Coal Ash Dams Are A Major Hazard Coal-State Politicians Want To
Ignore Just days before the three-year anniversary of the
devastating dike failure at the Tennessee Valley Authority's
Kingston Fossil Plant, the Environmental Protection Agency still
has little authority to regulate the storage of toxic coal ash
produced as a byproduct of coal power. A new report released
Tuesday shows coal ash's harmful environmental effects are more
widespread than previously understood. Meanwhile, a bill
proposed by a bipartisan coalition of coal-state senators would
strip away the federal government's power to do anything about
it. The new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity
Project identified 19 coal ash dump sites in nine states where
heavy concentrations of arsenic, boron, manganese and other
pollutants contaminate the groundwater nearby. At some of those
sites, the EPA had noted only "potential" contamination, but
when the EIP did its own tests, it found chemicals had leached
into the ground. Some coal ash