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player ready...The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hosted a 10-hour public hearing on proposed amendments to its coal ash cleanup requirements, which many speakers on Thursday said are gutting and a betrayal to communities nationwide.
More than 100 people testified against the new coal ash rules during Thursday’s online hearing, including various speakers from Indiana.
“The majority of Indiana’s coal ash is unlined and lying in the floodline of either Lake Michigan or one of our major rivers,” said Indra Frank, coal ash advisor for the Hoosier Environmental Council. “Indiana still generates about five million tons of coal ash per year. Given the heavy burden of coal ash in Indiana, (the state) will be hard hit by the proposed rule changes.”
On April 9, the EPA announced proposals to amend federal regulations focused on the disposal of coal ash in landfills and surface impoundments, according to the agency. Proposed rule changes would dismantle coal ash protections for operating and former coal power plants, exempt hundreds of coal ash dumps from regulation and permit owners of coal power plants to minimize, delay or avoid contamination cleanup, according to Earthjustice.
The EPA will accept public comments through June 12, according to its website.
According to Earthjustice, in 2015, the EPA established its first federal coal ash rule to require the closure of ash dumps and cleanups of leaking toxic sites. The EPA expanded its rule in 2024 to cover hundreds of “older, dirtier dumps that have been polluting for decades,” but cleanup of those has yet to begin.
Cecilia De Robertis, deputy division director for the EPA’s materials recovery and waste management division, said the amendments make changes to both coal ash rules.
“The EPA seeks input on the appropriateness, benefits and potential drawbacks of these provisions,” said De Robertis, who oversaw Thursday’s hearing.
Coal ash is a byproduct that is primarily created from burning coal in power plants, according to the EPA. It contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, boron, lithium, molybdenum and radium, which can interfere with child development and cause cancer.
Jenny Cassel, senior attorney for Earthjustice, said she’s worked to help protect communities from coal ash for about 15 years, and evidence of the harm “has piled up.”
“Water near coal ash dumps becomes thick with pollution, like a tea that is steeped for too long,” Cassel said. “Science — yes, that exists — has shown that exposure to coal ash is more dangerous than previously known.”
Climate change can also exacerbate coal ash threats, Cassel said, and natural disasters including hurricanes or floods can spill coal ash into rivers or other bodies of water, which can affect residents or those who clean up the coal ash.
“Many have lost their lives from ailments tied to the contaminants found in coal ash,” Cassel said. “Others who live near coal ash dumps continue to discover cancer at a rate that makes them think, ‘This can’t be normal.’”
EPA’s proposed changes would exempt coal combustion residual management units from the coal ash rule, and about half the coal ash that’s accumulated in Indiana are CCRMUs, Frank said during her testimony.
“The CCRMUs have already contaminated groundwater, and EPA’s proposed changes would leave them to continue contaminating groundwater and posing a threat in the floodplains,” Frank said.
Through the rule, Frank said the EPA will lower cleanup standards for nonexempted coal ash sites, which would allow more groundwater contamination and spill risk in Indiana. It would also allow coal ash to be stored in “unlined, uncovered piles for indefinite periods of time,” she said.
These practices, in Northwest Indiana, turned the Town of Pines into a superfund site, Frank said. The Town of Pines was contaminated by coal ash from a nearby landfill, which held more than one million tons of coal ash from NIPSCO’s Michigan City Generating Station.
The coal ash contaminated about 260 private wells and soil in dozens of the Town of Pines’ residential yards.
“People in that town are convinced that birth defects and cancers that they have suffered are due to drinking the contaminated water,” Frank said. “It is difficult to conceive why the EPA is proposing to allow practices like coal ash piles and fill, since those practices turned (the Town of) Pines into a superfund site. I implore you to abandon those changes.”
Cheryl Chapman, a Long Beach resident and member of the League of Women Voters of Indiana, testified against the EPA’s proposed changes to the coal ash rules. Indiana has 22 coal power plants with coal ash pits, Chapman said.
“Members across the state were so excited when both rules were adopted because it meant that residents could finally be assured that cleanups would make our communities safer,” Chapman said.
If coal ash seeps into Lake Michigan from its ponds, drinking water for millions in the Chicago area would be undrinkable, Chapman said.
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“This is absolutely imperative for public safety and environmental health,” she added. “We anticipated that coal companies would fight against the 2024 rules as cleanups are expensive, but this is the price we must pay as a society. … We can’t evade this responsibility by changing the rules.”
Kelly Brown, water quality manager for White River Alliance in Indianapolis, said her organization “strongly opposes” the EPA’s proposed changes, saying they pose a significant risk to groundwater and surface water resources.
Brown told EPA representatives that groundwater monitoring and corrective action are important for communities nationwide.
“Coal ash contaminants are not isolated to groundwater,” Brown said. “Groundwater and surface water are interconnected systems. Contaminants can move between them in ways that threaten streams, rivers, drinking water sources and downstream communities.”