Environmental groups want ruling on coal ash water pollution

              FILE - This Jan. 25, 2017 file photo shows the Gallatin Fossil Plant in Gallatin, Tenn. A federal judge on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017 ordered the nation's largest public utility to dig up its coal ash at Tennessee Valley Authority's Gallatin Fossil Plant and move it to a lined waste site where it doesn't risk further polluting the Cumberland River.(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - This Jan. 25, 2017 file photo shows the Gallatin Fossil Plant in Gallatin, Tenn. A federal judge on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017 ordered the nation's largest public utility to dig up its coal ash at Tennessee Valley Authority's Gallatin Fossil Plant and move it to a lined waste site where it doesn't risk further polluting the Cumberland River.(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Two Tennessee environmental groups are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on whether the federal Clean Water Act applies to pollution from a coal ash dump.

The groups sued to force the Tennessee Valley Authority to clean up coal ash pits at its Gallatin Fossil Plant. Court documents showed pollutants from the ash leech into the groundwater and then enter the Cumberland River. That's a source of drinking water for Nashville.

In September, a divided panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Clean Water Act doesn't address leaks through groundwater, only direct discharges, such as through a pipe.

Other circuits have ruled differently. The Supreme Court already has agreed to hear an appeal on the issue in a case out of Hawaii.

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