It’s been more than a year since Iowa regulators decided to abandon their efforts to strengthen rules governing the disposal of coal ash, the toxic byproduct of coal combustion. Their reasoning at the time was that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was going to release federal rules later in the year. Better to wait, officials said, than waste time on state regulations that would be trumped when nationwide standards were instituted.

The Waterloo South Quarry, used by the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University as a coal ash dump. (Photo courtesy of Plains Justice)

The EPA promised rules by December 2009, a deadline that has come and gone. Wayne Gieselman, division administrator with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said the EPA’s goal then shifted to releasing draft rules by the end of February. Now, a tentative deadline has been set for April.

In the meantime, environmental watchdogs and the Wall Street Journal have pointed out that the White House has held an unprecedented number of meetings with coal industry groups since October to discuss whether the EPA should classify coal ash as a hazardous waste. It is unheard of, the groups say, for the White House to get so involved in the process before draft rules are released to the public for hearings and comment, and is an unsettling sign that the EPA may once again take a pass on tough coal ash rules.

State Sen. Dennis Black, who chairs the the Senate Environment and Energy Independence Committee, said he’s attempted numerous times to get clarity from the EPA on their timeline and on what sort of scope the rules may have. He wrote a letter in November and has attempted calling the agency several times. He has received no response to his inquiries.

When contacted by The Iowa Independent, Tisha Petteway, press officer for the EPA, referred to her agency’s December press release announcing an indefinite delay in coal ash rules.

The delays and secrecy surrounding the federal government’s efforts to regulate coal ash disposal has renewed calls for state action. Carrie Le Seur, president of Cedar Rapids-based environmental law center Plains Justice, said it is imperative that Iowa begin the process of toughening regulations on ash disposal.

“In response to intense industry pressure, the EPA is now continuing to delay a rulemaking it has already delayed for 30 years,” she said “Iowa has a responsibility for public health and safety that it can’t delegate to EPA under these circumstances. Iowa must act.”

Unlined, unmonitored disposal sites

Coal ash contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than the coal itself. The by-product is also believed to be radioactive. Exposure to these toxins can lead to cancer, birth defects and reproductive problems.

Despite the well-documented dangers of coal ash, the EPA does not regulate its disposal, leaving each state to set its own rules. In Iowa, four disposal sites received a waiver from the state allowing them to accept ash without installing protective liners and without mandatory groundwater monitoring. Environmentalists fear the lack of oversight and protective measures could lead to dangerous toxins leaching off the site and into local groundwater supplies, something that has been documented in states that mandate monitoring. The DNR’s lead staffer on coal ash issues acknowledged to The Iowa Independent that contamination might already be taking place but without monitoring there is no way of knowing.

In its 2007 report, Plains Justice showed that there is evidence that even at properly lined dump sites there is an increasing level of contaminants escaping, making the likelihood that leaching is taking place in unlined sites even larger. Peter Taglia, a hydrogeologist with environmental watchdog Clean Wisconsin who worked for five years as a consultant for utilities, said he’s seen leaching into groundwater at even the most state-of-the-art disposal sites.

An EPA report released last year found the cancer risk to be 1 in 2,000 from exposure to arsenic in drinking water for residents living near unlined landfills containing coal ash and coal refuse, which is 500 times the level usually regarded as safe by current federal regulations.

The push for tougher regulations got a boost last September when the state’s three largest public universities announced they would bow to mounting pressure and begin testing groundwater at the disposal site they shared — a quarry in Waterloo. Jeffrey Witt, assistant director of utilities at Iowa State University, said at the time that “we know whatever new [federal] regulations come out are going to require groundwater monitoring at the very least. So we figure we would just get a head start on that.”

Many are pointing to the university’s answer and wondering why the state can’t go down a similar path and at the very least mandate that groundwater must be monitored at the three remaining sites — quarries in Goose Lake and Waterloo and a mine in Buffalo — to ensure toxins are not leaching out of the site.

