Coal Power Poisoning Rivers

The connections between coal power and water resources - while relatively well known for years - have been receiving much deserved media attention recently. In a new piece from their Toxic Waters Series, the New York Time’s details how many the country's coal-fired power plants are cleaning the air at the expense of our rivers and groundwater.

Yesterday I wrote about how the trend toward coal power plants using carbon capture and storage is likely to pose numerous risks to water resources. With regards to coal extraction, just last week the EPA cited the Clean Water Act in its decision to delay dozens of coal mining permits.

In a nutshell, these stories add up to say that extracting and producing energy has enormous impacts on our water resources and it is important for river and watershed groups to be involved in their state or local energy decisions. In this post we’re discussing coal, but water plays an integral role in virtually every other type of energy, including renewables such as biofuels and solar power.

Today’s story from the NYT’s called Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Our Waterways has some interesting, if not alarming facts about the water contamination resulting from coal-fired power plants and the lack of enforcement. Here are some highlights:

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.
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Yet no federal regulations specifically govern the disposal of power plant discharges into waterways or landfills. Some regulators have used laws like the Clean Water Act to combat such pollution. But those laws can prove inadequate, say regulators, because they do not mandate limits on the most dangerous chemicals in power plant waste, like arsenic and lead.

For instance, only one in 43 power plants and other electric utilities across the nation must limit how much barium they dump into nearby waterways, according to a Times analysis of E.P.A. records. Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

And if you think that’s bad, consider this:

Similar problems have emerged elsewhere. Twenty-one power plants in 10 states, including Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio, have dumped arsenic into rivers or other waters at concentrations as much as 18 times the federal drinking water standard, according to a Times analysis of E.P.A. data.

In Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere, power plants have dumped other chemicals at dangerous concentrations. Few of those plants have ever been sanctioned for those emissions, nor were their discharge permits altered to prevent future pollution.

Records indicate that power plant landfills and other disposal practices have polluted groundwater in more than a dozen states, contaminating the water in some towns with toxic chemicals. A 2007 report published by the E.P.A. suggested that people living near some power plant landfills faced a cancer risk 2,000 times higher than federal health standards.

The NYT article goes on to describe some reasons why the situation has gotten so bad: namely, lobbying efforts by industry and local officials friendly to hometown coal companies. It’s definitely worth the read. There's also a great map identifying each of the power plants that are polluting across the country. Check it out it out at Water Polluters Near You: Coal Fired Power Plants.

Absent any adequate oversight at the Federal level, it is important that state and local regulations are made as tough as possible. To do this, it will take dedicated groups and individuals who are able to educate the community on the water pollution caused by power plants and illustrate to policy makers the costs that are passed on to the community.

One way to start getting tougher on power plants is to do a better job enforcing fines for pollution, and to raise the cost of fines. As the NYT’s piece points out, power plants caught breaking the law are rarely fined and when they are penalized, the fines are so small that there is little incentive for power plants to clean up their act:

Even when power plant emissions are regulated by the Clean Water Act, plants have often violated that law without paying fines or facing other penalties. Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators, according to a Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records.

Other plants have paid only modest fines. For instance, Hatfield’s Ferry has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006. For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plant’s parent company earned $1.1 billion.

I encourage any grassroots group that has a coal-fired power plant in their watershed to share their experiences working to minimize the water impacts of power plants. The impacts that energy development has on our waterways won’t be going away anytime soon, and with the emergence of new technologies aimed at addressing global warming, energy will be an increasingly critical issue for protecting our rivers.