For

the past thirty years Jeff Stant has gained a reputation around Indiana as a

relentless and tenacious environmental defender. "I grew up in the woods in

Zionville, springing animals from traps before trappers got them, I was in love

with nature," he says. His current battle is to get coal ash, the by product of

burning coal for power, deemed as a hazardous waste by the federal government,

"It could be an epic move," says Stant.

The

push to regulate coal ash comes from those like Stant, who believe it to be

harmful. Because coal contains traces of heavy metals, so will the ash that is

left behind after coal is burned to produce electricity. Arsenic, lead, copper,

mercury, nickel, selenium, zinc and many other metals are commonly left behind

in coal ash.

After

12 years with the Hoosier Environmental Council, Stant has been a consultant

for the Citizens Coal Council and the Clean Air Task Force. His current gig is

with the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington, DC group that

focuses on strong enforcement of environmental laws.

The

EIP recently released a report identifying numerous sites across the country

contaminated with deadly pollutants from coal ash, bringing the total number of

sites nationwide to 101. The levels of heavy metals at these sites are well

above federally permissible levels.

As

the director of EIP's coal combustion waste initiative, Stant points to the

legislative history of coal ash as proof that mandating the waste hazardous is

long overdue. Stant says, "The delay is the result of a priority that has

always been kept low -- no one wants to step on the toes of the power industry.

And I don't mean to sound cute when I say the power industry has a lot of

power."

The

EPA has waffled on the subject for 30 years, meandering through missed

deadlines and lawsuits. But the coal ash problem is one that has lingered,

refusing to go away. The EPA is now poised to make another ruling on the

byproduct of burning coal.

With

an administration that is more environmentally conscious than those of the past

and a new EPA head, there is a stronger than ever push to put a baseline

federal regulation in place. Stant describes EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson as

tough, "She's got some guts," Stant says.

Ash

Contamination in Indiana

There

is no standard for ash disposal for states around the nation. "Indiana's not

much worse than other states, they're all pitiful," says Stant. But the

abundance of coal fired power plants in Indiana means ash is of particular

concern.

Indiana

gets nearly 95% of its electricity from coal. Most Hoosiers probably don't pay

attention to how the ash from that coal is disposed of. The residents of Town

of Pines, Ind. hadn't given it much thought until recently.

The

town of less than 1,000 residents in northern Indiana's Porter County began

finding levels of heavy metals in their wells. In the early 1970's the Northern

Indiana Public Service Corporation began filling wetlands around the town with

coal ash. They also used it for other fill projects and to lay roadbeds. Since

1983, the EPA estimates that a million tons of fly ash were dumped into a

specific landfill adjacent to the town named Yard 520.

When

disposing of coal ash it is not required that the landfill (or retention pond

if stored wet) have a liner. Liners are required in disposing of other items

like common household trash. In the case of Town of Pines, the ash caused a

toxic plume that spread from Yard 520 into the groundwater system. Arsenic,

boron and manganese were elements found in water samples that were well

elevated above minimum risk levels.

At

a 2003 panel discussion with EPA employees, a resident of Town of Pines asked

if the EPA representatives would let their children or grandchildren drink

water from wells in the town. All the panelists replied no.

Symptoms

of exposure to heavy metals vary from acute to chronic. They include but are

not limited to: memory loss, learning difficulty, loss of coordination,

disorientation, headaches, abdominal pain, convulsions, hypertension, renal

dysfunction, loss of appetite, fatigue, sleeplessness, hallucinations, numbness,

arthritis, and vertigo. Permanent damage to the central nervous system is

possible.

Heavy

metals were detected in wells in Town of Pines as early as the 1980's, but

residents say they were never notified. Over the past decade, outrage about the

incident has fostered the birth of local advocacy groups, lawsuits and EPA

intervention. Yard 520 is currently under remediation as part of EPA's

Superfund program.

On

the other end of the state, the Patoka Wildlife Refuge also had contamination

from coal ash. Bill McCoy manages the refuge located in Pike and Gibson

Counties. The property is nearby the Gibson Power Plant, the third largest coal

fired power plant in the world.

Concerning

the contamination in Patoka, McCoy says, "We were receiving water from the Gibson

Lake for our tern nesting area." The Gibson plant lake cools the facility and

was closed to fishing in 2007 due to above normal selenium levels.

McCoy

is keenly aware of the environmental calamity that the primary industry of

Southwest Indiana can cause. "Pike County was strip mined for years, pyrites

dissolving caused acid drainage, which lowers the pH so that other metals

dissolve as well. After a big rain, the waters of the Patoka River used to run

orange."