Federal delays

The DNR’s Gieselman said the requirements and the extent of groundwater monitoring is dependent on any decisions that EPA may make as to whether the ash falls under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s Subtitle D, which would regulate coal ash at the federal level as a solid waste, or Subtitle C, which would designate coal ash as hazardous waste.

Iowa’s DNR has come out in support of Subtitle D, saying it would force the state’s most potentially hazardous sites to install protective liners, test groundwater for contamination, and provide financial assurances and corrective action provisions, among other provisions. Environmentalists say under this method the EPA couldn’t inspect disposal sites or require permits, and public involvement would be limited. They also contend states may not be able to regulate the sites as well as the federal government due to lack of resources.

“It is hard for DNR to do its job without appropriate funding for monitors and other staff,” said Donna Wong-Gibbons, a public health specialist with Plains Justice. “It is an unfortunate side effect that many state agencies are facing — limited or inadequate funding to do work that is critical to protecting the lives and health of Iowa citizens, and its an issue that I wouldn’t presume to have answers to.”

The long process

If the state wanted to regulate coal ash, tougher rules couldn’t happen overnight, Gieselman said.

“The fastest we can do it is six months because of legal requirements for public comments; the department responding to comments; public hearings; EPC meetings; and Legislative review of the rules,” he said.

Since it appears the EPA is having its own problems figuring out whether coal ash should be considered a hazardous waste, “it’s fairly apparent that there is not universal agreement as to how this should be classified.”

But it has already been more than a year since the state’s efforts were abandoned, and many national environmental groups are not sure regulations will be coming any time soon from the EPA.

Wong-Gibbons said she understands the arguments DNR is making about the perils of moving forward on coal ash regulations before federal action. But her stance remains the same.

“Iowa should not be waiting on EPA to provide guidance before taking steps to protect the health of Iowans,” she said.

Black, a Democratic state senator from Newton, said he isn’t surprised by the lack of openness in regards to the EPA’s rules, calling it “almost typical.” He said it wouldn’t be prudent to move forward until the state has some idea of what the EPA’s rules will look like, and he continues to be unable to get any response from federal regulators.

“It’s paramount that we know what the EPA’s intentions are,” he said. “I’ve been contacted by several Iowans who are trying to figure out what regulations are going to look like. I can’t give them any answers because I can’t get any myself from the EPA.”

The coal plant at Iowa State University, which disposes of its coal ash in an unlined quarry in Waterloo (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and Northern Iowa University are three of the state’s biggest producers of coal ash, the toxic byproduct of burning coal. All three dispose of their ash in a quarry in Waterloo that received a waiver from the state allowing it to accept ash without abiding by landfill requirements, which include protective liners and groundwater monitoring.

Environmental watchdogs and students were highly critical of the schools for using this disposal method. Because coal ash contains high concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium, dumping it into a quarry with no liner could result in contaminants leaching out into groundwater supplies. And with no groundwater-monitoring program, there is no way of knowing whether that is already taking place.

The state began drafting stricter rules on coal ash disposal in late 2008, but coal producers and disposal site owners – along with the University of Iowa — derailed the process. The state is now waiting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to unveil new federal rules, something that was expected by the end 2009 but was delayed indefinitely in December.

For nearly a year, all three schools publicly declared their confidence in the safety of the disposal method. But in September, after repeated media inquiries and pressure from students and school administration, the school’s utility departments reversed course and pledged to pool their resources to pay for groundwater testing at the quarry, which is owned by BMC Aggregates.

Jeffrey Witt, assistant director of utilities at Iowa State University, said weather has delayed the process slightly, as crews could not drill the monitoring wells in extreme cold weather. But the wells are expected to be completed this week and testing will begin immediately.

“This statistical analysis must be run over a series of samples that take into account the seasonal variations in the groundwater,” Witt said. “We are meeting with an engineering firm [this] week that does these statistical analyses for several municipal landfills around the state. We are beginning the sampling program but will not have enough data to accurately run the statistics for approximately one year.”

A testing well already exists upstream from the quarry, Witt said, and the schools have used that well since December to gather background data. Four wells will be dug downstream to complete the process. The actual testing will be done by a certified independent lab that is not affiliated with the schools or the disposal site owners.

