Several Georgia environmental organizations are pressing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce national standards that would prevent Georgia Power from disposing of coal ash waste in a way that pollutes groundwater.
With the definition resolved, will the EPA come for polluting coal plants? Across America, millions of tons of toxic waste are sitting in pits next to coal plants. But whether they will get cleaned up has come down to a legal debate over the definitions of words.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has begun asserting its authority over Georgia plans for the long term storage of the toxic material left over from burning coal to make electricity, so called coal ash.
Environmental advocates are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to act after state regulators issued a final permit signing off on Georgia Power’s plans to leave coal ash partly submerged in groundwater at Floyd County’s Plant Hammond.
Georgia environmental advocates told the Environmental Protection Agency during a public hearing Wednesday their state’s coal ash management permitting program deserved the same scrutiny as that of neighboring Alabama. during a public hearing on the EPA’s proposed rejection of Alabama program.
Georgia Power’s plans for disposing of toxic industrial waste at a handful of coal plants across the state have been the subject of a yearslong controversy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are seeking public input on a proposal to close a regulatory loophole that conservationists claim utilities are exploiting to avoid cleaning up toxic coal ash from retired power plants.
Under pressure from the federal government, Georgia is rewriting a rule governing industrial air pollution limits to end a loophole that currently exposes communities near coal plants and other facilities to harmful pollutants.
A Georgia House bill would align state law with the current federal rule around the storage of the toxic material left over from burning coal to make electricity, also known as coal ash.
A recent order by the EPA telling an Ohio power plant it could no longer dispose of toxic coal ash in an unlined pond, thereby polluting groundwater, could have important implications for four Georgia Power sites.
The state Public Service Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on Georgia Power’s 20-year plan for the company’s transition to cleaner forms of energy from its aging coal-fired power plants.
Georgia Power plans to power down the last of its coal-fired plants by 2035, when Plant Bowen in northwest Georgia is poised to close, according to long-term planning documents the company filed Monday.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is taking a stronger role in keeping coal ash, the toxic material left over from burning coal to make electricity, away from groundwater.