Years

later the Patoka River is much improved, but McCoy is concerned about the coal

industry's impact.

After

finding contaminants in the Patoka tern nesting area, the owner of the Gibson

power plant, Duke Energy, built a two-mile pipeline from the Wabash River to

supply clean water to the area. The four-foot pool constructed to attract the

terns was drained and the soil disked over to bury any contaminants.

McCoy

claims to be happy with the remediation and has not had any problems with it

since. Still,he is wary of

contaminants from the mining and burning of coal, "There's no ash fill in

Patoka, we prefer not to have ash dropped in a pit, it might leach, mingling

with the groundwater, contaminating wells."

Finally,

when asked if the EPA should declare coal combustion waste hazardous, McCoy

answers, "I don't see how they can't call it hazardous. It has contaminants in

it, they have to contain it."

Built

to Spill

Indiana

stores more coal ash in manmade impoundments than any other state. According to

Robert Elstro of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, there are

18 facilities in Indiana that have coal ash ponds similar to the one in

Tennessee that ruptured causing an environmental crisis (see sidebar). Most

facilities have more than one pond.

Gibson

County's plant is the largest wet ash storage facility in the state, housing

nearly 900,000 tons of slurry. For comparison, Indianapolis Power and Light's

Marion County storage facility is smaller, at around 180,000 tons stored.

IPL

also owns the Eagle Valley Generating Station near Martinsville in Morgan

County. According to the EPA's 2009 coal ash survey results, on Valentine's day

of 2007, the "Eagle Valley Generating Station released approximately 30 million

gallons of ash sluice water to the IPL discharge canal which then entered the

White River as an un-permitted release. None of the released material was

recovered."

IPL

did not learn their lesson the first time. Less than one year later the event

happened again. Almost exactly the same as before, 30 million gallons spilled;

none of the released material was recovered.

As

a result of these breeches, IPL entered into an agreement with IDEM and

submitted detailed reports of the two spills. IPL was required to perform a

detailed study of the ash ponds at Eagle Valley, and was fined $23,800.

Samples

conducted by an independent lab for IDEM detected trace metals in the White

River after the incident. Contaminant levels were elevated downstream from the

spill. IDEM's Amber Finkelstein characterizes the results as mostly below

detection level, with some low level detections. Jeff Stant says of the same

data, "ash did impact downstream water quality to levels adverse to fish and

other aquatic life," adding that more testing should have been required by the

state.

Ash

Recycling

The

recycling, or beneficial use, of coal ash is seen by some as a key to solving

the problem of coal ash and how to deal with it. It is the general consensus

that when recycled properly, coal ash does not pose a health threat.

Less

than half of coal ash is recycled, but that which is, is used in many ways:

road base, cement additive, mine fill, soil stabilizer and as an ingredient in

shingle and drywall production.

With

the recent deluge of media attention directed at coal ash, many groups are hurrying

to figure out what to do with the material. The Tennessee Valley Authority is

currently providing funding to Oak Ridge Associated Universities for overseeing

research and proposals to find creative, efficient uses for coal ash. Grants

will be awarded to top proposals.

Industry

advocates like the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) fear a federal hazardous

designation would decimate recycling efforts, says EEI representative Dan

Riedinger "It would effectively kill recycling because of liability for the industry

and end users."

Power

plants in the United States currently produce around 130 million tons of coal

combustion waste annually, making it the second largest waste stream in the

country trumped only by common household trash.

The

use appears to be widespread, so how dangerous is it? Dr. Tracy Branam, a

geochemist with the Indiana Geological Survey in Bloomington who studies coal

ash helped answer that question.

The

Science of Ash

Tracy

Branam is a tall, friendly and somewhat shaggy haired research scientist who

often gets caught up talking about coal ash, "I could talk about the stuff for

hours," he says. Branam explains that there are a few different types of coal

combustion waste: fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag and scrubber sludge.

Most

of the contaminants and heavy metals are in the fly ash, which is removed from

the smokestacks by electrostatic precipitators. Basically, particulates of fly

ash are the same stuff that's not allowed to be released into the atmosphere

because of the Clean Air Act. Yet they make their way into the environment

through comparatively less stringent standards on ash disposal.

Fly

ash is a fine gray powder that Branam warns not to touch or inhale. The

scrubber sludge is a clumpy white substance. When mixed together with lime they

form a charcoal gray, concrete-like substance that Branam is experimenting

with. The substance he has made is surprisingly lightweight and strong.

