From: "Carolyn Johnson" <ccc@netone.com> (by
way of Robert Dorman
<redorman@theofficenet.com>)
Dear Members and Allies of the Citizens Coal Council:
The Hoosier Environmental Council, a CCC member group, asks
for you to give
10 minutes to protect everyone's water from the pollution caused
when
electric utilities dump millions of tons of toxic power plant
wastes into
strip mine pits and landfills. Right now, EPA seems to be leaning
our way to
write protective regulations but the utility companies are starting
to turn
up the heat.
We can get control of this growing problem now if we can get
thousands of
e-mails or letters to EPA in the next 4 days. Let's push EPA to
take the
final step and do the right thing.
And please pass this message on to all your other e-mail lists
& add to your
web sites.
Carolyn Johnson, Staff Director
Citizens Coal Council
1705 S. Pearl St., #5
Denver, CO 80210
303-722-9119
_________________
A CALL TO ACTION!!
The Safety of Water Throughout America is at Stake
In a Decision Being Made by the Gore/Clinton EPA
In the Next Few Days
>
EPA is about to make a decision that will have a dramatic impact
on the
environment, the safety of water supplies and efforts to curb
climate
change. The decision known as a "Determination to Congress"
will govern
disposal requirements for all solid wastes produced from the burning
of
fossil fuels. The Determination could decide that disposal sites
for this
waste must be lined, ground waters around such sites monitored,
and prompt
actions taken to stop contamination from these wastes. Or it
could give the
green light to states to manage this waste as they see fit, letting
millions
of tons of the waste be dumped directly into your drinking water.
This is
already occurring in states such as Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana,
the Navajo
Nation, North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia. Some states have legalized
the
open dumping of power plant wastes into active coal mines to support
the
coal industry.
This Determination, required by the Resources Conservation
and Recovery Act,
RCRA, will cover more than 100 million tons of wastes produced
annually by
some 700 coal and oil-fired power plants throughout the country.
Most of
the waste is fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag and scrubber sludge
produced
when coal is burned to generate electricity. The resulting ash
is slurried
to settling lagoons where it is mixed with hazardous organic cleaning
solvents and other wastes from power plants. Smaller amounts come
from
oil-fired power plants and industries that burn coal. Also covered
are
wastes generated when coal is gasified and wastes from materials
burned with
coal, such as tire derived fuel, mixed plastics, petroleum coke,
and
creosoted lumber.
These wastes contain toxic levels of heavy metals such as
arsenic,
chromium, lead, cadmium, molybdenum, and selenium, cancer-causing
organic
compounds that are products of incomplete combustion, and low
levels of
radioactivity. A risk assessment in the draft determination shows
that
arsenic levels in ground water contaminated by coal combustion
waste (CCW)
can cause cancer in 1 out of every 100 children exposed to the
water. This
is 10,000 times more dangerous than the cancer risk that the government
considers acceptable from pollution. Tighter controls of power
plant
emissions will only transfer more mercury and cancerous hydrocarbons
to
the ash making it more toxic.
>
These wastes have poisoned the environment and water supplies
throughout
America. In a six month search of state agency files, the Hoosier
Environmental Council found 63 cases of ground waters and surface
waters
around coal combustion waste (CCW) disposal sites polluted far
beyond
standards of the Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Acts by heavy
metals,
boron, sulfates, chlorides and other pollutants. Scientists have
documented
mutations, illness and death of plants, insects, fish, amphibians,
reptiles,
mammals and birds around these sites from exposure
to pollutants in this waste and bioaccumulation of selenium, chromium,
mercury and other metals in their tissues. Twenty million Americans
live
within five miles of power plant waste disposal sites.
>
Unfortunately, given pressure from the electric utility industry
and states,
EPA's draft determination relied on industry information to down
play the
threats from this waste. EPA used a survey of coal fired power
plants
conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the
utilities own
think tank, to determine if CCW at these plants was damaging the
environment. Other sources were not checked to verify the survey's
results
which predictably asserted that contamination has occurred at
only five
sites. EPA then refused to acknowledge that many cases of contamination
documented in state agency reports were damage simply because
there had been
no formal enforcement action.
>
The draft determination also used industry information to imply
that states
were adequately managing this waste. Using an EPRI survey of
six states,
EPA concluded that there is a trend by states to require liners
under CCW
dumped in lagoons built after 1982. Yet upon checking with regulators
in
those states and four others, we found that very few lagoons have
been
constructed since 1982 and only one state has made any progress
toward
lining these lagoons which are a major source of ground water
contamination.
Even EPRI concedes three fourths of power plant lagoons are not
lined but
this fact was glossed over.
>
EPA has reached a critical point: in the interests of subsidizing
coal, it
can reverse a policy set twenty years ago with passage of Superfund
and RCRA
that prohibited the dumping of wastes into ground water. OR in
the
interests of future generations, it can enforce the simple requirement
of
RCRA that prohibits the disposal of waste in a matter that poses
an eminent
and substantial danger to the public and environment. Doing the
latter will
make less destructive forms of power much more competitive with
coal in a
deregulated energy market.
>
Please write to EPA today! We have not enclosed a sample letter
because
those letters are easily dismissed. Tell them in your own words
that you
want NO MORE CONTAMINATION FROM THIS WASTE! Ask the agency to
implement
Section 3004 (x) of RCRA to require that disposal sites for fossil
fuel
wastes be above ground water and lined, ground water monitoring
and leachate
collection measures installed, and contamination from this waste
cleaned up
immediately by those who profit from its disposal.
>
Contact: Carol Browner, Administrator, US EPA
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20460
fax - 202-501-1450
email - browner.carol@epamail.epa.gov
>
Send copies to: George Frampton, Acting Chair
Council on Environmental Quality
Old Executive Office Building, Room 360
Washington, D.C. 20503
fax - 202-456-2710
_____________
Hoosier Environmental Council
520 E. 12th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
317-685-8800 phone
317-686-4794 fax