Peter Taglia, a hydrogeologist with environmental watchdog Clean Wisconsin who worked for five years as a consultant for utilities, said it appears the schools’ monitoring program is a good first step and will go a long way to determine whether a problem exists.

“They could do better, but this is a good start,” he said.

The benefit of the testing program is that if a problem is discovered someone will have to address it.

“If they find toxins at high levels in the groundwater, they can’t simply sweep it under the rug,” Taglia said. “Any problems they discover will have to be taken care of, or at least explained.”

The testing could also help answer other questions about the site, Taglia said. Currently, because the site owners received a state waiver, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has never mandated a soil or hydrogeologic investigation, so even basic information about the site — such as direction of groundwater flow — is not known.

While testing is considered a positive first step, problems with the regulation of coal ash in Iowa still exist. Lucie Laurian, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Iowa who has spent years studying the effects of toxic sites on local populations, told The Iowa Independent last year that even if initial tests come back showing no contamination, the sites could still pose a huge public health risk.

“The ash is still sitting there,” she said. “Contamination might not show up for many years, and that’s the problem.”

The possible impacts on the surrounding communities go beyond health risks, Laurian said.

There are currently three other sites in Iowa that received similar waivers allowing them to accept ash without liners or groundwater monitoring – quarries in Goose Lake and Cedar Rapids and a mine in Buffalo.

The coal plant at Iowa State University, which disposes of its coal ash in an unlined quarry in Waterloo (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency originally promised to release draft regulations on coal ash disposal by the end of 2009, and in doing so, open the rules up for public comment. That deadline was pushed back indefinitely last month following revelations of differences between the EPA and White House officials. And as The Iowa Independent reported in December, a potential loophole in those guidelines — designating coal ash as a hazardous material if it’s kept wet and non-hazardous if it’s moved to a dry landfill — has many worried that the federal rules won’t adequately deal with the issues in Iowa.

Last month Cedar Rapids-based environmental law center Plains Justice, along with Washington, D.C.,-based Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, called on the EPC to publicly support federal regulations designating all coal ash as a hazardous waste. The EPC, a nine-member board charged with advising the state on environmental policy, has agreed and will demand federal regulators craft new rules that address the public health risks associated with current disposal practices.

“Recent delays in EPA action is of concern to the EPC and we felt that it is important to let EPA know that the commission feels that new rules are necessary and important to assure protection of public health and the environment in Iowa,” said Susan Heathcote, a member of the EPC.

In Iowa, there are four coal ash disposal sites that are considered dry landfills and have received state waivers allowing them to accept ash without protective liners to prevent toxins such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium from leeching into groundwater. The sites are also not required to test groundwater to see if the pollution is already taking place.

An EPA report released last year found the cancer risk to be 1 in 2,000 from exposure to arsenic in drinking water for residents living near unlined landfills containing coal ash and coal refuse, which is 500 times the level usually regarded as safe by current federal regulations.

Gov. Chet Culver and legislative leaders have said that once the EPA releases draft rules the state will determine whether to work on its own regulations. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources began drafting tougher coal ash regulations in 2008 before opposition from site owners and coal-burning businesses, along with uncertainty about what regulations the federal government may eventually impose, caused the effort to stall.

Heathcote said the EPC also considered updating the state’s coal ash disposal rules last year, but that effort was abandoned based on the original promise from the EPA to issue its own rules by year’s end.

“Since Iowa would need to comply with any new federal requirements for coal ash disposal, and since the and the time-frame for federal action was relatively short, the DNR staff recommended, and the EPC agreed, to postpone action on state rules until we saw what EPA would propose in the federal rules,” she said.

The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that in an unusual move, the office of President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar has held nearly 20 meetings with coal industry groups since October. The topic of discussion is whether the EPA should classify coal ash, the toxic byproduct of coal combustion, as a hazardous waste.

