Don't Hide Coal Ash Risks

More than 1.3 million tons of toxic coal ash sludge are stored in ponds and landfills at Missouri and Illinois power plants. About 300 similar sites are located across the country. Federal environmental officials say 44 of them — one out of seven — pose potentially significant hazards to surrounding communities.

Coal ash is made up of bottom ash — what falls out after coal is burned — and fly ash, the stuff that's scrubbed out of coal smoke. Coal ash is nasty; it can contain a witch's brew of heavy metals, dioxins and other cancer-causing agents.

Because of "national security concerns" (you wouldn't want terrorists to get hold of any of the nasty stuff), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Homeland Security won't let environmental officials say exactly which 44 plants pose the greatest threat.

On the other hand, the Environmental Protection Agency can disclose where all 300 coal-ash storage sites are located and how much waste is deposited each year. At least eight are around St. Louis. Terrorists would just have to hunt around a little bit.

That absurd situation was reported last week by The Associated Press. But the problem goes well beyond misguided security efforts.

Individually, each component in coal ash would be subject to stringent federal controls on how it can be transported, stored or discarded. But when they're bound together in coal ash, only a patchwork of state regulations govern the waste.

And federal rules do not regulate runoff from coal ash sludge.

Environmental regulators have uncovered evidence in recent years that power plant operators flushed wastewater containing toxic metals from coal ash sludge into rivers and streams.

Toxins from coal ash stored in unlined landfills also have leaked into groundwater. That's happened at Havana, Hennepin and Wood River, all in Illinois. No federal or state regulations govern how frequently groundwater around those sites must be tested.

Coal ash has been accumulating at power plants for years, but as new pollution control technology has come on line, more of the fly ash is being captured. In 2000, the EPA proposed strict regulations for toxic coal ash. But it backed down in the face of industry opposition.

Then, last December, an earthen dam failed at a power plant in eastern Tennessee. It sent a tidal surge of 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash into a nearby river and across the surrounding countryside.

Local and state officials were unprepared to deal with the toxic tidal wave. That's partly because the site contained more than twice as much waste as the owners originally had reported.

But it was also because state environmental officials didn't know what toxic metals the sludge contained. It took several days to warn local residents not to drink water from private wells.

Now the EPA is cracking down. In March it sent letters to the operators of 11 Illinois and nine Missouri power plants asking for detailed information about coal ash stored on site. The letters indicate that engineers will assess the structural integrity of all ash storage sites.

The investigations should be open and transparent. People living these sites have a right to know what's nearby — before a few million cubic yards come surging into their yards and homes.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH.

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