125 Groups Ask EPA to Prevent Additional Water Contamination
PRESS RELEASE
February 9, 2004
Contact: Lisa Graves Marcucci, Jefferson Action Group, Inc., (412) 655-0261
Dante Picciano, Army for a Clean Environment, (570) 386-5744
EPA Petitioned to Immediately Stop Power Plant Waste Dumping in Water
Washington, DC: Today, 125 groups across the nation filed a petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting the agency take immediate action to prohibit the dumping of power plant waste in direct contact with groundwater and surface water until federally enforceable regulations are developed. The petitioners include the Citizens Coal Council, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Public Citizen, the Sierra Club and the Waterkeeper Alliance.
Wastes from coal-fired power plants contain 17 toxic contaminants including arsenic, mercury, chromium VI, lead, selenium and boron. Numerous scientific studies have documented that exposure to these contaminants causes deformities, reproductive problems, and death in plants and wildlife. Arsenic and chromium VI are both classified as known human carcinogens. Chromium VI is most well known for the contamination of a California community’s drinking water as depicted in the movie “Erin Brockovich.”
According to Dr. Dante Picciano, leader of the grassroots group Army for a Clean Environment in Tamaqua, PA, Utility companies are trying to use our communities as cheap dumping grounds and we are telling EPA that we will not assume the health risks and liability issues caused by their lack of action to protect our communities. The indiscriminate dumping of power plant wastes is a growing national problem that has been ignored by state and federal regulatory agencies.
Coal-fired power plants annually produce over 130 million tons of power plant waste in the United States. It is the second largest industrial waste stream in the country, after mining waste and more than three times the amount of municipal waste produced each year.
Power plant waste is comprised of fly ash, bottom ash, and air emission scrubber sludge, as well as boiler cleaning wastes, waste coal and coal pile runoff. The volume of coal power plant waste produced annually is expected to grow to as much as 190 million tons if additional controls limiting hazardous air emissions from these plants are implemented. As additional controls capture more hazardous pollutants such as mercury, the toxicity and the volume of the waste will increase. Across the country, power plant waste is dumped into direct contact with groundwater in mines and quarries. Some states, like Pennsylvania, allow utilities to dump power plant waste directly into unlined mines, where metals and other pollutants can leach into groundwater. In addition, about half of the coal-burning power plants in the U.S. dump their wastes in surface impoundments or ponds. 74% of these surface impoundments are unlined allowing pollution to flow into groundwater, and the impoundments dump their overflow into rivers and ponds.
EPA’s own data reveals more than 70 cases in 23 states where hazardous constituents from power plant waste have contaminated drinking water, groundwater or surface water. These represent only a small percentage of the total number of contamination cases because most power plant waste dump sites are not properly inspected or monitored.
Although the groups have commended EPA for planning to hold public hearings on power plant waste this spring in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Texas, they emphasized that dumping the waste in direct contact with water requires immediate action before more water is contaminated. This request for a national moratorium comes five weeks after community members in Town of Pines, Indiana, filed a lawsuit against a local utility for contaminating their drinking water by dumping the waste in direct contact with groundwater. The community has been classified as a Superfund site. In May of 2000, EPA committed to developing federal regulations for power plant waste disposal based on findings in a report to Congress in 1999. The Agency has yet to propose draft regulations. Management of this waste is currently covered by a patchwork of inconsistent, inadequate and often poorly enforced state regulations.
EPA’s legacy to my children and community shouldn’t be cancer, learning disabilities or other health problems simply because they wouldn t take precautionary steps to protect us, said Lisa Graves Marcucci, director of the Jefferson Action Group in Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania.
Organizations from Pennsylvania on the petition include: Allegheny Riverkeepers; Army for a Clean Environment; Clean Water Action; Group Against Smog and Pollution; Jefferson Action Group; Mahanoy Creek Watershed Association; Mountain Watershed Association; TriState Citizens Mining Network; Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Network (PEN).
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