200 Speak Their Minds at Hearing on Coal Residue
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
22 September 2010
By Joe Napsha
Barbara Reed wanted a peaceful life in the Beaver County countryside,
but what she's got are a home about a mile from a giant impoundment dam
filled with a slurry mix of residue from a coal-fired power plant and
fears that it's a hazard to her health.
"I can't use the well water. It has a high sodium count. To drink it is
like gurgling with salt water," said Reed, who told representatives
from the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday that it should
categorize such residue as a hazardous waste.
That would result in federal enforcement and permitting of the
transportation, storage and disposal of the residue from burning coal
that includes coal ash, bottom ash, coal slag and flue gas
desulfurization residue, the agency said.
Reed was one of about 200 people who testified at an EPA hearing in the
Omni William Penn, Downtown, on proposed federal rules on safe disposal
and storage of the estimated 136 million tons of coal combustion
residue generated annually by coal-fired plants.
While the EPA says coal ash contains a broad range of metals, such as
arsenic, mercury, cadmium and lead, that are linked to cancer and other
health problems, it does not categorize it as hazardous waste. The
concentrations are generally low, the government says.
Reed lives near the Little Blue Run impoundment dam connected to
FirstEnergy Corp.'s Bruce Mansfield power plant. The slurry mix in the
impoundment dam is composed primarily of limestone-based scrubber
slurry mixed with some coal ash, said First Energy spokeswoman Ellen
Raines. The utility has 43 monitoring wells around the perimeter of the
dam, and there is no evidence that anything from the unlined dam has
leaked into the water supplies of adjoining residents, Raines said.
In a 563-page proposal, the EPA is considering two options for dealing
with the risks of coal ash disposal. It could continue to designate the
coal ash as a non-hazardous waste subject to federal environmental
standards under state oversight. Or the material could be classified as
a special waste under a hazardous waste category. In that case, the
federal government would permit and enforce regulations.
There is no need for more regulations because Pennsylvania has
successfully managed disposal of coal ash for the past 30 years, said
Michael Forbeck, manager of the state Department of Environmental
Protection's waste management program for Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Barbara Diess, a former Forward Township resident, complained about the
state's response to a coal ash landslide that deluged her neighborhood
in 2005. The state agency did not provide residents with safety
information about cleanup and directed firefighters to hose down the
ash from the streets into a creek that runs into the Monongahela River,
she said.
Industry groups contended that a designation of coal ash as hazardous
would seriously harm efforts to recycle the material.
About 30 percent of the coal byproducts from FirstEnergy's power plants
are used in other products, including wallboard and concrete, said
Raymond Evans, director of FirstEnergy's environmental department. The
Bruce Mansfield plant provides about 500,000 tons of gypsum each year
to the adjacent National Gypsum Co. to use in manufacturing wallboard.
That diverts the coal byproduct from landfills.
"Regulation of this material as hazardous waste has the potential to
divert recyclable materials into disposal facilities and eliminate the
many benefits of recycling the coal combustion residue," Evans said.
Herman Marshman Jr., president of Local 272 of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at the Mansfield plant, said his
members have suffered a higher rate of health problems -- cancers and
heart disease -- because they work in coal ash, walk in it and breathe
it.
Marshman wants the agency to designate revenue from recycling of the
coal residue to go into a fund to pay for the health benefits of those
who work in coal-fired plants.
Joe Napsha can be reached at jnapsha@tribweb.com or 724-836-5252.