courier-journal special report: coal ash - a big unknown

BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Dave Sehorn, left, of Pines, Ind., reacted as he was told by Kenneth Theisen of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that drinking-water wells in the area are polluted. Theisen believes heavy metals in coal ash buried in a landfill and used as construction fill are to blame. Resident Jan Nona said communities need to be vigilant about where coal combustion waste goes. ‘‘If someone thinks ash can’t cause problems, I’ve got a bridge to sell them in San Francisco.’’

By JAMES [email protected]

The Courier-Journal

IVEL, Ky. — The order was simple enough.An Eastern Kentucky mining company con-

structing an ash landfill in 1993 in a mountain hollow near Ivel in Floyd County was required by the Kentucky Natural Resources and Envi-ronmental Protection Cabinet to install a syn-thetic liner.

The result of a legal challenge from local residents, the liner was intended to prevent contaminants in the ash from getting into the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, which supplies drinking water to Pikeville in neigh-boring Pike County.

Costain Coal, now operating as Lodestar Energy, installed the liner in Stratton Branch hollow and piled ash on it during the first stage of its dumping.

But when it ran out of room and moved into the second stage, the company placed ash di-rectly on bare ground farther up the hollow.

State regulators did nothing to stop the dumping of ash beyond the liner because the original order only covered the first stage, said George F. Gilbert, a high-ranking envi-ronmental engineer in the cabinet.

That order, through the cabinet’s Office of Administrative Hearings, required that the lin-er extend only so far up the hollow, Gilbert said. It was signed by representatives of local residents, the cabinet and the company, al-though never written into the company’s sepa-rate waste management permit.

‘‘I assumed all parties knew that only the

bottom part would get a liner,’’ Gilbert said, adding that a liner higher up wasn’t needed. ‘‘The higher up you get, you have more soil between the bottom of the ash and the top of the groundwater.’’

Any pollutants from the ash ‘‘in theory’’ would be filtered by the dirt before they got to the groundwater, he said.

‘‘The state’s position is absurd,’’ countered lawyer Tom FitzGerald, director of the envi-ronmental group Kentucky Resources Coun-cil, who, along with attorney Michael deBour-bon of Pikeville, helped negotiate the order.

The state should have forced the company to extend the liner, FitzGerald said.

‘‘Our assumption was that liner would be extended if the facility was expanded,’’ Fitz-Gerald said.

At the very least, state officials could have informed the Kentucky Resources Council or deBourbon of the situation so local residents could have had a chance to request a liner for the dump’s second phase, FitzGerald said.

Records on file in Frankfort show that state officials are coming around to FitzGerald’s position that a liner is needed for the entire landfill.

In July 2001, Lodestar applied for a permit to extend the life of the ash landfill to 40 years from about 12 years. It intends to dump a total of 14.7 million cubic yards of ash on 71 acres, piled 600 feet high at its deepest point.

The state intends to require the company to install a liner under all ash that will be dumped after the permit is approved, said Mark York, spokesman for the cabinet.

In the past decade, there’s been a growing

awareness that ash landfills can cause groundwater pollution problems, Gilbert said, adding that he’s not aware of such a problem at the Ivel fill.

The plan will leave some ash in direct con-tact with the ground. The state doesn’t know how much ash rests on bare earth, Gilbert said, because the company’s permit did not require such accounting.

Groundwater monitors around the landfill will be able to detect pollution if it occurs, York said.

No decision will be made on Lodestar’s pro-posed landfill expansion until the Pikeville-based company, which is operating under

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has found a replacement for $3.4 million in environmental performance bonds that the state considered at risk of default, York said.

Lodestar is working to secure the new bonds as part of its reorganization, said Mike Francisco, a Lodestar vice president.

The landfill expansion will be engineered to minimize any potential effect from the ash

that’s on bare ground, said Bill Justice, an en-gineer with Lodestar.

But Justice said that neither the original lin-er nor the planned new one, to be constructedat a cost of $20 million, are needed becausethe ash is environmentally benign.

‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no prob-lems,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t expect that tochange.’’

