Environmental Groups Push States to Strengthen Coal Ash Permitting Ahead of EPA Rules

Date: April 6, 2011

Source: News Room

Environmental groups are pressing states to implement EPA's discharge measures for power plants' coal ash storage sites even before the EPA formally revises its technology-based effluent limitations guidelines (ELG) for the facilities in 2013 and issues a planned waste rule for coal ash. In two cases recently filed before the Tennessee Water Quality Control Board, Earthjustice, Tennessee Clean Water Network and the Environmental Integrity Project petitioned to challenge National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued for two power plants operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The activists argue that the renewed permits fail to include technology-based effluent limitations for heavy metals and other pollutants as stipulated in EPA's guidance issued last June. The first such petition was brought against TVA's Bull Run Fossil Plant, located in Claxton, TN, late last year, and a second petition was filed against TVA's Johnsonville Fossil Plant near Waverly, TN, on March 10.

The activists have sought to strengthen clean water NPDES permits for coal waste storage sites as a way to limit releases prior to EPA issuing revised ELGs for the facilities as well as strict waste disposal requirements under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

Last year EPA agreed to issue the revised ELG by 2013 and also issued June 7 guidance instructing permit writers to include effluent limitations for "all pollutants" in NPDES permits for flue gas desulfurization (FGD) and coal combustion residual (CCR) impoundments, which are key sources of wastewater discharges, prior to the agency's issuance of a revised ELG.

But amid mounting criticism, the fate of EPA's RCRA rule is uncertain, in which case the activists may be hedging their bets. The agency last year released a proposed rule detailing options for regulating the material under strict RCRA subtitle C hazardous waste controls or less stringent RCRA subtitle D controls. Industry groups and many GOP officials charge that the option for regulating CCR as a "hazardous waste" would shut down beneficial reuse of the material and force some coal-fired power plants to shut down, threatening reliable power.

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