Coal ash is sometimes used as an ingredient in concrete blocks (Photo source: Skepticsteve at Wikimedia Commons)
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
Transcript
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice uses data from the US Environmental Protection Agency – including a study that had been kept quiet since 2002.
Among the findings, people who live near coal ash storage ponds that are unlined, and who get their drinking water from a well, have a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from arsenic contamination.
Lisa Evans is an attorney with Earthjustice.
“It by far presents the largest risk to human health and the environment and there’s no reason to manage the waste in this way.”
The groups are calling for these storage ponds to be phased out and cleaned up in the next 5 years.
The EPA says new regulations are coming soon.
Power companies are willing to stop using storage ponds – but don’t want the coal ash classified as toxic. That would make disposal more expensive.
For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.