LANDFILL

E. Kentucky company able to dump ash beyond protective liner

Coal ash: A big unknown

PrestonsburgPrestonsburgPrestonsburg

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Bert T. CombsMountainParkway

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Paintsville

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FLOYDCOUNTY

BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J

LouisvilleLouisvilleLouisville

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BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNALBill Justice, a Lodestar Energy engineer, stood atop coal ash at a landfill in Ivel, Ky., that the company plans to expand. ‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no problems,’’ he said.

By JAMES [email protected]

The Courier-Journal

The nation’s coal-fired power plants are producing mountains of ash — more than 100 million tons annually, fueling a debate over the environmental threat it poses.

A byproduct of burned coal, coal ash is sometimes converted for use in products such as wallboard and cement, but 70 per-cent ends up in landfills, settling ponds and old strip mines.

Across the country, just one year’s worth of ash, placed on a football field, would ex-tend 11.1 miles high.

And while the energy industry has long argued that the material is benign, with coal undergoing a national resurgence, environ-mental leaders are questioning anew the ex-tent to which coal ash and the traces of po-tentially toxic heavy metals contained in it threaten groundwater supplies, streams, riv-ers, lakes and aquatic life.

‘‘The regulation of coal ash is haphazard at best,’’ said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana con-sultant to the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force — a nonprofit advocacy group — and a leading national critic of how power com-panies manage their ash.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-cy ‘‘has been asleep at the switch. The fact is, (pollution from ash) is getting to people,

and it’s been causing great impacts to aquatic systems,’’ Stant said.

The issue of regulation is drawing in-creasing attention as power companies pro-pose a new generation of coal-fired plants, urged on by the Bush administration’s na-tional energy strategy. There are proposals for eight new coal plants in Kentucky and two in Indiana.

With those plants, the two states are brac-ing for more ash — 6 million additional tons yearly in Kentucky alone, or about as much as Indiana produces now.

At the same time, regulations that govern how power companies manage combustion waste are inconsistent — and in some cases are all but non existent.

Thirty families in the Northern Indiana town of Pines understand what’s at stake. An EPA emergency response team, led by on-site coordinator Kenneth Theisen, told them this summer that their private drink-ing-water wells are ruined — 15 years after government scientists first suggested that a nearby ash landfill might be spreading pol-lution.

Theisen said he believes a toxic plume of heavy metals from power plant ash, buried in the landfill and scattered around town as construction fill, is the likely culprit. EPA

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNALLodestar Energy, a mining company, is putting coal ash in Stratton Branch, a hollow near Ivel, Ky. The landfill begins on the left and is being extended into the valley. The company used a protective liner for the first stage of dumping but has placed ash directly on the ground in the second stage, raising concerns about groundwater contamination.

Some fear toxic threatin power plant waste

See ASHPage 23, col. 1, this section

INSIDEUSES: Coal ash is used in products ranging from wallboard to construction fill to cement. Page A18BACK AND FORTH: Under one arrangement, coal was shipped to Florida plants and the waste ash sent back to Kentucky. Page A18RISKS:Technology has reduced the air pollution from burning coal, but some wonder if the danger has only shifted. Page A24

SPECIAL REPORT

Four-P

age

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002

A17

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A18

RECYCLING

Coal ash turns up in growing range of productsBy JAMES BRUGGERS

[email protected] Courier-Journal

At two new factories in Northern Kentucky, workers turn what was once waste from air pollution scrub-bers into wallboard for home and business construction.

Lafarge Gypsum and BBP Celotex have added roughly 500 jobs while keeping more than 1.3 million tons of coal combustion waste out of landfills and settling ponds each year.

The wallboard plants — one in Silver Grove and the other in Carroll-ton — illustrate the trend in the elec-tric generating industry: finding more ways to put ash and scrubber sludge to beneficial uses.

‘‘Coal can be part of sustainable de-velopment in this country,’’ said James C. Hower, a scientist at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research and editorin chief of the International Journal of Coal Geology. ‘‘There is so much that can be done with these byproducts.’’

