Don't Gut Coal Ash Rules, Communities Beg EPA at Hearing
Source: Inside Climate News
‘We’re talking about poisoning groundwater,’ one mayor told the agency at the only public hearing planned on Pruitt’s coal ash rule change, proposed by industry.
By Georgina Gustin
Apr 25, 2018
It took decades for the Environmental Protection Agency to craft public safeguards for the disposal of coal ash, the toxic byproduct that coal-burning power plants generate more than 100 million tons of every year.
Scott Pruitt's EPA is aiming to unravel those standards in a matter of months.
On Tuesday, in a hotel conference room outside Washington, dozens of people spoke at the EPA's only planned public hearing on Pruitt's proposed changes to the coal ash standards. They represented their communities, many of them poor, seemingly powerless and hundreds of miles away from the capital.
A pediatrician. A small-town mayor. Tribal members. Girls Scouts.
"Please, do not roll back EPA safeguards," 8-year-old Alivia Hopkins, a Scout from Pleasant Plains, Illinois, told a panel of agency employees as she stood on a chair to reach a microphone at the podium. "I'm counting on you to keep those I love safe.".........................
As scrutiny of Pruitt's potentially illegal spending and ethical transgressions continue to mount, and as he prepares to face questions from Congressional panels on Thursday, ordinary people who are affected by his actions appealed to the agency. They didn't mention scandal or costly soundproof phone booths or the possible undoing of landmark laws. They just pleaded to keep basic environmental protections in place.
"I call you the UPA—the utility protection agency," said Lee McCarty, the mayor of Wilsonville, Alabama, where a nearly 270-acre coal ash disposal pond has a history of leaking into groundwater.
"The power companies are damaging property and hurting people, and yet they're above the basic laws of American jurisprudence," he said. "If my dog bites you, you have a legal remedy. But we're not talking about a dog bite. We're talking about poisoning groundwater."
'Industry's Playbook Made into a Rule'
Read more: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042018/toxic-coal-ash-disposal-standards-epa-hearing-ccr-rule-groundwater-power-plant-health-data
I doubt Pruitt and his swamp team were listening. damn
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In 2008, a coal ash containment area broke at the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant, and 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash washed downstream toward the Emory River. Credit: Brian Stansberry/CC-BY-3.0
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