Cutting coal plants' air pollution endangers water

We've reported numerous times about the air pollution problems associated with coal-fired power plants, but now Charles Duhigg of The New York Times has compiled the most thorough report we've seen on their water pollution. "Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution," he writes. The Times' analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data reveals "power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants."

EPA projects that by next year 50 percent of U.S. coal-generated electricity will come from plants that use scrubbers, a technology that uses water and chemicals to remove pollutants, creating large new sources of waste water, Duhigg reports. No specific federal regulations exist to control the disposal of power plant wastewater in waterways or landfills, and some regulators say laws like the Clean Water Act are inadequate because they don't mandate limits on dangerous chemicals like arsenic and lead in power-plant waste.

The Times' analysis of EPA data showed 21 plants in 10 states had dumped arsenic into waterways that exceeded the federal drinking water standards by as much as 18 times the recommended concentration. Ninety percent of the 313 U.S. plants that violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or sanctioned, Duhigg reports, and other plants have been fined, but paid only modest penalties. Allegheny Energy officials, who operate the Hatfield's Ferry plant in Pennsylvania, said in a statement to the Times that "limits on arsenic, aluminum, barium, boron, cadmium, chromium, manganese and nickel were not appropriate because the plant’s wastewater is not likely to cause the Monongahela River to exceed safety levels for those contaminants." See the Times' database of power-plant water violations here.

EPA said in a September statement that it would update regulations on coal-fired power plants like Hatfield's Ferry because studies concluded “current regulations, which were issued in 1982, have not kept pace with changes that have occurred in the electric power industry.” EPA has said it will determine what power-plant byproducts should be treated as hazardous waste by the end of the year. One nearby resident to Hatfield's Ferry told Dhigg: “Americans want cheap electricity, but those of us who live around power plants are the ones who have to pay for it. It’s like being in the Third World.” (Read more)