Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

The December 2008 coal ash spill from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant in Kingston, Tenn., was already considered one of the nation’s largest environmental disasters, but one year after the spill, authorities say the devastation is even bigger than first imagined. Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, tells The Environment Report’s Tanya Ott that the 2.6 billion pounds of toxic sludge from the east Tennessee impoundment pond is more than the total discharge of all United States power plants last year.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) should be prosecuted and penalized for not ensuring the safety of its Kingston, Tenn., coal ash impoundment pond to prevent it from breaking and spilling a billion gallons of toxic coal ash on to a neighboring rural community, according to angry environmental groups. But a long-standing federal rule that limits how the Justice Department can prosecute federal agencies could protect the nation’s largest utility from paying its fair dues.

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Three environmental groups have filed a notice of intent to sue against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for not limiting toxic discharges from coal power plants or revising any of its effluent standards for coal combustion products or other effluents since 1982.

The threat of a lawsuit, filed by the Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Integrity Project, comes as part of the wave of criticism on how coal-firing plants are regulated. That debate was spurred by last year’s coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn. Coal ash, which is produced and stored at coal-firing plants, is not listed as a hazardous material and thus did not fall under federal regulations. However, improvements in pollution controls have kept toxins from leaving smokestacks, thus increasing the amount of toxins in the coal ash.

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Cancer rates among people living near coal ash ponds are “disturbingly high,” according to Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, nonprofit organizations that studied Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data from 210 coal ash ponds across the United States. The data is compiled in a report titled, “Coming Clean: What EPA Knows About the Dangers of Coal Ash.”

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A report published today by the Birmingham News says the coal ash retaining ponds at two Birmingham-area coal-fired energy plants contain the highest levels of arsenic in the country, ranked and Nos. 2 and 3 on a list compiled by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). The study evaluates the amount of ash deposited in on-site ash ponds and landfills from 2000-2006, according to the News report.

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