Coal ash rules carry costs (Charlotte)

Jimmy Knowles spends his days devising different uses for coal ash.

As the head of market research and development for The SEFA Group — formerly known the Southeastern Fly Ash Co. — Knowles envisions a new future for a substance many experts consider a dangerous waste product.

His company already sells about 1 million tons of ash a year, typically to concrete companies as a substitute for cement. But Knowles says innovations in coal ash processing can make the material useful in paints, plastics, fertilizers and rubbers and in new kinds of compounds or composite metals and ceramics.

"Honestly, I feel like George Washington Carver with the peanut," Knowles says.

The results of Knowles’ work have been proposed as components for two SEFA-operated plants planned for the Charlotte region. The company contracts with utilities across the Southeast and already has workers at four facilities. The multimillion-dollar plants have already been designed, but the projects have been shelved, pending the outcome of a series of Environmental Protection Agency hearings, Knowles says.

That’s because regulations proposed by the EPA on how electric utilities can dispose of coal waste may spell the end of Knowles’ entire industry.

Hearings have begun across the nation.

The EPA is proposing two ways of setting restrictions on coal ash waste. One method, which regulators refer to as Subtitle C, would have the EPA craft a comprehensive program of federally enforceable requirements over managing and disposing of the ash.

The other method, referred to as Subtitle D, would have the EPA set performance standards for waste-management facilities, but wouldn’t give the agency the authority to make sure the standards are met. Instead, enforcement would come by way of civil lawsuits. States would be able to sue as citizens.

Knowles and others, including Duke Energy Corp., oppose Subtitle C. They say that set of regulations would classify coal as hazardous waste. “I never see the words ‘coal ash’ in news stories without ‘toxic’ as a modifier,” Knowles says. “But the stigma of hazardous waste is a very different thing.”

It’s an official designation that would intrinsically alter the handling of coal ash. Knowles fears his company may not survive it.

Read the full story in the Charlotte Business Journal.