Nationally, 30 percent of roughly 100 million tons of coal combustion waste annually is put to so-called ‘‘beneficial reuse’’ — practices that commonly carry broad exemptions from environmental regulations.

The amount of ash reused is in-creasing by about 3 percent a year, said David C. Goss, president of the American Coal Ash Association.

Indiana reuses about 29 percent of the ash it generates; Kentucky, 13 per-cent.

Products include insulating glass beads incorporated into heat shields of the space shuttles, an ingredient in cement, and a substitute for dirt and gravel fill at construction sites.

While some reuse practices can be controversial — such as unscrutinized use of ash as construction fill — there’s broad support for methods that ensure the environment won’t be harmed.

‘‘There are, in fact, legitimate bene-ficial uses of coal ash,’’ said longtime coal industry watchdog Tom FitzGer-ald, director of the Kentucky Re-sources Council, an environmental group. ‘‘The question is always, ‘Are you managing the material in a way that pollutants of concern will not mi-grate into the environment?’ ’’

He cited one especially good exam-ple of the use of fly ash: as an ingredi-ent in Portland cement, a practice re-searched at the UK energy research center. The practice is employed by Jefferson County’s Cosmos Cement Co., which uses ash from LG&E Ener-gy’s nearby Mill Creek generating sta-tion.

The benefits could be significant, said Tom Robl, associate director of the UK energy research center. In Kentucky, for example, ash substi-tutes for about 18 percent of cement, the binding agent in concrete.

While coal-fired power plants are major sources of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, blamed in part for global warming, their ash can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions released from cement kilns, Robl said.

The kilns release a ton of carbon dioxide for every ton of cement that’s made.

‘‘If we took all the concrete in the whole world,’’ Robl said, ‘‘and we in-creased the substitution rate of fly ash for Portland cement to a level of 50 percent, we would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by 750 million tons, which would represent 25 per-cent of the emissions of all autos in the world.’’

The wallboard plants benefit from changes that LG&E Energy and Cin-ergy have made to some smokestack scrubbers that use ground-up lime-stone to remove sulfur dioxide — a component of acid rain.

While older scrubbers produce an unusable waste product of calcium sulfite and calcium sulfate, the newer pollution control devices produce only calcium sulfate. With refining at their power plants, the companies can turn calcium sulfate into a high-grade syn-thetic gypsum.

Four of LG&E Energy’s Kentucky plants are producing gypsum — some sent to Carrollton, and some shipped by barge to New Orleans.

‘‘We are the feedstock for them,’’ said Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental af-fairs director for LG&E. ‘‘It means the avoidance of (gypsum) mining.’’

The Wm. H. Zimmer Generating Station, located in Ohio near Cincin-nati and owned by Cinergy and two other companies, supplies the Silver Grove wallboard manufacturing facili-ty in Campbell County.

At LG&E’s Mill Creek generating station in Jefferson County, ash from the bottom of the plant’s boilers is screened, sorted and tested for pollu-tion potential. The Metropolitan Sew-er District then uses it under and around new sewer lines.

‘‘It’s not just Uncle Phil driving up in a truck and loading this stuff in,’’ Robl said.

At LG&E-owned Western Kentucky Energy’s Coleman Power Station in Hawesville, UK is testing a technology to turn ash in the plant’s rapidly fill-ing settling ponds back into energy and other products.

Pond ash is excavated. The smallest particles of carbon are separated and reburned with coal. Larger particles can be used for other purposes, in-cluding as an absorbent material for environmental cleanups.

The technology holds promise that settling ponds and landfills across the country, which together hold more than 1.5 billion tons of coal plant waste, could someday be tapped for useful products, Robl said.

UK scientists have also helped to put the cinder back in cinder blocks. Air pollution controls in the 1970s and 1980s left too much carbon in bottom ash for the material to be used in cin-der blocks. So the industry changed to blocks of concrete.

In recent years, the UK center has worked with Chara Environmental of Madisonville to develop ways to re-move the carbon economically. Chara now markets a line of products made from coal combustion wastes.

