Coal Ash Chronicles

Stories about America's second-largest waste stream.

Posts tagged water

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So much for all of those public hearings and the 450,000 public comments generated by the EPA’s last coal ash regulation proposal. Now the agency is proposing to roll coal ash regs into water pollution guidelines and leaning away from a “hazardous” (or “special”) classification for coal ash.

Read the EPA’s latest proposed regulations here:
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/guide/steam-electric/proposed.cfm

Filed under EPA coal ash coal regulation water energy

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EPA: More than half of U.S. rivers unsuitable for aquatic life

xabulove:

Fifty-five percent of U.S. river and stream lengths were in poor condition for aquatic life, largely under threat from runoff contaminated by fertilizers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday.

High levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, runoff from urban areas, shrinking ground cover and pollution from mercury and bacteria were putting the 1.2 million miles of streams and rivers surveyed under stress, the EPA said.

hydrology is a fun subject to study, as is environmental law.  It is tough to regulate something you are forbidden to regulate.

Filed under EPA water rivers pollution

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theapothecarysrose: COAL BURNING BADGER FERRY CAN POLLUTE LAKE MICHIGAN UNTIL 2015 By Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune: After winning exemptions from environmental laws for more than a decade, owners of the last coal-powered steamship on the Great Lakes agreed Friday to a court-enforced deadline to stop dumping toxic pollution into Lake Michigan. But the proposed legal settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would grant the Badger car ferry another reprieve. The ship’s owners would be allowed to continue discharging coal ash into the lake through the end of 2014 — two years longer than a deadline they had promised to meet under an earlier deal with the EPA. The compromise drew an angry response from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who said people “should be outraged that this filthy ship will continue to operate.” A Michigan environmental group, meanwhile, said the Badger’s owners should be required to pay a nonrefundable deposit to ensure they follow through on cleaning up the aging coal burner. Federal officials said the new deal, filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan, eliminates the possibility of lengthy permit appeals that could have allowed the Badger to keep polluting. Each time it sails, the ferry dumps about 4 tons of coal ash into the lake — waste concentrated with arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals. Read More

theapothecarysrose:

COAL BURNING BADGER FERRY CAN POLLUTE LAKE MICHIGAN UNTIL 2015

By Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune:

After winning exemptions from environmental laws for more than a decade, owners of the last coal-powered steamship on the Great Lakes agreed Friday to a court-enforced deadline to stop dumping toxic pollution into Lake Michigan.

But the proposed legal settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would grant the Badger car ferry another reprieve. The ship’s owners would be allowed to continue discharging coal ash into the lake through the end of 2014 — two years longer than a deadline they had promised to meet under an earlier deal with the EPA.

The compromise drew an angry response from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who said people “should be outraged that this filthy ship will continue to operate.” A Michigan environmental group, meanwhile, said the Badger’s owners should be required to pay a nonrefundable deposit to ensure they follow through on cleaning up the aging coal burner.

Federal officials said the new deal, filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan, eliminates the possibility of lengthy permit appeals that could have allowed the Badger to keep polluting. Each time it sails, the ferry dumps about 4 tons of coal ash into the lake — waste concentrated with arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals.

Read More

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