America's Environmental Protection Agency has put forward plans to regulate power station coal ash, following the billion gallon spill of wet ash from a plant at Kingston, Tennessee, in 2008, but cannot decide whether the waste, which contains arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury and selenium, is hazardous or not.
For over a century, American coal and power companies have been tipping coal ash into unlined landfills and massive settlement ponds but, following the Tennessee Valley Authority pond's failure and enormous consequent clean-up costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the EPA last summer rated 49 coal ash sites as "high hazard" - i.e. failure would probably cause loss of life.
Now the Agency has proposed two regulatory options, one classifying the ash as hazardous waste and one, to the dismay of environmentalists, rating it non-hazardous.
An exemption for beneficial uses of coal ash would remain under either option.
"The time has come for common-sense national protections to ensure the safe disposal of coal ash," said EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson.
"We're proposing strong steps to address the serious risk of groundwater contamination and threats to drinking water and we're also putting in place stronger safeguards against structural failures of coal ash impoundments."
The Agency says there are almost 900 landfills and impoundments across the country and it has been evaluating them since the spill.
But the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that the non-hazardous option would not protect communities near the plants.
It warned that the Agency would now face pressure from polluters claiming the sky would fall were the ash regulated as hazardous.
"The unregulated dumping of coal ash has already contaminated groundwater, creeks and wetlands at more than 100 sites across the US with arsenic and other heavy metals," said Eric Schaeffer, executive director for the NRDC's environmental integrity project.
"These pollutants are dangerous to human health, toxic to fish and other aquatic life, and notoriously difficult to clean up. EPA's proposal finally acknowledges these risks, and we look forward to a final rule with federally enforceable standards to protect the public from the hazards of coal ash."
