And Stant added, "The job of EPA first and foremost ... is to prevent wastes from causing harm. It is not to worry over whether the concrete industry is going to have some component stigmatized."
Push at White House, on Hill
The industry is working hard to promote its argument about recycling or "beneficial use" of coal-combustion waste. After all, that argument was key in persuading the Clinton administration's EPA in 2000 to forego regulation of ash under the Resource Conservation and Reclamation Act (RCRA).
Industry groups have met 16 times with EPA, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) since October to discuss ash regulations and question their potential effect on recycling programs, according to documents posted on the OMB Web site.
Among the players are American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp., the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, the American Coal Ash Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and lobbyist Lisa Jaeger, who was EPA's acting general counsel during the George W. Bush administration. Jaeger is representing the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners.
During that same period, Obama administration officials discussed the ash issue in four meetings with environmentalists and two with health professionals.
"By executive order, if a stakeholder on a proposal asks to meet with OMB (OIRA), they are required to take the meeting," an administration official said in a statement. "For this proposal, OIRA has met with groups on both sides of the issue. The numbers of meetings that 'one side' gets versus another is not indicative of one side getting more input into the process."
EPA declined to comment for this story, but the agency is crafting its decision on a coal ash standard with beneficial use in mind, Stan Meiburg, acting director of EPA's Region 4, told Congress at a hearing last month.
The agency is struggling to find a way forward. After pledging early last year to decide the ash issue by December, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced last month the "complexity of the analysis" of the matter had delayed the decision.
Meanwhile, the industry groups' pitch has struck a chord in Congress. "Beneficial use" was cited in a letter signed by 25 senators and more than 70 House members last month that asked Jackson to forgo the hazardous designation.
The argument was repeated at two December House hearings on ash regulations. "How could coal ash be hazardous in a landfill and not hazardous in recycling?" Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) asked at a House Transportation and Infrastructure hearing Dec. 9. "It's frightening that we come up with that sort of illogical ruling."
See what we're tweeting about
8 Comments
Add CommentThe primary consideration with regard to the regulation of coal ash should be first and foremost the public health based on its effect in any use, on the environment (air, earth and water). The purpose of the EPA is to protect the environment and the public health. It is not to protect the interests of corporate profits or operations, except to distinguish what should be allowed to them on condition that it does not compromise the environment or the public health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd then, if and when the use of recycled ash is proposed, and perhaps allowed, a complete report that includes studies that clearly demonstrate on a scientific basis, that that reuse in any form will not endanger the environment or the public health. That report should be available in full to the public.
Burning coal ash as a "recycled fuel" for energy plants should not be allowed.
It is time that we admit that old fuels should be phased out. They should to transition their operations into the newer methods of producing energy with safe, environmentally friendly methods. For example: why wouldn't they begin to develop plants that recycle our abundant dump wastes-to-methane-gas fuelled plants? In fact, I would not be opposed to government grants to help them in this transition.
Every large city, or a network of small cities could use their own garbage to produce electricity for their own needs, thus elminating the costly expense item of waste disposal from their municipal budgets by converting it to fuel for energy production. Why would these coal-burning corporations not see the promising future in the development of these plants for themselves, and begin to work with thse municipalities toward this goal?
I think 10 billion a year in profit is the main concern not to want coal ash regulated. It has been scientifically proven that coal ash is a deadly byproduct of coal and should never come in contact with any living tissue. The states that are swamped in coal ash have epidemic porportions of disease and illnesses. In West Virginia, there is so much disease and illness caused by coal and coal ash that you cannot afford health insurance...if you can even get health insurance in the state -- which you cannot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStop the coal ash and clean it up and health insurance costs will dramatically drop.
If turning coal ash into concrete neutralizes the deadly chemicals, then by all means, turn it into concrete. In either way, we need to quickly get away from burning fossils for energy.
This is just another example of the irresponsible coal companies trying to keep as many of their costs externalized as possible. As long as they are not held accountable for the damage they cause they will continue to cause it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no question as to whether or not coal ash waste is hazardous or not. The question is are we going to let these companies continue to profit by selling their hazardous waste instead of properly disposing it?
Ultimately the best solution here is to get off of coal power as soon as possible. When an industry can only stay "competitive" with cleaner, healthier alternatives by profiteering off of poisoning people, it's time to shut that industry down.
Coal contains: URANIUM, ARSENIC, LEAD, MERCURY, Antimony, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Selenium, Barium, Fluorine, Silver, Beryllium, Iron, Sulfur, Boron, Titanium, Cadmium, Magnesium, Thorium, Calcium, Manganese, Vanadium, Chlorine, Aluminum, Chromium, Molybdenum and Zinc. There is so much of these elements in coal that cinders and coal smoke are actually valuable ores. We should be able to get all the uranium and thorium we need to fuel nuclear power plants for centuries by using cinders and smoke as ore. Remember that, to get a given amount of energy, you need on the order of 100 MILLION TIMES as much coal as uranium. That means the coal mine has to be 100 million times larger than the uranium mine, not counting the recycling of nuclear fuel. Unburned Coal also contains BENZENE, THE CANCER CAUSER. We can keep our mountains and forests and our health by switching from coal to nuclear power. We could get all of our uranium and thorium from coal ashes and cinders. The carbon content of coal ranges from 96% down to 25%, the remainder being rock of various kinds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChinese industrial grade coal is sometimes stolen by peasants for cooking. The result is that the whole family dies of arsenic poisoning in days, not years because Chinese industrial grade coal contains large amounts of arsenic.
I have zero financial interest in nuclear power, and I never have had a financial interest in nuclear power. My sole motivation in writing this is to avoid extinction due to global warming.
Please see: http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html
Hey Patrick,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's kind of stupid to be putting a picture of half burned "charcoal" briquettes, somehow relating this to the existence of real mineral "coal" ash. Why not use a picture of any one of the enormous piles of real mineral "coal" ash that you could potentially find next to any one of hundreds of coal fired power plants in the US?
Hopefully you realize that the ash from "charcoal" briquettes used for cooking our food does not contain anything near the same levels of carcinogenic, radioactive heavy metals like Cadmium, Thorium, or Uranium, as does ash from mineral "coal" used in the production of electric power.
SCIAM, this is another example of what I would call "poor production quality" from the your media source, and/or the work of another of your "stupid sciencewriter bylines"
SKB
GO Pandonodrim!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSKB
At times my heart crises out with longing to see all these things.If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch,how much more beauty <strong><a href="http://www.panjewellery.com/">pandora bracelets and charms</a></strong>must be revealed by sight.Yet, Those who have eyes apparently see little.The color and action which fills the world is taken for granted. It is human,perhaps, to appreciate little that which we have and to long for that which we have not,but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding gullness to life...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this