When

asked whether coal ash is a threat to the environment, Branam pauses before

explaining that some types of coal ash are very different from others. The

different types of coal often determine this: lignite, bituminous, anthracite,

etc. And often coal varies in heavy metal makeup from location to location. For

example, Indiana coals have some of the lowest mercury content in the nation,

but not too far away in Kentucky they have some of the highest.

"The

variability of coal ash makes it difficult to determine if it is hazardous.

Coming up with a standardized coal ash test would be extremely difficult, like

trying to cast a shadow on a mirror," Branam says. He says this is one of the

reasons the EPA has so long balked at the prospect of making a federal ruling

on coal ash.

So

how harmful can coal ash be to the environment?

"It's

all a matter of magnitude," Branam replies. "The example I use is if you dump a

wheelbarrow load into a big landfill nothing will happen. But if you add

truckload after truckload you will eventually accumulate enough to cause a

contamination plume." Whether a landfill will leach contaminants also depends

on the fracture and gradient of the land.

Geologically

there is a natural attenuation of contaminants through dilution, precipitation

and adsorption/absorption. Basically, as heavy metals move through the earth

they become spread out enough and react with other elements in the ground to

become harmless. But these natural processes have limits, says Branam. "I have

reservations about the long term stability of things. If you overburden the

environment there will be tremendous effects."

Overburdening

the environment is certainly a concern. The current regulation system for coal

ash in Indiana is decided by a patchwork of authorities -- IDEM, DNR and FEMA

all chip in. The result is what Jeff Stant calls "too many cooks and no

recipe," meaning the different agencies do not share a common goal. "The

(power) industry is basically able to do whatever the hell it wants to do."

Leaching

The

concrete like substance that Tracy Branam made with fly ash, scrubber sludge

and lime is being produced through a similar method by IPL at the Petersburg

generating station. They mix the coal combustion waste with lime or calcium and

are forming a large mound on-site to dispose of their ash. But unlike the solid

that Branam made, the Petersburg mound is exposed to the elements.

Branam

and the Indiana Geological Survey wanted to monitor the mound to see if it

leached harmful chemicals into the environment. They were denied the

opportunity by IPL.

Jeff

Stant claims that the waste and lime mixture "sets up like concrete, but it's

not nearly as strong, it also leaches a high level of sulfates into the

environment." The Petersburg site is listed on the EPA's 2007 compilation of

potential coal combustion waste damage cases due to elevated sulfates and

dissolved solids in surrounding wells.

Branam's

most recent work centers on the tendency of coal combustion waste to leach

contaminants when it mingles with groundwater. The apparatus he has constructed

mixes wet ash for a period of two weeks as groundwater is filtered through it,

the extracted groundwater is then tested to see how many contaminants it has

picked up.

The

test results of his most recent experiments are not completed, but Branam notes

that in prior work arsenic and selenium were at times present, while boron and

sulfates are more common. He adds that he has not seen mercury or lead,

dangerous metals, show up as leachates.

Logjam

Past

instances seem to prove that coal ash can leach significant levels of

contaminants if it is in a landfill in high enough concentration. And wet ash

retention ponds have been seen to fail in a variety of ways. So what is holding

up the process for regulation?

According

to Jeff Stant, the EPA has had a proposed rule ready since October. The

proposed rule is at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). "Lots of people

are running interference for the power companies, they're fighting tooth and

nail to stop this," says Stant. He expects the EPA's proposed regulations to be

released sometime in April.

A

recent publication by the EIP says, "EPA's draft rule is stalled at OMB, where

an avalanche of lobbyists hope it will stay buried." Stant adds, "OMB has had

28 meetings with the power industry on this. Generally there are no meetings with private

interest groups. They're saying the sky will fall if you even propose to

regulate coal ash."

Groups

opposed to federal regulation of coal ash are organizations like the American

Coal Ash Association (ACAA) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). The EEI is

a major lobbying arm for the industry, representing companies like Duke Energy

and Indianapolis Power & Light.

These

groups claim that a hazardous designation would completely preclude or

significantly handcuff attempts to recycle coal ash. The ACAA believes that

designating coal ash hazardous could actually increase CO2 pollution, citing

figures that for every ton of coal ash used in cement, one ton of CO2

production is avoided.

Stant

supports a hybrid approach to the coal ash problem. With current re-use projects

for coal ash such as implementation in cement, shingles, drywall and more, he

feels a good compromise would be to set forth a federal baseline regulation on

coal ash to ensure its safe treatment, while providing exemptions for power

companies if they recycle their waste. Coal burners could thereby divert a

large part of their waste stream for beneficial use.

