One year ago today, about 1 billion gallons of coal ash were spilled when a dyke collapsed at the Tennessee Valley Authority's fossil plant in Kingston, Tennessee.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel has the moment-by-moment account of what happened that night. They report that Roane County real estate and tourism have suffered, and that there are 14 lawsuits pending against TVA in relation to the disaster, which will likely take years to resolve. And they editorialize:
TVA and the EPA have vowed that they will do everything in their power to prevent anything of this kind and this magnitude from ever happening again. We believe they will try — and public oversight and accountability will be the best tools to hold them to their promise.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports a group of local residents speaking up against TVA and state and county authorities.
The Washington Post and the Charleston Gazette look at prospects for EPA action on coal ash regulation. As the Post puts it:
One year later, most of the ash on the land is still there. And the problem of similar coal-ash ponds still sits on the long and fast-expanding to-do list of President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency.
Last week, we noted here that the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has already held 10 meetings with industry representatives on the issue, before any EPA notice-and-comment period has begun.
Full textWhile the EPA announced Thursday that it was delaying a decision on issuing a proposed rule for coal ash, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has already hosted 10 meetings with industry representatives in recent months on the issue.
The 10 meetings -- the most on any topic at OIRA so far in the Obama Administration, according to records on its website -- were completely outside of EPA's rulemaking process. In that process, once a proposed rule is issued, industries have ample opportunity to give comment and present their case. The EPA is required by law to examine and respond to those comments. No law requires the White House to hear industry pleas, let alone before the notice and comment period has begun.
Coal ash comprises all the solid waste from the burning of coal to generate power. Chock-full of toxic substances, coal ash presents a serious public health and environmental threat if its disposal is not carefully regulated. Unfortunately, that just happens to be the present state of affairs, as EPA has largely neglected the issue of regulating coal ash disposal for over 25 years. With virtually no regulatory oversight, power plants have been content to dump the spent coal ash in shallow holes or pile it up and then build weak earthen walls around the stuff in an inadequate attempt to keep it contained. The dangers of this latter method of disposal were tragically demonstrated a year ago Tuesday (12/22/08), when an earthen wall in Kingston, Tennessee collapsed, resulting in the release of 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash into a nearby river.
Full textDear Cass:
As you know, we picked a spat with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) last week over Randy Lutter’s supposedly temporary detail appointment to your office. It’s not the first time we’ve criticized the workings of OIRA, and almost certainly won’t be the last.
I’ve spoken to a number of people in the media and elsewhere who have expressed surprise that progressive organizations like CPR are such relentless critics of a progressive Administration. I’m sure Administration officials feel this frustration as well. That dynamic is at work in OIRA’s case because you have a reputation as a progressive thinker on many issues.
I won’t try to speak for all progressives, but I can assure you that very few of us criticize the Administration lightly. Nor do we do it with any sense of pleasure. The Obama Administration inherited an absolute mess on every front and progressives are well aware of the herculean effort you are making to dig out. But while it is tempting to take refuge in the notion that if only a few things are better at the end of however many terms the voters give President Obama, that limited vision is not why you signed up to serve, nor is it why so many of us voted for your man.
Full textPerhaps caught up in the spirit of the holiday shopping season, a large number of industry bargain hunters have been busy seeking great deals on regulatory relief at the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in recent weeks. To be precise, the bureau hosted no fewer than 11 meetings with corporate interests regarding seven different regulatory issues between November 4 and November 16.
The meetings covered a range of topics. One meeting saw representatives of Shell Oil Company complaining about EPA’s proposed rule on fuel and fuel additives under the renewable fuel standards program mandated by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. In a second meeting, representatives of the beef and poultry industries met with OIRA officials to attack a proposed Department of Agriculture rule regarding nutritional labels for their products. Other meetings concerned NHTSA’s updated CAFÉ standards; EPA’s rule on hazardous pollutants generated by paint manufacturers; EPA’s rule on controlling ozone-depleting HCFC; and EPA’s attempts to update its NAAQSs for ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide.
By far the most popular topic, however, was EPA’s preliminary efforts to regulate coal combustion waste (coal ash). I blogged earlier about how the affected industries had already began putting on the full court press to oppose EPA, even though the agency hasn’t even proposed a rule yet. This press continued as affected industries have met with OIRA five more times to oppose EPA on this issue. (There have now been a total of seven meetings regarding coal combustion waste since October 16.)
We shall see if this will continue to be a busy shopping season at OIRA. The Obama OIRA ought to send all of these industry bargain hunters home empty handed.
Full textWhen the Electric Power Research Institute (ERPI)—the research arm of the U.S. power industry—met with OIRA last month to discuss the various “beneficial uses” of spent coal ash from power plants, their timing was impeccable. Or so it would seem. On the day of the meeting, October 16, EPA submitted for OIRA review its pre-rule proposals regarding the regulation of coal ash disposal under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In reality, the meeting demonstrates how eager regulated industries are to air their complaints to OIRA on rules they dislike, or in this case, expect to dislike. The industry’s lobbyists earned their paycheck this time around, getting in to see their traditional champions at OIRA to lay the groundwork for protesting a rule that has not yet even reached the notice-and-comment stage of rulemaking.
Coal ash comprises all the solid waste that is left over when coal is burned to generate power. It’s a large threat to the environment and public health, because it can contain varying levels of arsenic, mercury, radioactivity, lead and other toxic substances. To make matters worse, coal ash disposal is left largely unregulated, so most power plants dispose of it in shallow holes or by building weak earthen walls around piles of the stuff. Both methods result in toxic substances leaching into nearby surface and ground water systems. The collapse of such an earthen wall in Kingston, Tennessee last December resulted in the release of 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory River. The spill covered more than 300 acres, made three homes uninhabitable, and damaged 23 other homes, as well as roads, rail lines, and utilities. The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates that cleanup will cost between $933 million and $1.2 billion and take two to three years to complete.
Full text