Coal ash is what remains after coal is burned, and has numerous elements dangerous to human health, including known carcinogens such as arsenic, hexavalent chromium, and radium. A nuclear power plant generating as much energy as a coal plant generates 100 times less nuclear waste.
The USA produces 110 million tons of coal ash every year, the largest waste stream after household trash (HRW 2019).
Over 3 billion tons of it now occupy more than 1,400 sites across the United States. According to the industry’s own data, over 90% of these sites contaminate groundwater with almost two dozen heavy and radioactive metals—including arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, and radium—at levels exceeding the EPA’s health standards. A 2014 EPA study revealed that living next to a coal ash waste site increases one’s risk of getting cancer from drinking groundwater laced with arsenic.
Most of it ends up in ponds, landfills, and abandoned mines with no safeguards since they’re barely regulated by states and not subject to federal hazardous waste regulations. It can get into groundwater, and destroy land and homes if it is released. At least 67 of them have damaged drinking water across 23 states.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that you’re better off smoking a pack of cigarettes a day than living near a coal ash storage pond (Hitt 2014). The toxins give you a 2000 times greater chance of cancer if you live within a mile of unlined coal ash ponds, neurological damage, respiratory illness, and developmental problems.
The toxins work their way up the food chain in plants and animals.
There were once 4 billion tons of coal ash, and still 3 billion tons remain today. There would be a lot more if 1.5 billion tons hadn’t been put to other uses, such as making cement. A new possibility is being researched of extractions of rare earth metals from the very best dumps of coal ash. Other uses, such as structural fill on landscapes, home foundations, under public parks, golf courses, and roads has proven to be a way to spread the hazardous waste to even more areas and contaminate drinking water. In 2015 under Obama the EPA finalized regulation of coal ash, which Trump tried to roll back in 2018 (Gaffney 2021)
How bad are coal wastes your your state? Check out the Earth Justice coal ash contamination site here.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts
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References
Clayton M (2009) Coal-ash waste poses risk across the nation. Hundreds of landfills and slurry ponds – like the one that failed in Tennessee – are dotted across the US, endangering communities and water supplies. The Christian Science Monitor.
Gaffney A (2021) Can Harvesting Rare Earth Elements Solve the Coal Ash Crisis? Over 3 billion tons of coal ash occupy more than 1,400 sites across the US. Sierra Club.
Hitt MA (2014) Dangerous waters: America’s coal ash crisis. Sierra Club.
HRW (2019) US: Rolling Back Coal Ash Rules Threatens Health. EPA Proposal Effectively Subsidizes Coal Plants. Human Rights Watch.
Hvistendahl, Mara. 13 Dec 2007. Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste. By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation. Scientific American.
Kaufman R (2011) Seeking a Safer Future for Electricity’s Coal Ash Waste. National Geographic.