EPA's coal ash regulation plan meets resistance (Pittsburgh)

An effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash could have a stigmatizing effect on coal and construction industries, dozens of speakers warned the agency at a public hearing last week.

Pennsylvania’s 43 coal-fired power plants produce 20 million tons of coal ash each year. More than half of the ash is used to make construction products, such as wallboard or cement, or as fill used to reclaim abandoned coal mines. The rest, 8 million to 9 million tons, goes to landfills.

Instead of allowing states to govern, or choose not govern, the residue as they do now, the EPA wants to begin regulating coal ash under a federal program and, as part of that move, is considering whether to classify the material as a hazardous waste. Doing so would give the EPA the power to oversee all aspects of coal ash disposal and enforce penalties.

Industry representatives, such as Steven Winberg, vice president of research and development for CONSOL Energy Inc., said the hazardous designation also would serve to paint all coal ash with the same brush, even if the residue is channeled to so-called beneficial uses such as cement making and mine reclamation, which the EPA said would be excluded from the regulations it is considering. In fact, the agency stated in its announcement of the proposed regulations that it wants coal ash recycling to continue through beneficial uses.

Read the full story in the Pittsburgh Business Times.