EARTHKEEPING NEWS A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY Volume Nine, Number Five July/August 2000 Call To Action: Protect Groundwater From Toxic Coal Waste Utility companies spend millions advertising electricity as a clean, cheap source of energy. What the ads do not show is the dirty, expensive process of mining coal and burning it in power plants. Added to the destruction of landscape caused by coal mines, and the pollution that coal fired power plants spew into the air, are the millions of tons of coal waste dumped by electric utility companies into strip mine pits and landfills. Three sources of waste are the ash left from the 10 percent of the coal that doesn't burn, the pollutants removed by scrubbers from the power plant stacks, and the chemicals used to scrub the air and clean the boilers. Pollutants removed from the air become solid waste, and as more air pollution controls are added, the amount of solid waste increases. The waste can contain high levels of metals and chemical compounds that poison everything and everybody in the environment: arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, selenium, boron, sulfates, and radioactive elements. Each year the utility companies produce over one hundred million tons of waste, and dump three quarters of it at 750 sites across the country. Nearly every state has several unregulated waste dumps. In many states, strip mines are being turned into coal waste dumps with no environmental controls to protect groundwater. Instead of being reclaimed as soon as mining is done, strip mines in Kentucky, Indiana, North Dakota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and other states are being used as waste dumps. Electric companies and their industry associations have worked hard to downplay the dangers of coal waste dumps, claiming waste is harmless "swamp dirt." They have also given generously to political campaigns. (Data on industry political campaign contributions is available from the Center for Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org.) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to set standards for coal waste disposal but has not done so. Now, two hundred and eighty local, state and national groups have joined the Citizens Coal Council, the Hoosier Environmental Council and the Clean Air Task Force in a national campaign to demand that EPA name these wastes as hazardous, and set environmental controls such as monitoring groundwater, requiring liners, and collecting the chemicals that leach out into streams and groundwater. Join the campaign. Write to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20500; email President Clinton president@whitehouse.gov and Vice President Gore vice.president@whitehouse.gov Information from Citizens Coal Council CCC Reporter, May 2000 1705 S. Pearl St., Denver CO 8021 303/ 722-9119 citzcoal@essential.org. Home     Table of Contents