Coal waste damage listed

Two national environmental groups say they have documented 31 coal ash waste sites where coal wastes may have damaged the environment.

Two of the 31 sites in 14 states listed in the report are in Tennessee -- the coal ash waste site of TVA's John Sevier Fossil Plant in Rogersville, Tenn., near Morristown, and a TVA-owned coal combustion waste landfill called Trans-Ash Inc., in Camden, Tenn.

Trans-Ash is a former gravel mine that takes ash from the New Johnsonville Fossil Plant.

TVA spokesman Travis Brickey said the utility could not respond to the report on Wednesday.

"We're still reviewing what they put out today. We won't have a comment today," he said.

The 142-page report was put together by the Coal Combustion Waste Initiative for Environmental Integrity Project of Washington, D.C., and Earthjustice of Oakland, Calif., and is based on the groups' review of state documents and resident complaints. The two are pushing for new federal rules to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.

The report notes that, in the wake of the Kingston ash spill in Harriman, Tenn., a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list identifying 71 coal ash waste sites where toxins have contaminated groundwater or caused other problems was not a definitive list.

"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, based in Washington, D.C.

The report found nearly 50 percent more major coal ash water contamination cases than EPA had listed.

"At 15 of the 31 sites, contamination has already migrated off the power plant property at levels that exceed drinking water or surface water quality standards," Mr. Stant said.

EPA spokeswoman LaTisha Petteway did not comment Wednesday.

Environmental groups have touted EPA's list of 71 sites as a reason to reclassify coal combustion waste disposal from nonhazardous to hazardous.

EPA has acknowledged that coal wastes contain concentrated toxic and hazardous materials such as arsenic, mercury and selenium. After the Kingston ash spill in December 2008, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson pledged to introduce new rules for coal waste disposal.

But she didn't say the new rules would classify coal waste as hazardous. Such a rule would require a much more expensive disposal process.

Coal, mining and the power industries oppose a hazardous classification.

EPA's draft rule has not been made public, and now is under review by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Lisa Evans, director of Earthjustice, said the nation's power plants each month generate and store enough coal waste to fill 10 Empire State buildings.

"The damage identified in today's report is, in one word, preventable. And because it is largely avoidable, the harm is unforgivable ... EPA must keep its promise to act," she said.