December, 19 2014, 02:15pm EDT
![Earthjustice](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012672/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Keith Rushing, Earthjustice Campaign Press Secretary, (202) 797-5236; (757) 897-2147
Tom Pelton, Director of Communications, Environmental Integrity Project, (202) 888-2703; (443) 510-2574
EPA's First-ever Coal Ash Rule Leaves Communities to Protect Themselves
Rule Leaves Critical Gaps in Protection from Toxic Coal Ash
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued long-delayed federal regulations for coal ash, but failed to fix major pollution problems from the disposal of coal ash waste, including contamination of rivers and drinking water supplies.
The Obama Administration's failure to issue strong ash disposal regulations means that environmental disasters like the Dan River coal ash spill in North Carolina in February, and the massive 2008 ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee, could happen again.
"Today's rule doesn't prevent more tragic spills like the ones we are still trying to clean up in North Carolina and Tennessee. And it won't stop the slower moving disaster that is unfolding for communities around the country, as leaky coal ash ponds and dumps poison water," said Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans.
The new rule fails to phase out the dangerous practice of storing immense quantities of toxic waste in unlined "ponds" behind earthen dams that are often structurally unstable and prone to failure. EPA's approach effectively lets the utility industry police itself without federal or state oversight.
"While EPA's coal ash rule takes some long overdue steps to establish minimum national groundwater monitoring and cleanup standards, it relies too heavily on the industry to police itself, " said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. "The devil is in the details, and we will review the regulation closely for loopholes. But regardless of what the rule requires, companies like Duke Energy, First Energy, and TVA have already learned that spills and leaking ash ponds add up to billions of dollars in cleanup costs."
While the rule does require closure of some inactive ponds, like the one that failed on the Dan River in North Carolina, it only mandates closure of ponds that are located on the site of active facilities.
"This power industry has had half a century or more to clean up its act, but even in the face of huge spills and a terrible record of proven water contamination around the country, it is still dumping ash in huge unlined pits," said Evans. "These dumps aren't going away by themselves, and unfortunately under today's rule, EPA is putting the burden on citizens to get them safely closed."
The rule requires water quality monitoring and public disclosure of the results, which should help citizens to track damage from dumps and to go to court to force clean-ups. However, communities are understandably concerned that coal plant operators will not reliably identify, report and remedy water contamination and structural risks without independent oversight.
When she heard about the new regulations, Esther Calhoun, of Uniontown, Ala., who lives near a coal ash dump said: "It seems like the EPA doesn't give a damn about people. "
Calhoun lives near the Arrowhead landfill in Uniontown which received four million cubic yards of coal ash form the 2008 Kingston disaster.
"Our people have heart attacks and breathing problems. They're dealing with this big mountain of coal ash in their face. This is a civil rights issue just as much as an environmental and health one. "
Coal ash is the toxic waste formed from burning coal in power plants to make electricity. It is filled with some of the deadliest toxins known to man, including hazardous chemicals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium. Coal ash--the second largest industrial waste stream in the United States--is linked to the four leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and stroke.
Unsafe disposal of coal ash into the nation's more than 1,400 coal ash waste dumps has contaminated more than 200 rivers, lakes, streams and sources of underground drinking water in 37 states.Coal ash, when dumped in unlined lagoons and landfills, often poisons drinking water and kills fish and wildlife.
Earthjustice, and the groups that sued the EPA over its failure to regulate coal ash, are planning to keep up the fight for critical public health and environmental protection. "We had to go to court to force EPA to issue this first-ever coal ash rule, and unfortunately, we will be back in court to force coal plants to clean up their ash dumps and start disposing of their toxic waste safely," said Evans.
Coal ash regulations were proposed in 2010 following the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history in Kingston, Tenn., when one billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroyed 300 acres and dozens of homes. But in response to pressure from the coal power industry, EPA delayed finalizing the proposed rule.
Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said: "EPA's coal ash rule is too little and too late. Too little because its standards are minimal, vague, and unenforceable. Too late, because damage from collapsing dikes and leaking ash dumps has accumulated in the absence of common sense rules designed to prevent those disasters."
