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EPA Will to Propose First-Time Coal Waste Regulations by Year End

Date: March 11, 2009

Source: News Room

The EPA plans to propose first-time regulations to control coal combustion waste (CCW) by the end of the year. The agency is responding to increasing pressure from environmentalists and some lawmakers in the wake of a coal ash pond that ruptured and spilled a billion gallons of waste at a TVA site in Tennessee. But the agency has still not determined whether to regulate the waste as hazardous under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA), a key demand of many environmentalists.

Matthew Hale, director of EPA's Office of Resource Conservation & Recovery said recently that the agency is "committing to develop a regulatory proposal for comment by the end of this calendar year." Hale added that the agency is still weighing whether to regulate the waste as hazardous under subtitle C of RCRA -- which many activist groups support -- or with less stringent regulation as a non-hazardous waste under subtitle D of the law.

The agency's decision to move forward with a coal waste regulatory proposal comes just days after Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and panel member Thomas Carper (D-DE) March 3 introduced a resolution urging EPA to conduct immediate inspections of all coal ash impoundments in the United States, and to propose and quickly finalize RCRA rules to control coal waste disposal.

Also, a coalition of more than 100 environmental groups sent a March 2 letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging her to regulate coal waste as a hazardous substance under RCRA subtitle C, while noting that the agency has still not responded to their 2004 petition seeking the agency to regulate the material. In their March 2 letter to Jackson, they argue for a set of rules similar to those that apply to MSW be applied to coal waste and that "wet storage" of the waste be phased out, and that beneficial uses of coal ash follow those same standards.

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