Seeking to show that proposed new U.S. coal plants would exact a high environmental toll even beyond their carbon air pollution,  the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a list today of the states that would bear the greatest burden from coal waste.

Texas, with eight proposed plants, topped the NRDC’s “Filthy 15″ list. It was followed by South Dakota, Florida, Nevada and Montana, Illinois, South Carolina, Ohio, Wyoming, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri , Wisconsin, Georgia and West Virginia.

Those states have 54 proposed coal plants awaiting permitting. Across the nation, there are 80 proposed plants that would dump an estimated 18 million tons of dangerous coal combustion waste annually into various dump sites, largely unmonitored by the federal government.

That waste would include some 18,000 tons of toxic chemicals and metals, such as lead, mercury and arsenic, that would threaten the environment and people because it could leach into groundwater and streams and lakes, according to the NRDC’s analysis.

Arsenic and heavy metals such as lead and mercury have been linked to increased incidence of cancer, hormone disruption and impaired cognitive abilities among children.

The threat from coal waste is especially acute because states typically have weak regulations, and the federal government has failed for the last three decades to finalize national regulations, NRDC experts said.

This waste “has never been regulated at the national level,” said Peter Lehner, executive director of the NRDC at a news conference. “Currently it’s just dumped into ponds and unregulated landfills and abandoned mines.”

Even outside the “Filthy 15″ no state has successfully controlled the problem, he said.

Lehner applauded the announcement earlier this week by the Obama Administration that the EPA would move forward with regulating coal ash. But he said the agency should act swiftly, adding: “We fully expect the coal industry is going to fight back very, very hard.”

One area of debate has involved the recovery of coal waste for believed beneficial uses, like filling abandoned mines. The practice provides a way to get rid of coal waste and the coal ash is supposed to neutralize acids in the mines and improve water quality in the area; but NRDC research suggests the practice can backfire with toxins leaking into the water supply.

In addition, the EPA has found that coal waste dumps have contaminated water (groundwater and at the surface) at 24 sites in 13 states, according to the NRDC report Dangerous Disposals: Keeping Coal Combustion Waste Out of Our Water Supply.

Aside from ongoing (and difficult to track) potential poisoning of soil and water, coal plants pose a danger from calamitous accidents such as the one in Harriman, Tenn., where a Tennessee Valley Authority waste pond spilled more than a billion gallons of coal sludge.

“Coal waste is one more nail that should be driven into the coffin of coal,” said Tom (Smitty) Smith, director of the Texas Office of the Public Citizen, who appeared at the conference.

“We need to stop permitting coal,” said Smith, ticked off the industry’s other polluting attributes, from shearing off mountaintops to causing acid rain and more carbon pollution than any other single source.
“The toxic toll of coal,” he said, “is too great for the country to bear”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Related links:

• NRDC: Contaminated Coal Waste
• Watch Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars at SnagFilms.com
• Texas Business for Clean Air