More ash isn’t reused for a variety of reasons.

Air pollution regulations have prompted changes in how coal is burned, resulting in more impurities in ash that make the material harder to convert into commercial products.

And some companies are con-cerned about the potential liability of turning waste into commercial proj-ects, said Jim Roewer, executive di-rector of the Utility Solid Waste Ac-tivities Group, a consortium of utility operating companies.

Further, it has been too easy to dis-pose of ash in landfills, ponds or old mines, said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana consultant to the Boston-based Clean

Air Task Force — a nonprofit advoca-cy group — and a critic of how power companies manage their ash.

‘‘There is simply no financial incen-tive to recycle.’’

Kentucky lags behind other states in putting coal combustion waste to other uses, in part because many of its power plants are remote, rais-ing transportation costs of ash, experts said.

‘‘Sometimes it’s more effi-cient to landfill or dispose of the material,’’ ac-knowledged Goss, of the coal ash associ-ation.

Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental affairs director for LG&E Energy, said four LG&E power plants in Kentucky use coal ash to produce gypsum.

SOURCE: U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY STATS, ANALYZED BY AMERICAN COAL ASH ASSOCIATION

U.S. ASHPRODUCTION, 2000*

1. Texas 10.1 2. Ohio 9.2 3. Kentucky 7.4 4. Pennsylvania 6.5 5. Indiana 5.9 6. West Virginia 5.7 7. Oklahoma 4.3 8. New Mexico 3.9 9. North Carolina 3.910. Florida 3.5

State Tons

*Coal-fired plants operated by regulated utilities only. Other coal ash is produced by merchant plants and industrial boilers.

THE COURIER-JOURNAL

THE COURIER-JOURNAL

WHERE COAL-FIREDPOWER PLANT ASHGOES

Pond32.1%

Landfill51%

GypsumGypsumGypsum7.3%7.3%7.3%

Cement1.2%

Struc. fill3.2%

Blasting grit/roof granules4.8%

K E N T U C K Y T O T A L S

Pond21.6%

Landfill48.7%

GypsumGypsumGypsum3.1%3.1%3.1%

CementCementCement10.5%10.5%10.5%

Struc. fillStruc. fillStruc. fill4.2%4.2%4.2%

Wastestabilization

1.9%

Blasting grit/roof granules2.1%

Ash(road base)2%

Other4.9%

U . S . T O T A L S

Other0.4%

SOURCE: KENTUCKY NATURAL RESOURCE ANDENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION CABINET

YEAR 2000

Anti-skid material1%

Jack Groppo of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research held a construction block made with coal cinders. The center worked on finding economical methods to remove carbon from the ash so that it could be used in the blocks.

A ROUND-TRIP DEAL

Coal shipped to Florida power plants; waste ash returned to KentuckyBy JAMES BRUGGERS


When Florida residents a decade ago strongly objected to the prospect of two coal-fired power plants depos-iting waste ash locally, public offi-cials listened.

They required that the ash be shipped back to the Kentucky mining company producing the coal as a re-quirement of the power plant con-struction permits.

Lodestar Energy, of Pikeville, Ky., agreed to take the waste ash back and now puts it in a mountain hollow it owns.

This arrangement with Florida power provider PG&E National Ener-gy Group is unique in Kentucky and, according to some, potentially trou-bling.

Coalfield residents that bear the environmental brunt of mining are taking a second hit from ash dispos-al, said Jerry Hardt, spokesman for Kentuckians For The Common-wealth, an environmental group.

‘‘If it (ash) is such a benign sub-stance, as we are led to believe,’’ Hardt said, ‘‘why don’t they keep it in Florida and use it there?’’

PG&E has been assured that the ash is being disposed of in an envi-ronmentally responsible way, said Lisa Franklin, spokeswoman for the company.

The arrangement had nothing to do with any differences in environ-mental laws between the states, she said. Florida environmentalists say, in fact, that their state’s ash-disposal regulations are among the most lax in the country.

‘‘It was a matter of the counties

not wanting the coal ash. They want-ed it sent back to the mine to be used for reclamation,’’ Franklin said.