Watchdog groups say it is unusual for the OMB to insert itself so prominently, and so early, into the process. In this case, the EPA has yet to publish its proposed new regulations for coal ash, a step that would then open the door to public comment and hearings.

“Industry is trying to influence the process in a back-door fashion,” said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental organization.

The EPA originally promised to release draft regulations of coal ash by the end of 2009, and in doing so, open the rules up for public comment. That deadline was pushed back indefinitely last month. The fear among many hoping for tough new rules is that the EPA will issue regulations that either don’t classify coal ash as hazardous waste or split its designation between wet and dry ash.

In Iowa, there are four coal ash disposal sites that have received state waivers allowing them to accept ash without protective liners to prevent toxins such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium from leeching into groundwater. The sites are also not required to test groundwater to see if the pollution is already taking place.

Gov. Chet Culver and legislative leaders have said that once the EPA releases draft rules the state will determine whether to work on its own regulations. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources worked for more than a year on tougher coal ash regulations before opposition from site owners and coal-burning businesses, along with uncertainty about what regulations the federal government may eventually impose, caused the effort to stall.

There is no question that 2009 was an historic year for the Hawkeye State. From the Iowa Supreme Court decision in April legalizing same-sex marriage to Iowa’s U.S. senators becoming instrumental in the health care reform debate that raged in the nation’s capital to the Republicans with 2012 dreams looking for some caucus karma, there was no shortage of big stories in 2009.

But this isn’t about those stories. Quite the opposite, actually. This is about the stories that, for one reason or another, fell through the cracks, at least in Iowa. And while it’s far from an exhaustive list, it does show why a wide variety of media voices is important. More eyes on the hunt for the overlooked stories helps ensure they don’t remain overlooked forever.

Here are a few of Iowa’s most overlooked and under reported stories of 2009, as reported by The Iowa Independent.

Iowa’s coal ash rules could pose threat to public health

Over the course of 2009, The Iowa Independent meticulously laid out the problems with Iowa’s rules governing coal ash, eventually leading to the state’s largest public universities deciding to implement groundwater testing at the coal ash disposal site they share.

Can chemical abortions be linked to Midwestern ag?

Driving across a rural Iowa highway, anti-abortion signs are almost as common a sight as farmers spraying crops. Now there is a growing body of evidence linking the substances sprayed on fields to human reproductive health issues, including unintended abortions.

Farmer suicides spotlight lack of mental health care in rural America

The psychological attachment farm families feel for their land and livestock is one of the lessons of the 1980s farm crisis — a time when farmer suicides and rural violence made front page news across the nation. Back then, Iowa and Nebraska, two states severely impacted by the farm crisis, developed crisis hotlines designed specifically to serve the needs of agricultural workers. Today, in the wake of natural disasters and in the midst of economic uncertainty, the hotlines are experiencing a spike in activity, likely helping to prevent more tragedies.

Wells Fargo accused of racial discrimination in Des Moines lending practices

Research shows that minority homeowners in Des Moines are three times as likely to receive high-cost subprime mortgage loans from Wells Fargo & Co. as white homeowners.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham catches flak for PAC-funded trips

More than 25 percent of funds raised by Rep. Tom Latham’s political action committee during the 2008 election cycle paid for trips to resorts around the country, including golf outings in West Virginia and a weekend getaway to Atlantic City, N.J.

Iowa study finds worrisome arsenic levels in private water wells

A two-year study found that the Hawkeye State’s rural private drinking water wells “have several contaminant problems, some long-standing and some emerging.”And while nitrate and bacteria detections were expected despite efforts to address such contamination, the presence of arsenic was potentially worrisome.

Hubbell was responding to a request from Cedar Rapids-based Plains Justice and Washington, D.C.,-based Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice for the EPC to to pass a motion at its upcoming meeting supporting federal regulation of coal ash as hazardous waste, among other provisions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to release draft rules governing coal ash disposal this month. A potential loophole in the rules has many activists afraid Iowa’s biggest coal ash concerns, unlined and unmonitored former quarries and mines that use the ash as fill, could be left unregulated.

