The US Environmental Protection Agency wants to label coal combustion residuals (CCRs) or coal ash/fly ash as ‘special waste’ or hazardous. This is largely a reaction to the 1 billion gallon coal ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee, in December 2008.
The EPA had, in the years 1993 and in 2000, said that fossil fuel combustion wastes need not be put under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Yet, today it is re-considering the Bevill amendment which is currently the legal status on coal ash. It contends that coal ash is hazardous because it contains traces of heavy metals like arsenic, barium, mercury, lead, selenium, and cadmium. Hence, it says fly ash needs to be stored, transported, handled, and disposed according to very strict standards.
The other side of the argument is, of course, led by coal and construction industries. They say that if the federal regulations on fly ash come into effect, it will stigmatize not only the coal industry but also those who recycle coal ash, most significantly, into cement. Also, the EPA itself acknowledges the practical difficulty or near-impossibility of regulating something like over 100 million tons of CCRs per year.
But what is of relevance to us who have come up with a unique way of recycling coal ash is the seeming dichotomy of the EPA’s stand on the Bevill exemptions. For, it says on its blog that, “Under both approaches proposed by EPA, the agency would leave in place the Bevill exemption for beneficial uses of coal ash in which coal combustion residuals are recycled as components of products instead of placed in impoundments or landfills. Large quantities of coal ash are used today in concrete, cement, wallboard and other contained applications that should not involve any exposure by the public to unsafe contaminants. These uses would not be impacted by today’s proposal.”
If fly ash is designated hazardous, it will definitely impact all fly ash recycling initiatives as they may get entangled in a bureaucratic and legal mess. There may be hesitation to recycle it, with the result that even more fly ash may need to be disposed in landfills, which will be highly regulated anyway. Finally, the American consumer will have to face the brunt of such a regulation in the form of high power bills.
The need to move to clean energy is not being debated here, but when we have thousands of tons of coal ash on hand and more of it is being produced as I type this, it is impractical to wish it away. Instead, the EPA should encourage innovative and energy-efficient ways of fly ash utilization.
Important links: Coal Combustion Residuals – EPA Proposed Rule
Coal combustion products are not hazardous
One Comment
Sometimes we tend to react very mad with these pollutant products from coal power plants.But very happy to know that large quantities of coal ash are used today in concrete, cement, wallboard and other contained applications.All anti coal must read this so that no more debates and throwing bad word to each other.We’re not yet in the end of experimenting and discovering.I believe that in the near future this is not the only discovery that we will have that might lessen these pollutions.