In 2012, Earthjustice sued EPA in federal court on behalf of ten public interest groups and an Indian tribe to obtain a court-ordered deadline. The groups involved in the lawsuit include: the Moapa Band of Paiutes (NV),: Appalachian Voices (NC); Chesapeake Climate Action Network (MD); Environmental Integrity Project (D.C., PA); Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KY); Montana Environmental Information Center (MT); Physicians for Social Responsibility (DC); Prairie Rivers Network (IL); Sierra Club (CA); Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (eight southeast states); and Western North Carolina Alliance (NC),
In 2013, a consent decree was lodged in federal court that set a deadline of December 19, 2014 for EPA's final rule.
Quotes from Partner Groups
Vickie Simmons, Moapa Band of Paiutes in Nevada
Email: simmonsvickie@ymail.com
Phone: 702-865-2910
"Our people have been harmed for decades by the toxic dust that blows from coal ash dumps at the Reid Gardner plant," says Vickie Simmons of the Moapa Band of Paiutes in Nevada. "We wanted a far stronger rule."
Amy Adams, North Carolina Campaign Coordinator, Appalachian Voices
Email: amy@appvoices.org
Phone: (252) 944-6459
"For the thousands of citizens whose groundwater is no longer safe for consumption due to leaching ponds or whose air is contaminated by fugitive dust, failing to regulate coal ash as hazardous is a slap in the face. We will continue to fight for cleanup of these toxic sites."
Traci Barkley, Water Resources Scientist, Prairie Rivers Network (she said use all or part of the quote)
Email: tbarkley@prairierivers.org
Phone: 217.344.2371
"While these rules put forward clean-up and safety standards to protect communities, the EPA is leaving oversight and enforcement almost entirely to the states.
Illinois has over 90 aging coal ash pits with coal ash pollutants found in the groundwater near every one. Communities rely on at-risk rivers and groundwater for drinking water, recreation, and business."
Barbara Gottlieb, Director for Environment & Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility
Email: bgottlieb@psr.org
Phone: (202) 587-5225
"It's high time that those communities get adequate protection from coal ash toxics like arsenic and chromium poisoning their water and their air," said Barbara Gottlieb, Director for Environment & Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Mary Love, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Email: mbloveky@yahoo.com
Phone: 502-541-7434
"Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians depend on the Ohio River for their drinking water. Of the 44 coal ash disposal sites nation-wide that the EPA has listed as high hazard, 19 of them sit on the Ohio River or one of its tributaries. As a result, Kentuckians are vulnerable to exposure to toxins from coal ash, especially since state officials do little to protect the public. Current Kentucky law regulates municipal garbage dumps more stringently than it regulates coal ash disposal sites. "--Mary Love, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Anne Hedges, Deputy Director of the Montana Environmental Information Center
Email: ahedges@meic.org
Phone: (406) 443-2520
"This rule comes far too late to protect the people who rely on groundwater in Colstrip, Montana. We can only hope that this rule will help get the toxins out of their water. Colstrip area ranchers told the state decades ago that the Colstrip ash ponds would leak but no one expected them to hemorrhage toxic water into ground and surface water for decades," said Anne Hedges, Deputy Director of the Montana Environmental Information Center.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe of Landmines in Russian-Occupied Ukraine
"In every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces," said one researcher.
Jul 26, 2024
Amnesty International on Friday demanded a "prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial investigation" into the use of antipersonnel landmines, "which litter territories in Ukraine formerly and currently occupied by Russian forces."
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor says that Ukraine is "severely contaminated" with antipersonnel landmines, which Russia's troops have used since 2014, but particularly since Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"Landmines have been documented in 11 of Ukraine's 27 regions: Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia," according to the monitor's latest update, published in November. "Russian forces have used at least 13 types of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine since February 2022."
Ukraine is a state party to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction of 1997 but lacks legislation to enforce its implementation. Human Rights Watch last summer gathered evidence of the Ukrainian military's use of the banned mines. Russia is not a party to the treaty.
Patrick Thompson, a Ukraine researcher at Amnesty, said Friday that "in every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces."
