Indiana has more coal ash dumpsites than any other state in the country and has already seen the effects of what can happen when too much coal ash contaminates local drinking groundwater.
However, the Trump administration is proposing a rollback of previous cleanup rules around coal ash that have been in place for a decade.
Indiana environmental groups say that this kind of move could be extremely harmful to residents and their waterways, especially since the state has an excess of coal ash dumpsites.
The rule change, initially proposed on April 9, would affect how utilities must clean up these sites.
It would also allow ash to be reused as “fill” or be used in concrete and cement mixes.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency commissioner, Lee Zeldin, said that he views the change as “commonsense” and that it is about “restoring American energy dominance.”
“Our proposed changes will increase transparency and promote resource recovery while continuing to protect human health and the environment for all Americans now and into the future,” Zeldin said.
However, environmental groups like the Citizens Action Coalition said that the rule change would gut coal ash protections at both operating and former coal plant sites.
“This proposal by the Trump administration would absolutely decimate those requirements and allow utilities to just leave these toxic messes in place, threatening public health, threatening Hoosiers' precious water, and all in the name of increasing utility profits,” said Ben Inskeep, the program director for Citizens Action Coalition.
Coal ash contains various heavy metals like arsenic, boron, lithium, molybdenum, radium and others.
Indra Frank, a coal ash advisor for the Hoosier Environmental Council, told WFYI that these heavy metals can lead to serious health complications.
“That mix of heavy metals has a variety of health impacts,” said Frank. “Some of them are carcinogens that increase the risk of cancer. Some of them are toxic to the nervous system, and some of them interfere with the development of the unborn child.”
Frank said the majority of Indiana’s coal ash has ended up in unlined pits, often located near flood plains, which enable the toxic ash to easily contaminate groundwater.
Numerous communities in Northwest Indiana, like those in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and Jasper counties, have seen the effects of years of contamination due to improper disposal of coal ash.
Ashley Williams, founder of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said towns like Michigan City have been locked in a cycle of “environmental sacrifice” and that the rollback of the coal ash clean-up rules will only further hurt that community.
“This is just accentuating a myriad of consequences we're already feeling in terms of more fossil fuel build out, big tech build out, and now we are looking to the potential for millions and millions and tons of coal ash that will continue to remain in groundwater, in place, in our backyards,” Williams said.
According to the group EarthJustice, utilities have reported contaminated groundwater in the areas surrounding coal ash dumpsites at levels that often far exceed the federal health-based guidelines.
Indiana could pass its own laws to enforce further clean up of the coal ash pits, but the likelihood of that happening is slim.
Indiana law currently requires the state's regulations around coal ash cleanup to be no more stringent or burdensome than federal regulations.
It also allows the state to use coal ash materials for uses like structural fill, road base material and mine reclamation or stabilization.
Inskeep says if the federal rule is gone, then there won’t be anything left to hold the utility companies accountable for cleaning up their sites.
“Of course, they could if they wanted to, but no utility wants to spend hundreds of millions or billions of extra dollars on cleaning up something that they don't have to clean up,” Inskeep said.
Federal push to keep two Indiana coal plants online
On top of the proposed rule change, the federal government has also issued emergency orders for two power plants to stay online past their planned retirement dates.
The R.M. Schahfer plant in Jasper County and the F.B. Culley plant near Evansville have been ordered to stay open, despite calls from the utilities that operate them who say continuing operations will be extremely costly.
“The units that are being ordered to continue burning coal are so outdated that they're unnecessary, they're inefficient, they're unreliable, they've had a lot of downtime, and they're expensive to operate,” said Frank.
The cost of keeping these plants up and running will likely fall on the utility rate payer, Inskeep said.
Leaders at CenterPoint Energy, which operate the Culley plant, sent a letter to the federal government in February saying that keeping the plant running would cost up to $18 million.
Coal ash dump sites affected by the rule change
According to the environmental groups, these are the current and former Indiana power plants that would be affected by the coal ash dumpsite rule change:
- Wabash River Generating Station, Terre Haute
- Michigan City Generating Station, Michigan City
- Harding Street Generating Station, Indianapolis
- Eagle Valley Generating Station, Martinsville
- Petersburg Generating Station, Petersburg
- Former Breed Plant, Fairbanks
- Clifty Creek Generating Station, Madison
- Schahfer Generating Station, Wheatfield
- Rockport Plant, Rockport
- Legacy Edwardsport Station, Edwardsport
- Cayuga Generating Station, Cayuga
- Gibson Generating Station, Owensville
Public comment period open, virtual public hearing
Anyone can submit a public comment about the rule change now through June 12.
The EPA will also hold a virtual public hearing on the proposal May 28.
Contact Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org
