Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
For 30 years, environmentalists have pushed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate coal ash, the solid waste produced by coal-fired power plants.
The ash contains high levels of arsenic, lead, mercury and boron, each of which has been known to cause cancer, neurological and development problems, and other illnesses. Yet for three decades, rules governing coal ash have been left up to the states, creating a patchwork of differing regulations with questionable effectiveness.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said federal regulations on the disposal of coal ash can be expected by the end of 2009.
As The Iowa Independent reported last week, environmentalists fear coal ash is polluting the groundwater around four unlined quarries and mines in Iowa where the material is used as fill. Advocates want the state to more strictly regulate these types of sites by requiring state-of-the-art liners and multiple monitors to safeguard human health and the environment.
But despite recent pledges from the EPA to address the issue, environmentalists worry that new federal regulations won’t go far enough or will fail to deal with the unsecured, unmonitored sites in the Hawkeye State.
“Right now we’re not sure what’s going on at the federal level or at the state level,” said Carrie La Seur, president and founder of Plains Justice, a Cedar Rapids-based public interest environmental law center.
What’s more, state officials said they’re delaying action on the issue in the hopes that the federal government will live up to its recent promises.
Chad Stobbe, an environmental specialist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the agency’s lead staffer on coal ash issues, said the DNR most likely won’t move forward with any rules until the EPA releases its own regulations.
“The concern is that the EPA requirements will trump anything we do at the state level,” Stobbe said. “Ultimately it will come down to the rules the EPA dictates.”
Sense of urgency
The Obama administration’s new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, recently said her agency will begin drafting new regulations for coal ash, likely to be released by the end of 2009.
Jackson cited the massive coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn., last December. That incident, in which nearly a billion gallons of coal ash sludge flooded 300 acres of land, put the issue front and center.
“Environmental disasters like the one last December in Kingston should never happen anywhere in this country,” Jackson said.
But that type of disaster isn’t the biggest fear for environmentalists in Iowa. The danger facing the Hawkeye State, they said, is coal ash being disposed in abandoned quarries and mines.
Three of the four unlined disposal sites in Iowa — Wendling Quarry in Goose Lake, Basic Materials Quarry in Waterloo and the Linwood Mine in Buffalo — are located in the congressional district of Democrat Bruce Braley, who expressed concern about the health implications of Iowa’s coal ash dumps.
“I’m pleased that the EPA is committed to drafting a plan to regulate coal ash disposal, and I will be thoroughly examining their regulations when they are unveiled later this year,” he said.
But recent statements by EPA officials to the Iowa Independent suggest that the agency harbors lingering questions about whether coal ash dumps pose a threat to groundwater.
When asked specifically about the possibility of toxins leaching into groundwater supplies from coal ash stored in Iowa’s unlined, unmonitored disposal sites, EPA spokeswoman Tisha Petteway first pointed to six proven cases of damage associated with disposal in unlined quarries.
However, in a follow-up e-mail, Petteway backed off that statement, saying there is no consensus on the dangers of this method of disposal. “Use of coal ash in situations like its addition to quarries or to fill abandoned mines is a very complex matter,” she said. “If the neutralizing power of the coal ash is overcome by acidity, such as acid mine drainage, increased leaching of metals from the coal ash can occur.”
Petteway said the EPA is researching cases of environmental damage resulting from the disposal of coal ash and will and use that data to draft an assessment for the management of the material.
“The agency recognizes the concern for public health and the environment associated with these materials and has made the management of these materials a priority,” Petteway said. “Therefore, the agency is evaluating all of the available information and is moving expeditiously towards issuance of a proposed rule by the end of this year.”
Industry says current regulations are working
Meanwhile, opponents of tougher regulations, including site owners and coal-burning industries, argue that coal ash disposal poses no threat to groundwater and proposed rule changes would needlessly increase the cost of doing business, an expense that will eventually be passed on to consumers.
Nicole Molt, director of government relations for the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI), a trade group that counts among its members the disposal-site owners and industries that utilize them, said the cost of upgrading unlined, unmonitored sites to comply with stricter standards could cost anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000 an acre. That cost would eventually have to be passed on to taxpayers, since most users of quarries and mines for coal ash disposal are municipally owned utilities and the state’s regent universities.
“We believe the current law is protecting Iowa’s public health and environmental resources,” Molt added. “Our private sector members are dedicated to protecting the public and dedicated to environmental compliance.”
Molt said ABI requested documentation of any environmental damage caused by coal ash disposal in Iowa from the DNR back in September.
“We have not received any such documentation,” she said.
Federal regulations are not necessary, Molt added, because the DNR already regulates coal ash disposal by testing the toxicity of the ash and the soil of disposal sites to help ensure leaching doesn’t occur.
For her part, Plains Justice’s La Seur said her organization would wait and see if the EPA stays on the schedule laid out for implementing new rule making this year.
If the EPA doesn’t act, “we will re-evaluate our options to protect public health,” La Seur said.
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