In July, Hubbell said state lawmakers should hold public hearings on coal ash disposal to see if stricter regulations were needed. In a letter to Donna Wong-Gibbons, public health specialist for Plains Justice, she said she is hopeful the EPA’s new rules will adequately protect public health.

Below is Hubbell’s letter to Wong-Gibbons.

Dear Donna,

If we have time, we can certainly discuss your proposal during our General Discussion.  I will say in these times of economic distress, I would not be in favor of requiring states to come up with the money to do this.  First, we need to require groundwater monitoring to see if there is a problem.  If there is a problem, then the entities creating the coal ash or storing the coal ash need to correct it.  I’m getting tired of the public having to carry the costs for waste disposal.  I understand business will, in all liklihood, transfer the costs of disposal to consumers.  But people need to know what the real cost of using coal is so they can support alternatives.

At the end of the day, I think coal ash disposal needs to be part of a comprehensive plan that deals with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Hopefully, the Obama administration and EPA will come up with a solution that we can all embrace.

Sincerely,
Charlotte Hubbell

For three decades, rules governing the disposal coal ash, the toxic byproduct of burning coal, have been left up to states, creating a patchwork of differing regulations with questionable effectiveness. However, after the massive coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn., last year, which resulted in nearly a billion gallons of coal ash sludge flooding 300 acres of land, the EPA promised it would finally regulate coal ash.

But some fear the new rules may only cover ash stored in wet ponds, leaving sites many consider the most dangerous in the Hawkeye State unregulated.

A report released last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office laid out several potential options for federal regulations. Included among the possibilities is designating coal ash as a hazardous material if it’s kept wet, and non-hazardous if it’s moved to a dry landfill.

In Iowa, environmentalists are most concerned with disposal of dry coal ash in unlined, unmonitored former quarries and mines that received a waiver from the state allowing them to use the ash as fill. The sites face little state oversight and few regulations.

And because the sites are considered dry landfills, many fear new federal regulations wouldn’t apply.

“Regulating wet coal combustion waste as hazardous waste is an important first step, but it doesn’t go far enough,” said Carrie Le Seur, founder and president of Cedar Rapids environmental law center Plains Justice. “The EPA itself has documented many cases of proven damage around the country where coal ash landfills have contaminated groundwater because water leaches through the fill site.”

Coal ash contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than coal itself, but it is currently not considered hazardous waste by federal law. An EPA report released earlier this year found the cancer risk to be 1 in 2,000 from exposure to arsenic in drinking water for residents living near unlined landfills containing coal ash and coal refuse, which is 500 times the level usually regarded as safe by current federal regulations.

The fear among environmentalists is that using it as fill in a quarry or mine reclamation project could result in the toxins leaching off the site into groundwater, something which has been documented in other states. Even in Iowa, officials with the state’s Department of Natural Resources have said contamination could already be occurring, but without monitoring it would go undetected.

“This contamination process can take many years, but for nearby residents, the health risk is very real,” Le Seur said. “The difference between coal ash and municipal waste is that every time a coal ash fill leaks, it leaks toxic heavy metals that poison human beings and other living things. We know that.”

Numerous paths to regulation

The GAO document said the wet-dry designation was only one potential method of regulating coal ash. Also under consideration is for federal guidelines to mirror the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s subtitle D, which would regulate coal ash at the federal level as a solid waste. The ash would not be considered hazardous waste and regulation would largely be left up to the state. Iowa’s DNR has come out in support of this method, saying it would force the state’s most potentially hazardous sites to install protective liners, test groundwater for contamination, and provide financial assurances and corrective action provisions, among other provisions.

Opponents of this method say the EPA couldn’t inspect disposal sites or require permits, and public involvement would be limited. They also contend states may not be able to regulate the sites as well as the federal government due to lack of resources.

Another option would be regulating the ash using RCRA subtitle C, which would designate coal ash as hazardous. Under Subtitle C, states are required to adopt regulations that are at least as stringent as whatever federal standards are set up and the EPA will have the power to inspect sites and bring enforcement actions.

Opponents of this method say it would be prohibitively expensive and would eliminate any and all beneficial use of coal ash in most states.

State action

Iowa’s DNR worked for nearly a year on rules to toughen regulations on coal ash disposal. But opposition from site owners and coal-burning businesses, along with uncertainty about what regulations the federal government may eventually impose, caused the effort to stall.

Several elected officials have said that once the EPA releases its draft rules, the state may need to rework its rules to make sure the public health is protected.

In July, Charlotte Hubbell, chair of the state’s Environmental Protection Commission, called on the state legislature to hold public hearings on tougher rules regarding coal ash.

The chair of the state Senate Environment and Energy Independence Committee, Sen. Dennis Black of Grinnell, said at the time that he would request that Legislative Council, a bipartisan group of Senate and House leaders that serves as a steering committee for the General Assembly when it is not in session, to appoint a committee to look into the matter after the 2010 session. He said doing so before the EPA released its rules would be improper.

In September, Gov. Chet Culver joined the call, saying he was confident the EPA would take the appropriate steps, but if state action was needed there should be no hesitation. He said he was open to the legislature looking at the issue in 2010.

In a letter to Senate Democratic leaders, the lawmakers argue that the current formula, which allots permits based half on emissions and half on sales, is unfair to the higher-emitting utilities (i.e., those that burn coal).

Under the proposed 50/50 formula, utilities that are more coal dependent will need to purchase even more allowances than they would have if all allowances were allocated based on emissions.

Well, yeah. And under the current proposed 50/50 formula, the coal burners would also have to purchase more allowances than if Congress did nothing at all. But the whole point of the bill is to discourage the use of high-emission energies like coal by making them less affordable than cleaner alternatives. Sheppard explains further why the lawmakers’ argument makes little sense in the context of the global warming debate:

Of course, this would work against the entire logic of the proposed scheme, which is to offer utilities financial incentives to switch to lower-carbon fuel sources. [...]

Right now, the climate bill needs all the votes it can get from Democrats. So enviros worry that concessions to this bloc could ultimately result in a deal in which coal plants suffer no real penalties for the carbon they pump into the atmosphere. “Dirty coal polluters know their days are numbered and are lobbying for the largest piece of the pie they can get,” said Jason Kowalski, policy coordinator at 1Sky. “It goes against the spirit of this legislation to reward the polluters that caused this problem in the first place.”

Signing on to the letter were Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Al Franken (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Robert Byrd (W.Va.).

Mike Lillis covers congress for The Washington Independent, a Center for Independent Media site.

The Waterloo South Quarry, used by the University of Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University as a coal ash dump. (Photo courtesy of Plains Justice)

Because Iowa allows certain sites to act as coal ash disposal sites without installing protective liners and without groundwater monitoring wells, the worry is that heavy metals in the ash will leach out and poison groundwater streams and aquifers. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report released earlier this year found cancer risks to be much higher for those living near unlined coal ash disposal sites than typically accepted.

But as the federal government weighs stricter rules governing the disposal of coal ash, and as awareness of the potential dangers in Iowa continues to increase, it is important to note that while health risks are a major concern, there are many others that must be considered.

Four sites in Iowa received a waiver from the state Department of Natural Resources to accept coal ash without following strict landfill standards. It was recently announced that one of the sites, a quarry in Waterloo, would begin a strict groundwater monitoring program at the behest of the state’s three largest public universities, which are among the larges ash producers in Iowa.

But the other three sites continue to operate outside of state regulation – no mandatory monitoring, no protective liner and no financial assurance to ensure cleanup if there is a problem.

Lucie Laurian is an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Iowa who has spent years studying the effects of toxic sites on local populations. She says if groundwater is contaminated, the cost of cleanup will skyrocket into the tens of millions of dollars and could take 10 to 20 years to complete.

Initially, this cost would be the responsibility of the owners of the sites, which in Iowa includes four private businesses.

“In a lot of places, when companies start to see millions of dollars of cleanup costs on the horizon, the company will go bankrupt,” she said.

If that happens, the cost of cleanup falls on either the state or federal government, depending on whether the site is declared Superfund, the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 which federal law designed to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites.

“If they become Superfund, the EPA is responsible for clean up,” Laurian said. “There is money already set aside for expenses. But they will go after the responsible parties. So EPA would make some arrangement with the current owners to make them pay.”

For a site to be declared Superfund it has to high enough to qualify. If it does not, the burden will be shifted to the state.

“If the company closes, the state will get stuck with the tab,” Laurian said.

Long-term risks

A study released earlier this year by the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), a non-partisan think tank based in New York City, found the benefits of upgrading disposal sites would exceed the costs of tougher regulations by almost 10 to 1. The research focused mostly on coal ash ponds like the one that failed in Kingston, Tenn., in December. The costs for quarries to upgrade would be much lower than the costs for ponds, according Scott Holladay, an economist who researched the issue for IPI.

“It’s not just the cost of cleanup if there is contamination,” Holladay said at the time. “It is also the cost of health risks, like cancer. The cost of treating bladder cancer, for example, is something we are going to have to pay if we don’t line these facilities and groundwater is poisoned.”

Coal ash contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than the coal itself. Exposure to these toxins could not only lead to cancer, but also birth defects and reproductive problems.

For those who have had their health costs covered by the company responsible for the site it has usually come after many years of litigation, Laurian said.

Many residents who live near toxic sites feel a sense of betrayal, a feeling that their government has forsaken them and the company responsible has lied to them, she said. That was the feeling of residents of Colstrip, Montana, who told a reporter from the Center for Public Integrity in February that they remember the day when the local power company promised them they would never have problems with coal ash disposal.

It was later discovered the residents drank ash-laced water for years, and there questions are still unanswered as to the potential health consequences associated with drinking that water.

In addition to the health risks, though, Laurian points to a stigma that effects these communities for many, many years.

“For homes near the site, property values plummet,” she said. “It’s very hard to sell properties if there is any sign of extensive pollution. But that all depends on how close to the sites people live. Banks might be resistant to loan people funds to buy property that is near the site.”

Problem for decades

Groundwater monitoring and liners are not the only regulations these types of sites avoid. The Department of Natural Resources does not require soil or hydrogeologic investigation, so even basic information about the site, such as direction of groundwater flow, is not known. DNR officials even admit contamination could already be taking place.

Without more specific site information, Laurian said it is hard to say just how dangerous these sites are. Peter Taglia, a hydrogeologist with environmental watchdog Clean Wisconsin who worked for five years as a consultant for utilities, looked at what little information is available about the site in Waterloo and concluded the risk of contamination is low, but not zero.

“The problem is it may take time for heavy metals to leach off the site,” Laurian said. “That depends on the geology of the site. But they may test the water tomorrow and find nothing, but then it sits there for 15 years. Then there is contamination. The particles take a while to go into the soil. It could be years and years before the groundwater is contaminated.”

The EPA is scheduled to reveal its draft rules by the end of the year, and state officials, among them Gov. Chet Culver, have said Iowa will examine the new regulations and see if state action is needed. The DNR has already said it would like to mandate liners, site restrictions and groundwater monitoring, among other things.

“I think the best argument is that if nearby states mandate these sites be monitored and lined and it is financially feasible for these companies to do it and still make money, why can’t it be done in Iowa?” Laurian said.

The Marshalltown Times-Republican’s Ken Black reports that Tom Aller,  president of Interstate Power & Light, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy, told the Iowa Utilities Board that a new plan may come in 2010.

From Black’s report:

“What we learned through this process is what we have here,” Aller said at that time. “It’s annexed. We’ve got roads. We know what the water quality is. We know what the transmission capacity is. These are all things we know about Marshalltown.”

What may not be as clear is the available fuel source. Coal was the first choice and was scrapped.

Natural gas appears to be the next choice.

Whether the city has the infrastructure in place to support a a natural gas-fired plant is still unknown, but the city’s chamber of commerce president said the city remains in contact with Alliant Energy in regards to their future plans.