Coal ash ponds adjacent to Pennsylvania Power’s Colstrip facility. Photo courtesy of Kestrel Aerial Services, Inc. (c)www.kestrelaerial.com provided by Montana Environmental Information Center and Sierra Club

Coal ash is the collective term for the various solid remnants left over from burning coal to produce electricity.  The ash is replete with toxic constituents — arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury, boron and many others — that can wreak havoc on the environment and human health. Exposure to its toxins can lead to cancer, birth defects, gastro-intestinal illnesses, and reproductive problems.

At the Colstrip power plant, the second largest coal-fired plant west of the Mississippi River, coal ash is mixed with water and stored in sludge ponds that cover more than 500 acres near the power plant and the neighboring town.  The sludge ponds have been leaking since they were first constructed, back in the 1980s, and the plant’s operators tried to hide the leaks for years.

“It’s obvious the pollution has gone farther than was initially reported,” says Tom Ring, of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. “It’s clearly spreading.”

The highly contaminated effluent has been draining into the groundwater, polluting both ground and surface water in the vicinity of the power plant.  Dangerous chemicals such as boron have been leaking into the surrounding ground and surface water for decades.  In fact, the plumes leaking from the ponds have boron levels that are 13 times higher than established safety limits.

Heads in the Sand

Rather than penalize the current operator—PPL Montana—for ongoing contamination and order it to cease discharging and remediate the affected area, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) turned a blind eye to the contamination for decades.

In 2010, the DEQ finally proposed an “enforcement” action to address the contamination: an Administrative Order of Consent (“AOC”).  NWF and partners submitted detailed comments concerning the draft AOC and its failure to address the problem and the impacts of the toxic water to wildlife, fish, plants and people surrounding the power plant. The AOC languished in draft form for over two years. Finally, in early August 2012, the DEQ finalized the agreement.

NWF and our partners have filed an appeal challenging the AOC on the grounds that the agreement does not impose any fines on the company, it fails to require PPL to cease ongoing contamination and remediate existing contamination, and it does not even establish a timetable for complying with state law. It does little to address the past decades of contamination and even less to deal with ongoing and continuous leakages.

A Widespread Problem

The situation in Colstrip, unfortunately, is not a isolated case. Coal ash contamination continues to be a problem throughout the nation. The ponds, landfills and pits where coal ash gets dumped are affecting human health and wildlife at alarming rates.

A recent article, published last month in Environmental Science and Technology, describes the environmental damage and the high economic costs passed on to taxpayers. The report documents the combined direct and indirect cost of poisoned fish and wildlife exceeds $2.3 billion, which is enough money to construct 155 landfills with state-of-the-art composite liners and leachate collection systems. This cost is projected to increase by an additional $3.85 billion over the next 50 years, an amount that would cover the construction costs of 257 landfills.

The leaking ash ponds in Colstrip and the report in Environmental Science and Technology show that the states are not capable of dealing with the massive problem of coal ash contamination. A new coal ash bill recently put forward in the Senate, S.3512, threatens to prevent adequate federal regulations that would protect people and wildlife from toxic coal ash by prohibiting the EPA from regulating the substance.

The Power of Coal: Why People in Colstrip, MT Can’t Drink the Water (via spot.us)

Coal ash ponds in eastern Montana have been leaking toxins into the groundwater for decades.  This story was written by Rachel Cernansky, edited by Tonnie Katz with funding from the Spot.Us community.   ***   When the McRae family settled outside of Colstrip, Montana five generations ago, it was for…

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Chesapeake Bay photo by Scott Bauer

The government shutdown clock is ticking away furiously in Washington, D.C. as Congress wrestles with a budget agreement.

While many Americans have no choice but to ride out the storm, bad water riders in the house-passed Continuing Resolution, or H.R.1, continue to cloud the budget battle.

These harmful and unnecessary pieces of legislation have little to do with the budget bill or spending cuts and more to do with handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and creating giant loopholes for big polluters.

