash regulations.

Though the proposal responds to the court’s remand, “it is also driven by the record, which clearly demonstrates that regulating legacy CCR surface impoundments will have significant quantified and unquantified public health and environmental benefits,” the EPA said in the notice.