"They are a daily, deadly threat to civilians. Some have been deliberately placed in civilian homes where they maim and kill," Thompson highlighted. "There must be an effective investigation into all such incidents as possible war crimes."
The group shared just one survivor's story of encountering a mine:
In March 2022, Russian forces evicted Oleksandr* (not his real name) and his mother from their flat in Snihurivka, in the region of Mykolaiv. A Russian military unit took over the entire apartment block until it was forced to withdraw following fierce fighting around Snihurivka in November 2022.
After the Russian retreat, Oleksandr returned to the apartment block to assess how badly it had been damaged. Upon entering the basement, he stepped on a disguised PFM-1 antipersonnel mine that had been placed under wooden planks. The mine exploded, Oleksandr fell, and landed on other disguised mines that had apparently, had been deliberately placed to injure or kill anyone entering the building. He lost both his left leg and arm in the incident.
“The deminers working to clear Ukraine of this threat are carrying out painstaking, dangerous work every day," Thompson noted. "While the scale of the problem is undeniably huge, the biggest obstacle to clearing Ukraine of landmines is Russia's ongoing aggression."
Thompson called on the international community to "commit to sustained financial and technical assistance to help Ukraine get rid of a danger that continues to wreck lives and livelihoods," and to continue fighting for an end to the use of the weapons.
"Countries must uphold the ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines worldwide," he said. "There must be an end to the use of such indiscriminate weapons."
The most recent report from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine states that the war has killed at least 11,284 civilians there since 2022 and injured another 22,594—though the actual tallies are believed to be "considerably higher."
"The number of civilian casualties is likely particularly undercounted in cities such as Mariupol (Donetsk region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there was protracted intensive fighting at the start of the armed attack in 2022," according to the report.
While most of the deaths and injuries in Ukraine are attributed to "explosive weapons with wide area effects," the U.N. report accounts for at least 373 deaths and 855 injuries from "mines and explosive remnants of war."
Keep ReadingShow Less
G20 Nations Take 'Important Step' Toward Fair Taxation of Ultra-Rich
"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said progressive economist Gabriel Zucman.
Jul 26, 2024
Despite pushback from the United States delegation, finance ministers at a meeting of the G20 countries in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday agreed on the need to develop a global taxation system in which the richest in the world are taxed at a higher rate—potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars annually to help close the international wealth gap.
Ahead of the G20 Summit scheduled for November, which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government will host, the finance officials met this week to discuss economic issues and ultimately agreed to start a "dialogue on fair and progressive taxation, including of ultra-high-net-worth individuals."
The Lula government pushed for a proposal by progressive economist Gabriel Zucman, who serves as a G20 adviser and is a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley.
Zucman's proposal calls for a minimum 2% tax on the fortunes of the world's roughly 3,000 wealthiest billionaires, which could raise approximately $250 billion globally per year.
"With full respect to tax sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed," the ministers wrote in a declaration that was viewed by Politico.
"Finally, the richest people are being told they can't game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share. Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax."
The agreement to discuss higher taxes for the rich was reached despite objections from Germany and the U.S., whose treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said that "tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally."
"We don't see a need or really think it's desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that," Yellen said at a press conference before the ministers met Thursday evening. "We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive."
Although the agreement only states that countries will discuss the need for the wealthy to pay their fair share to help fight poverty and fund public education and other services, the global anti-poverty group Oxfam International said the meeting represented "serious global progress."
"For the first time in history, the world's largest economies have agreed to cooperate to tax the ultra-rich," said Susana Ruiz, tax policy lead for Oxfam. "Finally, the richest people are being told they can't game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share. Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax. Massive fortunes afford the world's ultra-rich outsized influence and power, which they wield to shield, stash, and supersize their wealth, undercutting democracy and widening inequality."
An Oxfam study released ahead of this week's meetingfound that the richest 1% of people in the world increased their fortunes by $42 trillion over the past decade, while taxation fell to "historically" low rates.
Ruiz called on G20 heads of state to "go further than their finance ministers" at the G20 Summit in November "and back concrete coordination: agreeing on a new global standard that taxes the ultra-rich at a rate high enough to close the gap between them and the rest of us."
