To: President Donald Trump and The United States Senate
BAN dumping of Coal Combustion Waste as "beneficial use"
Please allow the EPA to finally regulate Coal Combustion Byproducts or Residuals (CCB or CCR) under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and prevent another Kingston Tennessee coal ash pond disaster! CCBs continue to be buried next to rivers that serve as community water supplies, leaching heavy metals and toxic compounds into the water we drink. End the "beneficial use" designation for this toxic byproduct of Big Coal!
Why is this important?
Coal Combustion Byproducts or Residuals ("CCB" or "CCR") are filled with concentrated toxins, including heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and mercury, and other compounds such as hexavalent chromium (of Erin Brokovich fame). Power companies, such as American Electric Power ("AEP") and others are dumping CCBs into watersheds, in unlined "fill" projects which are categorized as "beneficial use" of the materials. After the Kingston, Tennessee collapse of a CCB pond in 2008, President Obama and the EPA vowed to prevent such a catastrophe agagain. After the EPA held public hearings in 2010, the overwhelming majority of comments were in favor of regulating CCBs as a hazardous solid waste under Subtitle C of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"). To date, the EPA has yet to deliver a sensible regulation on this material. Big Coal power companies such as AEP continue to use CCBs as an unregulated "fill" material, depositing it on the banks of rivers and streams that provide drinking water for entire communities. This practice must stop. Urge the President to allow the EPA to regulate CCBs as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C of RCRA!