Spiking Mercury Levels in Coal Ash Pose New Risks

Pollution Controls Multiply Toxic Potency of Coal Combustion Wastes

Washington, DC - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policies are creating a profound toxic legacy from coal combustion wastes with no containment strategy, according to regulatory comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). By allowing virtually unlimited reuse of coal ash and other highly toxic combustion wastes, EPA is allowing the most potent pollutants - the same ones that cost billions of dollars to keep from billowing out of power plant smokestacks - to reach the environment in the manufacture, use, and disposal of second generation coal ash products.

Coal combustion produces the nation's second biggest waste stream, second only to coal mining. Under EPA sponsorship, 60 million tons (nearly half the total) of coal ash and other wastes are used in mine fill, cement, wallboard, snow and ice control, agriculture and even cosmetics. Following a disastrous 2008 coal ash impoundment spill in Tennessee, this summer EPA finally put forward a proposal that would, at most, classify coal ash as hazardous only when it is in sludge (or "wet storage.")