Bad water riders will:

• Ban EPA from closing recent Clean Water Act loopholes that remove protections for many waters,  jeopardizing the drinking water for 117 million Americans, threatening over half the nation’s stream miles, and opening 20 million acres of wetlands and prime wildlife habitat to polluters and developers. The Clean Water Act gives the EPA the authority to hold polluters accountable for oil spills, sewage and animal waste dumps, and other pollutants that go into rivers, lakes streams, estuaries, and wetlands.
• Ban EPA from protecting municipal water supplies, fisheries, and other critical water resources from being destroyed by large-scale mining, public works, and development projects that dredge, fill, and pollute productive waters.  EPA’s use of its Clean Water Act “404(c)” authority, a deliberative and open process rarely used, has saved taxpayers millions of dollars on wasteful and destructive public works projects, and saved Americans some of their most precious bays, rivers, and streams. This authority has only been used 13 times, and most recently to block the Yazoo Pumps project in Mississippi, which would have destroyed valuable wetlands and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
• Endanger the Chesapeake Bay by blocking efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay just as progress is finally being made to limit allowable pollution in the waters that feed the Bay through fair and effective measures. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, covering 6 states and Washington, D.C. The watershed supports rural economies and the $730 billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry.
• Endanger Florida Waters by blocking recently issued water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters that are necessary to protect Florida’s waters from excess pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer.  Excessive nutrient pollution from these chemicals and waste has created toxic algae blooms in Florida waters that can spread for over a 100 miles. The blooms undermine water quality in Florida, which lowers properties values, hurts waterfront businesses, and serves a major health risk to people, pets, and wildlife.
• Endanger the San Francisco Bay Delta by blocking key measures to protect imperiled salmon, Delta smelt, and the health of the entire Bay-Delta ecosystem, which is reliant on its life-giving water supply.
• Endanger Klamath salmon restoration by blocking a study critical to rebuilding what was once the Nation’s third largest salmon-producing river systems, while also accommodating fisheries, landowner, and electric utility stakeholders.
  
• Allow more stream dumping of coal mining waste by blocking EPA from restricting water pollution from proposed mountain top removal and other coal-mining projects, and from the toxic coal ash waste that is contaminating our streams and water supplies.

Speak Up for Wildlife

You can help stop the attacks on water and wildlife in the Continuing Resolution by speaking up for wildlife at NWF’s Action Center. Don’t let these bad water riders wash away America’s bedrock environmental safeguards.

Not sure what coal ash even is? Not to worry, I was right there with you a few years ago.  My solution? Google.  Fly ash (ash obtained from the chimneys of coal-fired power plants) combined with bottom ash (ash that doesn’t rise) is known as coal ash.

Coal ash is an abundant and dangerous by-product of burning coal for energy, and has disastrous effects on human health and wildlife in communities across the U.S. Yet despite being toxic, this substance is completely unregulated!

How does coal ash affect you and our wildlife?

According to Defenders of Wildlife writer John Motsinger, toxic pollutants in coal waste affect the entire web of life in an ecosystem as they accumulate up the food chain. Trace amounts are taken up by plants and insects from the water, fish eat the insects and vegetation, and finally larger animals feed off those fish. These large predators—whether osprey, foxes or even humans—can consume concentrated doses of these toxins by eating contaminated fish, frogs or other species.

Accumulated toxins like selenium have been shown to cause deformities, reproductive failure and even death in many aquatic species.

Feeling the blood boil in your veins? Let’s get more than angry–let’s get active!

Come join us this afternoon at 5 p.m. EST to learn more about this threatening issue and how you and your communities can help make sure that it is finally regulated.

During a one hour webinar, you will hear from several people, who have directly witnessed the impacts of this environmental hazard on our communities and natural resources, including:

Alexis Bonogofsky – National Wildlife Federation, Tribal Lands Program

Elouise Brown – DooDa Desert Rock, New Mexico

Clint McRae – Rancher, Colstrip, Montana

Brad Sauer – Montana

How to Tune in to Today’s Webinar:

1. Pick up your phone and <strong>dial 1-800-944-8766, extension 84893.</strong>
2. You can also follow the presentation by logging into www.telspan.com/express and insert your conference reference as 165593 and conference code as 84893.

Even if you can’t make today’s webinar, you can help spread the word about this important issue by sharing the news of today’s webinar with your friends [see buttons for easy sharing below].

“See” you on the phone!