EPA Identifies Most Dangerous Coal Ash Sites

Date: May 1, 2009

Source: News Room

The EPA has identified forty-four potentially dangerous coal ash impoundment sites around the country, similar to the TVA site in Kingston, TN where a massive spill occurred last December. The agency has yet to send inspectors to those sites so they have been deemed potentially hazardous based only on their location and not because of any information about the status of the structures. So far, the agency estimates that there are about 1,300 coal waste storage sites around the country. EPA officials aim to propose new regulations for the management of coal waste by the end of the year. A key issue will be whether to designate coal ash as a hazardous waste under federal law. In 2000, the EPA determined that coal ash was not hazardous, but the agency also was supposed to write regulations governing its disposal as a non-hazardous waste. About 131 million tons of coal ash was produced in 2007.

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