Dan

Riedinger of EEI does not feel that hybrid approaches like the one Stant

advocates would be effective, "You could try to carve out specific exemptions

for recycling, but if you deem coal ash hazardous, beneficial use could not

continue."

Thomas

Adams, Executive Director of the American Coal Ash Association, agrees. He

feels a hybrid approach would not work because it would open the industry to

class action lawsuits. "Builders are saying they don't want anything to do with

a material that can be construed as hazardous." He goes on to say, "If EPA is

interested in preserving recycling they have to call it non-hazardous and let

the states manage it."

But

advocates like Stant feel the coal ash status-quo is unacceptable. "Right now

the bottom line for coal ash regulation is the state legislator talking to the

industry lobbyist. That's not how regulation should work," says Stant.

For

more information on coal ash and federal regulation visit www.epa.gov.

For more about the Environmental Integrity Project go to www.environmentalintegrity.org

Visit www.eei.com

and www.acaa-usa.org

to visit the Edison Electric Institute and the American Coal Ash Association,

websites respectively.

Sidebar

1:

History

of Delay

As

early as 1980, the EPA was instructed to submit a ruling as to whether coal

combustion waste has an adverse effect on human health or the environment. They

had until 1982 to get it done.

By

October of 1982 the EPA had missed the deadline to submit its report to Congress.

In 1988 the EPA finally managed a report on coal combustion waste, only to miss

the deadline for making a regulatory determination later in 1988. The EPA

continued to make baby steps throughout the 1990's, often claiming they needed

more time to gather evidence.

In

1993 and 2000, the EPA ruled combustion waste non-hazardous. But pressure to

regulate it has not abated. After the 2008 Tennessee TVA spill, new attention

was brought to the potential federal regulation of coal combustion waste.

A

60 Minutes

interview in 2009 spurred EPA Administrator Jackson to request an investigation

regarding allegations of a cover-up or other misconduct related to the risk

assessment for coal ash. In reviewing the coal combustion waste regulatory

process, no wrongdoing was found. Delays in the process of coal ash regulation

have been attributed to resource constraints.

The

EPA promised to put forth new regulations by the end of 2009, which did not

happen. The EPA currently says they hope to put forth their proposed regulations

in the "near future."

Sidebar

2:

When

the Levee Breaks

To

see what brought increased media and public attention to the coal ash issue you

have to look at what happened in Harriman, Tenn.

On

Dec. 22, 2008 a retaining wall at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant's wet ash

impoundment failed. The over 80 acre wet slurry ash pond in Tennessee released

its contents into the surrounding countryside and into the Emory and Clinch

Rivers, tributaries of the Tennessee River.

The

failure of the Kingston Plant's wall also loosed the anger of environmentalists

and advocacy groups who have voiced their opinion for years that coal ash and

the structures that hold it need to be watched more closely.

The

disaster in Tennessee freed enough fly ash, a type of coal ash, to cover 3000

acres a foot deep in sludge. It is estimated that 5.4 million cubic yards were

spilled. One cubic yard is over 200 gallons.

To

put the spill in perspective, the volume released was 100 times larger than the

infamous Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989, a comparison the Tennessee Valley

Authority chafes at.

TVA

senior vice president Anda Ray wrote about the spill: "While it has disrupted

the life of a community, caused some families to lose their homes and doubtless

smothered many small aquatic organisms, the evidence indicates that, to date,

the Kingston spill has had minimal effects on fish and wildlife overall."

The

"minimal effect" on the environment that Ray refers to is estimated to

ultimately cost $1.3 billion in cleanup and take years to accomplish. Even the

governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, a staunch opponent of coal ash

regulation, called the TVA Kingston spill "a horrible environmental tragedy."

Even

more alarming concerning that "minimal" effect is the story of nearby resident

Gary Topmiller. According to a recent AP article, Topmiller and his wife live

near the Emory River. Topmiller says his wife's eyes have been swollen shut for

months since the spill and they have both been coughing. The article goes on to

say, "Visitors complain of headaches and birds and small animals have been

dying in his yard."

Topmiller

had recent tests done and found "off the charts levels of lead, mercury and

aluminum in his body."

The

volume of the Kingston spill and the environmental damage it caused drew heavy

media attention and put serious pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency

to apply tighter restrictions in the way coal ash is managed. Says Indiana

Geological Survey geochemist Tracy Branam, "The EPA is definitely going to

tighten the rules concerning the management of coal ash."