Report Finds Widespread Contamination at Nation's Coal Ash Sites (washingtonpost.com)

Nearly all 250 coal-fired plants in operation in the U.S. have leaked chemicals and contaminated the local groundwater supply with toxins [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; you can check the alternative source, and original report (PDF)], according to a report released this week by environmental groups Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice. From a report: The report found that 91 percent of the nation's coal-fired power plants reported elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, lithium, chromium and other pollutants in nearby groundwater. In many cases, the levels of toxic contaminants that had leaked into groundwater were far higher than the thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the groups said.

The examples span the country. At a family ranch south of San Antonio, a dozen pollutants have leaked from a nearby coal ash dump, data showed. Groundwater at one Maryland landfill that contains ash from three coal plants was contaminated with eight pollutants. In Pennsylvania, levels of arsenic in the groundwater near a former coal plant were several hundred times the level the EPA considers safe for drinking. The voluminous data became publicly available for the first time last year because of a 2015 regulation that required disclosures by the overwhelming majority of coal plants.

Comments

In before Republicans lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this is a fact. There is toxic coal ash from coal plants in the groundwater of just about every single state. They claimed this could never happen, we needed to deregulate, now here it is. Prepare for the lies, here they come.

Re:In before Republicans lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who claimed this could never happen? Stop generalizing. Name the Republican.

Re:In before Republicans lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2173680-six-pollution-policies-gutted-by-scott-pruitt-and-what-happens-next/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-25/here-s-a-scorecard-of-the-scott-pruitt-investigations-quicktake
https://earthjustice.org/blog/2018-april/scott-pruitt-doesn-t-play-by-the-rules-and-he-still-can-t-win
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/09/on-climate-change-scott-pruitt-contradicts-the-epas-own-website/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/09/epa-scott-pruitt-abandon-clean-power-plan-obama

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304360

"New EPA leadership has thus far aimed at deconstructing, rather than reconstructing, the agency by comprehensively undermining many of the agency's rules, programs, and policies while also severely undercutting its budget, work capacity, internal operations and morale," concluded the study, titled "The Environmental Protection Agency in the Early Trump Administration: Prelude to Regulatory Capture."

The study, part of the American Journal of Public Health's special issue on climate change, adds to the mounting scrutiny and criticism of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's policy, personnel and operational decisions, which sometimes weave together.

For instance, the study suggests that the undermining of the EPA's public health mission is enabled in part by Pruitt and his aides making policy decisions with little input from longtime staff and scientists.

Such isolation is cemented by "the extraordinary lengths that Pruitt has [gone to] to preserve secrecy and autonomy from the EPA career staff, such as cordoning his office wing off from career employees, reportedly forbidding note taking at some meetings and employing 24-hour armed guards," the report said. The study was accepted by the peer-reviewed journal in February of this year, before some of the recent scandals around Pruitt had surfaced, including his condo rental from the wife of a lobbyist. He currently faces at least 10 (14!) investigations from his EPA tenure.

Re:Blame the green lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

We could have stopped burning coal decades ago if it weren't for them standing in the way of progress.

This is utterly ridiculous. Existing nuclear plants are closing left/right because it's not profitable to keep them open. This has nothing to do with the "green lobby", which has so little power it can't even stop crap like coal ash contamination. Nuclear can't compete with cheap natural gas right now.

The real reason Nuclear didn't take off was economic. The plants are crazy expensive, take decades to build, and nobody wants to fund them. The idea there's some "green lobby" with magical powers that's stopping it all is laughable.

Oh, and you left out the fact that coal plants are ALSO closing left/right because of natural gas and phracking!

You pro-nuclear people think the only power source in the world is either Coal or Nuclear.

Re:Not nearly as comtaminated as Fukishima or Cher

[lgw]

These places literally glow in the dark and will kill life within minutes.

More radioactive material is emitted by coal plants than by nuclear plants worldwide. Does spreading out the health consequences over the nation, rather than having a really bad problem in one area, make it better? Oh, coal also has really bad problems in specific areas: the various "mouth of Hell" sites where a mine caught fire, and the site will keep burning for decades, perhaps centuries.