Coal and Oil Waste is Toxic

Combustion wastes are the solid and liquid waste left over from burning coal and oil to make electricity - ash, sludge, boiler slag, mixed together with a dozen or so smaller volume wastes. Every year, over 100 million tons of these wastes are produced at nearly 600 coal and oil-fired power plants. Seventy-six million tons are primarily disposed of at the power plant site in unlined and unmonitored wastewater lagoons, landfills and mines. These disposal units are operating under state rules that frequently are far less protective than rules for household trash.

 

These wastes are highly toxic. They contain concentrated levels of contaminants like arsenic, mercury, chromium and cadmium that can damage the nervous systems and other organs, especially in children. Analysis performed for EPA show that some of these pollutants will eventually migrate and contaminate nearby groundwater. As an example, the excess cancer risks for children drinking groundwater contaminated with arsenic from power plant wastes have been found to be as high as one-in-one hundred - ten thousand times higher than the Agency's own regulator goal of reducing cancer risks to less than one-in-one million.
 

The toxicity is not just theoretical. We can point our finger to more than 60 places in the country where these wastes have degraded our public ground and surface waters beyond any use - consumptive, agricultural, industrial, or environmental. Fish consumption advisories in Texas and North Carolina have been directly linked to coal combustion waste disposal. Studies in South Carolina have documented multiple developmental, physiological and behavioral abnormalities in the nearly 25 species of amphibians and reptiles inhabiting wetlands associated with a coal ash disposal site. We know that this is just the tip of the iceberg.