EPA Releases More Electric Utility Plans to Improve Safety of Coal Ash Impoundments
(EPA 5-19-2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing action plans developed by 16 electric utility facilities with coal ash impoundments, describing the measures the facilities are taking to make their impoundments safer. The action plans are a response to EPA’s final assessment reports on the structural integrity of these impoundments that the agency made public this February.
TVA Decides to Store Ash at Kingston Spill Site
(Associated Press 5-19-2010) The Tennessee Valley
Authority will permanently store onsite more than 2
million cubic yards of coal ash from a massive spill as
part of the utility's second phase of clean up. At $270
million, the onsite storage will consist of 25-foot-tall
heap with no liner system beside the Emory River west of
Knoxville. It was the cheapest of several options TVA
considered, and Steve McCracken, the utility's cleanup
project manager, said it should keep overall costs
within the projected $1.2 billion total.
EPA Stiffens Coal Ash Rules, But Proposal Allows Recycling
(Greensource 5-10-2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 4 unveiled a draft rule to regulate coal ash, for the first time, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The proposal would require coal-fired powerplants to retrofit existing impoundments, which typically store ash in liquid form, with composite liners. It also would provide strong incentives to eventually close surface impoundments and shift to dry storage in landfills, EPA says. The new scrutiny follows a 2008 collapse of a Tennessee impoundment that spread ash over a 300-sq-mile area of land and water.
