ShareThisPresident-elect Barack Obama's choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promised Wednesday to look at ways to regulate toxic ash from coal-fired power plants, while an influential congressman filed legislation that would require federal design and engineering standards for coal-ash ponds.
Lisa P. Jackson, Obama's nominee for EPA administrator, promised during her confirmation hearing that she would immediately conduct a status review of all coal-ash sites around the country.
"I think the EPA needs to first and foremost assess the current state of what's out there," Jackson told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
But, "that's only the beginning," Jackson said. "The EPA currently has, and has had in the past, assessed its regulatory options with respect to coal ash. I think it's time to re-ask those questions and re-look at the state of regulations."
Jackson's remarks came in response to a question from the committee's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, who cited the spill of 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee and another spill from a gypsum waste pond at its Widows Creek power station in Alabama as examples of the potential dangers of coal waste.
"It seems to a lot of us that there are disasters waiting to happen out there," Boxer said.
The two spills, particularly the Dec. 22 accident in Tennessee, has brought calls from environmentalists and several members of Congress to regulate coal fly ash, a fine particle that is one of the by-products of burning coal to generate electricity.
Fly ash contains arsenic, lead, barium, thallium and other substances that can cause health problems, including cancer, liver damage and neurological disorders.
The federal government does not regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.
Boxer, D-Calif., said earlier this week that she intends to file a resolution calling for a status report on the dangers of coal ash and for the EPA to immediately regulate coal ash once that review is done.
She reiterated that point Wednesday, asking Jackson to report back within 30 days after becoming the EPA administrator and tell Congress what she is doing to address the problem.
"We just need very quick action," Boxer said. "You're not going to fix it in a day. But we need to get it fixed."
Boxer warned that Congress is prepared to mandate federal regulations for coal ash if the EPA doesn't act.
Meanwhile, Rep. Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, filed legislation Wednesday that would require the federal government to enact uniform design, engineering and performance standards for coal ponds.
"The disaster at the Kingston, Tenn., facility -- which could have been avoided had TVA exercised appropriate engineering and monitoring regimes -- was a clarion call for action," Rahall said. "Now is the time to take that action before any lives are lost to a similar disaster."
Under Rahall's bill, known as "the Coal Ash Reclamation, Environment and Safety Act of 2009," federal standards for all surface coal-ash ponds would be modeled after regulations already in place for ponds used for coal slurry management.
The legislation requires a detailed inventory of the hundreds of existing coal-ash ponds across the country and the risks each poses to groundwater and human and environmental health. The inventory would have to be completed within a year. The Department of Interior would have the authority to order pond improvements based on that inventory.
The legislation also would require monitoring and inspection for both existing and new coal-ash ponds. States with adequate or superior standards would be permitted to administer the program.
Boxer, who wants to see coal ash regulated as a toxic substance, questioned whether the design and engineering standards proposed by Rahall are necessary.
Likewise, the environmental watchdog group Earthjustice praised Rahall for acting quickly, but also said that to fully address the problem, the EPA must ban the practice of wet coal-ash storage like that at the TVA plant in Kingston.
"No amount of regulation can keep these wet ponds -- called impoundments -- from seeping dangerous toxins into groundwater and potentially collapsing like the Tennessee impoundment," said Ben Dunham, Earthjustice's legislative counsel.
Another congressman, Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., sent a letter Tuesday to outgoing EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson asking whether the agency has the authority under existing regulations to regulate coal ash, what steps would be necessary to designate coal ash as a hazardous waste, and whether the EPA has examined the manner in which such materials are stored.
Markey, who has been tapped to head a newly created subcommittee that has jurisdiction over electric utilities, said he would decide whether oversight hearings or other action might be necessary once the EPA responds.
(E-mail Michael Collins of Scripps Howard News Service at collinsm(at)shns.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
