Every two years the Senate passes a new Water Resources Development Actย (WRDA), which contains the funding necessary to protect Americaโs water infrastructure. This yearโs legislation includes $9 billion worth of spending on water delivery infrastructure and runoff containment and abatement, among otherย projects.
As currently written, this bill alsoย would allocate $280 million to address the lead water pollutionย crisis in Flint, Michigan, making this a must-pass piece of legislation that could easily become a hot-button campaign issue should any senator up for reelectionย choose to vote itย down.
And thatโs preciselyย why one of itsย amendmentsย โ championed by the coal industryย โ toย dismantleย coal ash pollution protectionsย is likely to become a reality, and as a result,ย potentially endanger water supplies all over the Unitedย States.
According to the Environmental Integrity Project, the amendmentย tacked onto this year’s legislationย would reverse theย Environmental Protection Agency’s latest standards governing theย disposal of coal ash. These current andย much-anticipated rules came primarily in response to the catastrophic spill of 1.1 billion gallons of coal slurry from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant inย Decemberย 2008.
The EPA standards, released six years after the Kingston disaster,ย at leastย provide a clear andย concreteย national standard for handling the toxic substancesย left after burning coal, whichย containย heavy metals and radioactive materials but are not classified under the current rulesย as โhazardous.โ However,ย the new amendment would allow individual coal ash disposal sites to develop their own rules based on usability of land, state requirements, and other subjective measurements that will vary widely from site toย site.
In short, the amendment would roll back the federal protections meant to safeguardย American waters from corporateย pollution.
The Environmentalย Integrity Project describes the amendment and how it would alter the rules asย follows:
If adopted, this amendment to the Water Resources Development Act could essentially give polluters a โdo-overโ on coal ash regulation โ replacing the clear, uniform requirements that apply to every coal ash operator covered by EPAโs rule withย uncertainty.
Prior to EPAโs rule, coal ash disposal was subject to a patchwork of state regulations that left communities vulnerable to hundreds of cases of damage or catastrophic spills. EPAโs rule establishes clear requirements for monitoring, cleanup, closure, and public notification that keep the public safe and informed, but these bright-line requirements of the rule are now in jeopardy, as this bill could allow polluters to have EPAโs clear standards swapped for site-specific standards that โdifferโ from EPAโsย standards.
Additionally, the groupย says that the amendment would remove the โhealth-based drinking water standardsโ from the current EPA rule, which would allow coal ash disposal sites to pollute to a larger degree without having to meet a clean drinking water threshold for contamination. The amendment would also limit the amount of data available to the public regarding water contamination from coal ash disposalย sites.
The American Coal Ash Association hasย lobbiedย for the last year to remove the EPAโs standards, and this legislation, as it stands, would succeed in doing that. For safety standards to be most effective, they needย to be universally applied. When one area has fewer safety requirements or higher thresholds for pollution, businesses inevitablyย will flock to that locale in order to save a few dollars and avoid more stringent or cumbersomeย regulations. That scenario is exactly what this amendment is aiming toย achieve.
This billย has strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and was introduced by the unusual bipartisan duo ofย James Inhofe (R-OK) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
Currently, 80 percentย of senators say that they will vote in favor of this legislation, an unsurprising majorityย considering the bill’sย funding for the Flint water crisis and the fact that more than half of the bill’s funding supports the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ย maintainence of dams, locks, levies, and related water infrastructure. How this bill will be reconciled with the $5 billion versionย from the House of Representatives, which is missing the Flint funding,ย remains to beย seen.ย
Main image via Unitedย Mountainย Defense.
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