A broken dam caused this cement-like sludge to spill into the Emory River in East Tennessee. The coal ash sludge could dry out, putting toxic dust into the air. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
This past December a sludge of coal ash broke out of an impoundment at a power plant in
Tennessee. It destroyed homes. It devastated a section of river. And it set off a firestorm
about the problem of coal ash disposal. Now two US Senators and a bunch of environmental
groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash. Tamara
Keith has the story:
Transcript
This past December a sludge of coal ash broke out of an impoundment at a power plant in
Tennessee. It destroyed homes. It devastated a section of river. And it set off a firestorm
about the problem of coal ash disposal. Now two US Senators and a bunch of environmental
groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash. Tamara
Keith has the story:
Coal ash is byproduct produced by coal burning power plants and it’s stored at more than 500
sites around the country.
Anti-coal activist Dave Cooper signed onto a letter this week with more than 100
environmental groups telling the EPA it’s time to get involved.
“What we want is for the EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.”
But Dave Goss with the American Coal Ash Association says safe storage is an issue, but a
lot of the ash is actually recycled into things like concrete and wallboard.
“If you stigmatize it by giving it some sort of a classification such as hazardous, that’s going
to have a dramatic impact on the ability to re-use the materials.”
The EPA has been studying this issue for years, and hasn’t responded to the latest calls for
regulation.
For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.