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Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals from Electric Utilities; Legacy Surface Impoundments

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2050-AH14
Last modified
Jul 2, 2026
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closed 29d ago
League of Women Voters filings
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League of Women Voters filed 1 comment on this docket between Jul 8, 2026 and Jul 8, 2026. 64 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 29d ago.

What League of Women Voters filed (1)

Jul 8, 2026· Comment submitted by League of Women Voters Indiana· EPA-HQ-OLEM-2020-0107-2479

Statement to EPA for May 28th Webinar on Rolling Back the CCR Rules, given by Cheryl Chapman, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Indiana Thank you for giving us this opportunity. I am speaking on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Indiana. We support the entirety of the CCR rules of 2015 and 2024. There are 1,400 coal ash disposal sites in America, located at around 400 current or retired coal burning electricity plants. These are finite numbers. Also a finite number is the 5 billion tons of coal ash accrued since coal burning electricity plants first started, and the 2015 and 2024 EPA rulings made adequate and reasonable laws and standards as to their safe disposal. As you know coal ash is dangerous to air and water. But, the cleanups are not yet complete, and over 90% of the current sites are contaminating or threatening to contaminate water according to your own federal contamination standards. Why is the LWV of Indiana concerned? Indiana has 22 plants with coal ash pits. In NW Indiana we have 5 such plants. Members across the state were so excited when both rules were adopted, because it meant that residents could finally be assured that cleanups would make our communities safer. For example, as of 2024, there are some 49,000 cubic yards of coal ash (2 million tons), including legacy coal ash, in Michigan City. The ash in these ponds is separated from Lake Michigan only by an aging breakwater. If a Lake Michigan storm breaches the breakwater, drinking water in the southern part of Lake Michigan, including Chicago, will be undrinkable for millions. We desperately need these rules to stay in place and be enforced. Currently, most residents of the town of Pines, Indiana, are bussed bottled drinking water due to the fact that before 2015, materials from NIPSCO's coal ash dumps were considered safe to use in playgrounds, backyards, and wetlands, and ended up in their well water. This was a disaster, taking decades to mitigate. IF the CCR rules stay in place, the kind of coal ash waste piles that poisoned Pines will continue to be regulated and fully monitored as landfills. If you roll back the legislation, coal ash waste piles will be defined as "storage piles" and will become unregulated. How can coal ash fills no longer be considered hazardous to health and safety, even though they harbor over 14 different cancer causing chemicals? Arsenic and radium could easily be used as structural fills in parks and residential areas, as they were in Pines! The new rules make no plan to protect groundwater, which is a major problem in Pines. What does this mean? Any town in America could potentially become a Pines, and the EPA and the coal industry could once again be sued for allowing even more health and environmental disasters to take place. This makes no scientific, medical, legal or economic sense. So from our 5 plants up north that threaten Lake Michigan and her tributaries, to the 6 plants close to the Ohio River, and the 11 plants in between, LWV of Indiana asks you to keep the 2015 and 2024 CCR rules in place. We have a finite number of coal plants, and finite numbers of cubic yards of coal ash that must be removed and safely stored in places that don't contaminate or threaten our drinking and recreational waters. This is absolutely imperative for public safety and environmental health. We actually anticipated that the coal companies would fight against the 2024 rules, as clean ups are expensive, but this is basically the price we must pay as a society for nearly a century of easily available power! We can't evade this responsibility by changing the rules – inevitably, we will have to pay the price. The League of Women Voters has a long history of environmental concern and advocacy at both the state and national levels. Our formal environmental position supports "…the preservation of the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the ecosystem and maximum protection of public health and the enviro…

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Abstract

On April 17, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) promulgated national minimum criteria for existing and new coal combustion residuals (CCR) landfills and existing and new CCR surface impoundments. On August 21, 2018 the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in the case of Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, et al v. EPA, which vacated and remanded the provision that exempted inactive impoundments at inactive facilities from the CCR rule. As a first step to implement this part of the court decision, EPA is seeking comments and data on inactive CCR surface impoundments at inactive utilities “legacy units” to assist in the development of future regulations for these CCR units.

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