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Saturday, January 04, 2020

Newly proposed EPA rule goes easier on coal-ash dumping

A newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule will weaken an Obama-era regulation meant to limit toxic metals from coal-fired power plants leeching into water supplies.

Essentially, the EPA has created a new subpart to the rule that shields all but the most high-hazard plants from the old regulations. It "establishes narrower definitions, and more flexible application, modification, and termination requirements and procedures. Significantly, it also establishes a 'tiered' approach to compliance deadlines," Sonal Patel reports for Power, a generating-industry magazine.

The EPA is encouraging states to come up with their own permit programs, and has approved programs from Oklahoma and Georgia so far. "States have been hesitant, owing in part to regulatory uncertainty and legal challenges related to key portions of the Obama administration’s broad April 2015 final coal ash rule," Patel reports. "Other states, such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Illinois, have meanwhile moved to address power plant coal ash disposal through state-level legislation." The newly proposed EPA rule would govern Native American reservations and states that choose not to adopt their own rules.

In related news, Duke Energy will dig up nearly 80 million tons of coal ash at six sites in North Carolina, as part of a settlement with the state Department of Environmental Quality signed Dec. 31. The DEQ ordered the utility to dig up the toxic ash, but Duke filed suit because the company wanted to keep the ash in place and seal off the sites with caps. "DEQ said the excavation would be the largest coal-ash clean up in U.S. history," Lynn Bonner reports for The Charlotte Observer.

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