"Brazil has kickstarted a truly global approach to tax the ultra-rich. But the work is just beginning and international cooperation is crucial," said Ruiz, adding that the task of ensuring the wealthiest people in the world are taxed fairly must not be left up to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—"the club of mostly rich countries."
Zucman expressed hope that the agreement between the G20 finance ministers marked a "historic" moment, and called it "an important step in the right direction."
"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said Zucman. "In its declaration, the G20 finance ministers commit to important preliminary steps. They need to do more and commit to a coordinated minimum tax on the super-rich. We know that it is practically doable—we know the solutions exist. And I'm confident, because there is overwhelming popular demand everywhere to get there."
"The status quo, in which the biggest winners from globalization are allowed to enjoy the lowest tax rates, is simply not sustainable," said Zucman.
The findings released this week by Oxfam highlighted polling that "consistently" found people across the world support raising taxes on the richest individuals.
"Eighty percent of Indians, 85% of Brazilians and 69% of people polled across 34 countries in Africa support increasing taxes on the rich," said the group. "Nearly three-quarters of millionaires polled in G20 countries support higher taxes on wealth, and over half think extreme wealth is a 'threat to democracy.'"
The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) applauded the agreement and called on the G20 to "go further in [the] fight to tax the rich."
"To take this forward, G20 should support work on this at the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation currently being negotiated at the United Nations," said Jayati Ghosh, co-chair of the ICRICT.
A U.N. committee is scheduled to submit "terms of reference" regarding a tax convention framework in August, and a final vote on the framework is expected by the end of 2025.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Chief Says Rich Countries 'Signing Away Our Future' With Fossil Fuel Development
"I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world's wealthiest countries," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. "Countries must phaseout fossil fuels—fast and fairly."
Jul 26, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday criticized the world's wealthiest countries for expanding fossil fuel production, one day after an analysis in The Guardian showed that five Western countries are leading a global surge in oil and gas development.
Guterres' remarks came as part of a "call to action" on extreme heat at a press conference in New York, after record-setting world temperatures earlier in the week and a series of deadly heatwaves across the world this year.
Guterres, who has long been outspoken on the need for climate action, called extreme heat one of the "symptoms" of a "disease" that is the "addiction" to fossil fuels.
"I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world's wealthiest countries," he said nine minutes and 53 seconds into his remarks. "In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The leadership of those with the greatest capabilities and capacities is essential. Countries must phaseout fossil fuels—fast and fairly."
The U.N. chief's comments may have been based on Wednesday's findings that five Western countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Norway—have significantly scaled up oil and gas licensing this year, despite their international climate commitments. The findings came from an analysis of industry data conducted by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and published in The Guardian.
The analysis found that the five countries together have licensed or plan to license projects in 2024 that will emit 11.9 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes. The news renewed discussions about whether countries such as the U.S., though they claim to be climate leaders, should be considered "petrostates"—a contemptuous term formerly reserved for countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Guterres has long been outspoken on the issue of fossil fuels. At the COP28 U.N. climate change summit in Dubai last year, he spoke forcefully about the need for phasing them out and meeting the 1.5°C target set in the Paris agreement.
"The 1.5°C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels," he said. "Not reduce. Not abate. Phase out—with a clear timeframe aligned with 1.5°C."
The loophole-ridden deal that emerged from Dubai didn't match Guterres' ambitions, but did call for "transitioning away from fossil fuels."
His call to action on Thursday included a four-part plan for dealing with extreme heat: caring for the most vulnerable, protecting workers, boosting resilience, and limiting further temperature rise by phasing out fossil fuels and scaling up renewables.
Leaders across the board must wake up and step up their #ClimateAction.
That means governments – especially #G20 countries – as well as the private sector, cities and regions.
They must #ActNow as though our future depends on it – because it does.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) July 26, 2024
Guterres warned that 70% of the global workforce—over 2.4 billion people—is at substantial risk of experiencing extreme heat, and the situation is especially dire for workers in Africa and the Middle East. He called for strong laws to protect workers, which some countries are enacting. The Biden administration recently moved to set the first national workplace heat safety protections in the U.S.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular