{"id":3582,"date":"2014-01-30T12:48:12","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3582"},"modified":"2014-01-30T12:49:47","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T18:49:47","slug":"legal-deadline-set-for-epas-coal-ash-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3582","title":{"rendered":"Legal Deadline Set for EPA\u2019s Coal Ash Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 29, 2014-by Sonal Patel in Power Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Coal<\/a>

Coal ash and sludge lagoons, like those in the foreground of this picture at Duke Energy’s Gibson Station near Princeton, IN have gone largely unregulated until now when EPA, under a legal settlement is required to issue rules for regulation of the hazardous material by December 19 of this year. File Photo \u00a9 BlairPhotoEVV<\/p><\/div>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must issue a proposed revision of its\u00a0Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle D rules regulating coal combustion residuals no later than Dec. 19, 2014, under\u00a0a consent decree<\/a>\u00a0reached between the agency and environmental groups that was filed in federal court today.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0U.S.\u00a0District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 30, 2013, granted summary judgement<\/a>\u00a0to at least 11 environmental groups and on Oct. 29 required the EPA to submit a schedule for final agency action on the RCRA coal ash rule by Jan. 29, 2014. The environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, had sued the EPA in April 2012 to address what they said are the \u201cserious and widespread risks that unsafe disposal of coal combustion waste or \u2018coal ash\u2019 poses to human health and environment.\u201d The EPA\u2019s failure to act on \u201cwell-documented risks associated with irresponsible disposal of coal ash\u201d violates RCRA, the groups argued.<\/p>\n

The EPA in June 2010 published alternative proposed coal ash rules under RCRA in large part due to the\u00a0December 2008 failure of a coal ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority\u2019s (TVA\u2019s) Kingston coal-fired power plant<\/a>. That disaster released 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash that inundated several homes and contaminated the Emory River in Tennessee. Continue reading page 2 below…<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the EPA\u2019s alternatives<\/a>\u00a0would regulate coal ash as a \u201cspecial\u201d (but not necessarily hazardous) waste using a classification authorized under Subtitle C\u00a0<\/b>of RCRA.\u00a0The other alternative<\/a>\u00a0would use Subtitle D of RCRA and classify the material as a solid, but not hazardous or special, waste.\u00a0In August 2013, in a\u00a0Notice of Data Availability<\/a>, the EPA invited comments about new information obtained in conjunction with the agency\u2019s draft June 2010 coal ash rule. Observers suggest the final coal ash disposal rule could be issued after the related\u00a0effluent limitations guidelines rule<\/a>\u00a0is finalized, which is expected in the first half of 2014.<\/p>\n

But the EPA told\u00a0POWERnews<\/i>\u00a0earlier this month that while it was working to comply with the federal court\u2019s order,\u00a0\u00a0it had received more than 450,000 comments on the proposed rule, \u201cwhich raised a number of complex issues.\u201d In response to its solicitation, the EPA also received \u201cadditional technical data,\u201d and it\u00a0said it\u00a0would finalize the rule pending a full evaluation of all the information and comments received.<\/p>\n

The agency on\u00a0Jan. 14 missed a legally set deadline<\/a>\u00a0to issue finalized\u00a0standards for cooling water intake structures for all existing power generating facilities under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act. On Wednesday, a spokesperson from the Department of Justice told\u00a0POWERnews\u00a0<\/i>that the government was \u201cin discussions towards setting a new date.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case is\u00a0Appalachian Voices, et al. v. EPA<\/i>\u00a0(Docket No. 1:12-cv-00523 RBW<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2014Sonal Patel, associate editor<\/i>\u00a0<\/b>(@POWERmagazine, @sonalcpatel)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 29, 2014-by Sonal Patel in Power Magazine The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must issue a proposed revision of its\u00a0Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle D rules regulating coal combustion residuals no later than Dec. 19, 2014, under\u00a0a consent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3586,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582\/revisions\/3586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}