As it turns out, the mining com-pany doesn’t use the ash for reclama-tion.

Here’s what happens:Coal mined from Lodestar’s Ken-

tucky strip mines is shipped by rail to a power plant at Indiantown in south Florida. Rail cars returning to Kentucky for more coal bring back the ash, where it has been filling up theStratton Branch hollow for the past eight years.

Until last year, before Lodestar ob-tained bankruptcy protection and canceled one of its contracts, the company also sent coal to a PG&E plant in Jacksonville, Fla., and ac-cepted its ash.

The coal company offered to ac-cept the ash as a way to secure long-

term contracts with the power pro-vider, said Bill Justice, a Lodestar en-gineer. He said it gave the company a marketing edge over other sources of coal and has helped the company employ 200 people in the region.

When residents near Ivel, Ky., op-posed the landfill in the early 1990s, they weren’t upset that the ash came from out of state, said attorney Mi-chael deBourbon of Pikeville, who represented them. They were wor-ried about their water supply in the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, he said.

The landfill has not harmed the environment, and the coal jobs have been good for the region, said Mike Francisco, vice president of Lodestar. Too often the coal industry is wrongly portrayed negatively, he said.

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNALCoal from Lodestar Energy’s Ivel, Ky., site is being shipped to a power plant in Florida. The waste ash is then sent back to Kentucky.

PHOTOS BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNALTom Robl, associate director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, discussed the properties of coal ash, which he says has beneficial uses. ‘‘If we took all the concrete in the whole world,’’ Robl said, ‘‘and we increased the substitution rate of fly ash for Portland cement to a level of 50 percent, we would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by 750 million tons.’’


tests at some homes near the landfill have revealed boron levels 13 times higher than the agency uses to decide whether federal money can be tapped for remediation.

High doses of boron can damage the stomach, liver, kidneys and brain, according to the U.S. Agency for Tox-ic Substances and Disease Registry.

When water was tested from a ditch that flows next to the landfill, it showed considerably higher levels of pollutants than water tested upstream from the landfill, he said.

‘‘A coincidence? I don’t think so,’’ Theisen said.

The company that owns the land-fill, Brown Inc. of Michigan City, de-clined to comment for this story. Re-gina D. Biddings, a spokeswoman for the NIPSCO power plant that sent ash to the landfill, said her company was cooperating with the EPA team.

‘‘If the landfill is contributing to the community’s groundwater problem, the company will work with the land-fill operator, the community and state and federal agencies to find the best resolution,’’ Biddings said.

The state of Indiana earlier this year proposed placing contaminated sections of the town on the nation’s Superfund list of most toxic places.

‘‘I’m upset about the whole situa-tion,’’ said teacher Phyllis DaMota, who can easily see the privately owned landfill from her front yard and whose well water was the first to be deemed unsafe to drink. ‘‘Agencies that are supposed to protect the pub-lic interest didn’t.’’

Activist Jan Nona, a retired steel mill secretary, said the lesson of her town of 790 people is that communi-ties need to be vigilant about where coal combustion waste goes and how it’s monitored.

‘‘If someone thinks ash can’t cause problems, I’ve got a bridge to sell them in San Francisco.’’

The EPA two years ago stopped short of declaring coal ash a hazard-ous waste. The agency is developing disposal standards that are scheduled to be released in early 2004.

The regulators’ task won’t be easy, though. Despite the situation in Pines, there remains a contentious debate over the threat posed by coal ash.

Industry leaders describe coal com-bustion waste as environmentally be-nign or nearly so.

‘‘There are some very legitimate concerns in certain situations, but generally there should not be concern for heavy metals (washing) out of coal ash,’’ said Bill Caylor, executive director of the Kentucky Coal Associ-ation. ‘‘This public fear of heavy met-als is blown out of proportion.’’

However, the critics are moving at least some in government to suggest that coal ash needs to be treated with more caution.

‘‘Even though certain regulations are on the books, are they protec-tive?’’ asked Bob Logan, commission-er of the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection. ‘‘We have always had a question. Is this material what it’s supposed to be?’’

Where’s the harm?Typically, power plants put their

ash in landfills or settling ponds. In-dustry officials say this is designed to keep pollution from getting into the environment.

At Cinergy’s Gallagher plant in New Albany, Ind., for example, com-pany environmental managers point visitors to an egret that is fishing in one of two ash ponds, and say the ponds, which drain into the Ohio Riv-er after ash has settled to the bottom, are coexisting well with nature.

‘‘We’re monitoring so many of these facilities, and they’re showing no impact,’’ said R. James Meiers, coal combustion waste expert for Cin-ergy Power Generation Services.

Some scientists back the industry’s assertions.

‘‘You get the impression we are drowning in the stuff,’’ said Tom

Robl, associate director of the Univer-sity of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, which works close-ly with industry. ‘‘No, we are not, and is the material hazardous? Not really.’’

However, environmentalists and other scientists — typically biologists or ecologists — point to a variety of sites where ash has been blamed for polluting water and in some cases harming aquatic life.

With two other researchers, Wil-liam Hopkins of the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Lab recently completed a survey of more than 300 reports on ash ponds and animal toxicity for the EPA.

According to Hopkins, ash-settling ponds can be problematic for indig-enous aquatic organisms and those that use these sites seasonally.

‘‘By building these large contami-nated wetlands, power plants are ac-tually attracting wildlife away from surrounding uncontaminated sites,’’ he said.

Coal combustion waste refers to several kinds of ash and other materi-als, including cinders, slag and bot-tom ash collected at the bottom of the boilers; fly ash collected from flue gases; and sludge from scrubbers de-signed to remove sulfur dioxide — a cause of acid rain — from air emis-sions.

The environmental questions arise from other natural elements in ash — small amounts of heavy metals or metal-like substances, such as boron, selenium, arsenic and manganese.

The effects of ash may be subtle or drastic, from changes in blood chem-istry to birth defects to death, Hop-kins said.

Most of the evidence of harm to wildlife came from eight power plant sites in such states as North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, Hopkins said. None of the studied sites were in Ken-tucky or Indiana.

An internal EPA document from March 2000 concluded there were 11 cases of proven water pollution from coal waste in the United States — with none in Kentucky or Indiana. Environmental groups and scientists hired by them as consultants maintain there are dozens more cases, includ-ing several in Indiana.

Much of the problem involves older landfills or ponds, where ash has been exposed to water for many years, said Donald S. Cherry, a pro-fessor of aquatic ecotoxicology at Vir-ginia Tech University, who conducted research for the Indianapolis-based Hoosier Environmental Council.

‘‘The longer the fill sits there through time, there will be seepage down-gradient,’’ Cherry said. ‘‘It’s just a matter of time.’’

States set own rulesFor 25 years, the EPA has exempt-

ed coal ash from its ‘‘hazardous waste’’ definition. This decision, which it ‘‘tentatively’’ reaffirmed two years ago, exempts the ash from more restrictive and expensive disposal methods, including detailed tracking of waste shipments, special liners and long-term pollution monitoring.

The absence of federal regulations leaves each state to set its own rules for disposal. The result is a regulatory

hodgepodge, even within states.Consider that Kentucky — which

now says that new ash or scrubber sludge landfills most likely will need state-of-the-art plastic liners, water collection systems, and pollution monitoring wells — permits power companies to put ash in ponds with no plastic liners and has no require-ment for groundwater monitoring near or beneath the empoundments.

Kentucky does require power plants to test the effluent from ash ponds for toxicity to fish. Indiana does not.

Randy Bird, project consultant for Lexington-based EnviroPower, dis-agreed that the liner for the com-pany’s Kentucky Mountain Power plant in Knott County was necessary.

‘‘We agreed to line it just to expe-dite our permitting process. We didn’t feel like we wanted to fight the bat-tle.’’

Kentucky also prohibits the place-ment of ash in strip mine pits within four feet of the water table — a law that has virtually prevented the prac-tice.

But it’s a different story in Indiana, where filling mines with ash has raised the hackles of environmental-ists and some residents since the state authorized the practice in 1988. The ash can be dumped by itself or mixed with dirt directly in the water table, and with no long-term monitoring or long-term financial assurances that future pollution problems will be cor-rected.

This worries Perry and Linda Dive-ly, and their neighbor, Ethel Zink.

The three share a drinking-water well near the Black Beauty Coal Co. mine in southwestern Indiana near Pi-mento, south of Terre Haute. Black Beauty has one permit to dump ash and is seeking a second one.

‘‘If we don’t have water, we’re not going to have anything here,’’ Zink said. ‘I’ve never heard anything good about ash.’’

Black Beauty officials referred

questions about mine-placement of ash to Nat Noland, president of the Indiana Coal Council.

It’s important that Indiana coal companies be allowed to return ash to mines, because some power compa-nies don’t have enough space for the material, Noland said.

This is something that Illinois al-lows, and Indiana coal companies need an even playing field with its competitors across the state line, he said.

In addition, the practice has proved to be safe, Noland said.

Indiana Department of Natural Re-sources officials agree with Noland’s assessment.

The relatively impermeable soil on the bottom and sides of the strip mine pits will slow the movement of any potential contaminants, said Bruce Stevens, director of the DNR’s Divi-sion of Reclamation.

‘‘We look and see where people’s drinking-water wells are,’’ Stevens said. ‘‘We are going to err on the side of caution.’’

The well shared by Zink and the Divelys ‘‘is a mile away from the nearest mining,’’ Stevens said. ‘‘Their well supply won’t be impacted.’’

But Roland Baker, a neighbor, said nobody is worried about the wells go-ing bad in just a year or two. ‘‘It may not take until our grandkids,’’ he said. ‘‘But by then, nobody will be respon-sible.’’

Construction fillconcerns

Environmentalists are also worried about one increasingly popular use of ash as construction fill.

Kentucky and Indiana allow any volume of ash to be used this way, requiring neither liners nor ground-water monitoring.

Some cities, with rugged terrain and few buildable flat surfaces, are grateful for what amounts to free or nearly free construction material from

power plants.Wilder, Ky., south of Cincinnati,

has used ash extensively for several years for construction sites along the Licking River — even within the boundaries of the 100-year flood plain.

‘‘If we thought there was anything hazardous, we wouldn’t have done this,’’ said Terry Vance, city adminis-trator. ‘‘So far it’s worked out pretty good.’’

Indiana lawmakers have granted these legislatively defined ‘‘beneficial reuses’’ of ash a complete exemption from environmental laws, said Bruce Palin, deputy assistant commissioner for the Indiana Department of Envi-ronmental Management’s Office of Land Quality.

Palin said he knows of no abuses.In Kentucky, power plants must re-

port once a year how much of their ash goes to beneficial uses and identi-fy them.

But there’s no requirement that power plants, haulers or building con-tractors file any advance notice so regulators can make sure the dump-ing follows proper engineering princi-ples and is not merely being done to avoid the cost of using a landfill.

There’s also no requirement that the companies obtain a permit that assures the construction fill will be designed to prevent pollution.

Hancock County Judge-Executive Jack B. McCaslin discovered how loose the beneficial-use regulations were last year, when a constituent complained about ash dumped on eight acres of rural land in his West-ern Kentucky county.

The property was being filled so the landowner could put up a storage building, McCaslin said.

But the ash pile looked like an open dump to him, so he contacted the en-vironmental protection cabinet. The cabinet stepped in and stopped West-ern Kentucky Energy, filing a notice of violation.

The fill was too large in relation to the size of the building, said Ron Gru-zesky, environmental engineering branch manager in the cabinet’s Divi-sion of Waste Management.

LG&E Energy, the parent company of Western Energy, said in a letter from its legal staff to state officials that it had done nothing wrong with the Hancock County ash. The com-pany said the Hancock project was like many others the state allowed.

The company later decided not to proceed with the project, said Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental affairs direc-tor for LG&E Energy.

McCaslin said the state never would have known about the dump-ing if he hadn’t called. ‘‘I know we gotta have power. But I think the state needs to get a better handle on this stuff.’’

State officials agreed with McCas-lin’s assessment.

Absent a permit-approval process, sometimes inspectors must rely on tips from the public or local officials, said Bill Burger, manager of the waste management division’s field op-erations branch.

As a remedy, the agency has re-cently recommended that power plants and their haulers come to it first with their construction fill plans — even if the law doesn’t require it.

‘‘For the majority of cases, individ-uals are coming to us ahead of time,’’ said Robert Daniell, director of the waste management division.

Using ash for construction fill is a legitimate practice and one that the EPA wants to encourage, said Dennis Ruddy, the EPA’s point person on coal waste issues. But that’s only if ash is tested in advance for potential toxicity, and if its placement is engi-neered to minimize its contact with water, he said.

‘‘If you back up a dump truck and fill up a hollow with no pre-planning and engineering . . . that is what we are trying to avoid.’’

An eye to the futureEPA officials came close to classify-

ing ash destined for landfills, ponds

or strip mines as hazardous two yearsago, after it found that 86 percent ofgroundwater samples taken near ashlandfills contained arsenic levelsmore than 10 times the EPA’s newhealth standard.

The determination could have costthe industry hundreds of millions, ifnot several billions, of dollars. In theend, the draft decision that wouldhave done so was reversed after in-dustry lobbying.

EPA officials still intend to proposea national rule on ash disposal tomake sure that states follow a set ofminimum protections, Ruddy said.

‘‘We’re trying to keep track ofwhere you put it for future genera-tions,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re trying to pre-vent future problems.’’

He acknowledged that the rulesmight call for long-term monitoring ofash landfills and places where ash isdumped in strip mines.

With mine-filling, he said, the gov-ernment may require companies topost environmental performancebonds that extend for decades, ensur-ing a pot of money to pay for futureremediation.

Originally, the EPA promised itwould release the draft rules nextyear. It has since moved the deadlineback to early 2004 because of a needfor additional analyses, he said.

Indiana’s Natural Resources Com-mission in July preliminarily ap-proved the state’s groundwater pro-tection standards. The DNR also an-nounced it will seek a per-ton chargefor ash dumped in old strip mines toraise money for future environmentalcleanups if they’re needed.

The groundwater standards alsomay force restrictions on ash ponds,said Tim Method, deputy commission-er for the Indiana environmentalmanagement department.

‘‘We are going through a process toidentify any activities that currentlyare not regulated or are under-regu-lated,’’ Method said. ‘‘Ash pondswould fall on that list.’’

The moves address only some ofthe critics’ concerns.

The coal industry will likely fightany tax on ash disposal, said Nolandof the Indiana Coal Council.

‘‘We are so close to seeing what theEPA is going to recommend to thestates,’’ he said. ‘‘To get ahead of theEPA at this point does not make a lotof sense.’’

Kentucky’s environmental protec-tion has called for several changes,among them:

! The establishment of statewidegroundwater standards.

! Groundwater monitoring at allash ponds.

! Greater scrutiny of ash whenused as construction fill, includinggroundwater monitoring.

Patton administration officials havelittle hope that the General Assemblywill tighten the rules on coal ash. Toomany people in Kentucky think envi-ronmental regulations have gone toofar and are too costly, said Logan, theenvironmental protection departmentcommissioner. So his cabinet is look-ing at what can be done within exist-ing laws, he said.

Regulators may not need to lookfurther than the state’s new powerplant siting law, which requires great-er scrutiny of new power plants.

‘‘The legislature made it clear thatif (new) plants are going to site herein the state, they will be expected topay the full cost of doing businesshere,’’ said Tom FitzGerald, directorof the environmental group KentuckyResources Council, who helped writethe bill. ‘‘They can’t shift those costs. . . by undermanaging their wastes.’’

BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J

LAKEMICHIGAN MICHIGAN

ILLINO

IS

AREASHOWN

Indianapolis

Louisville

INDIANAINDIANAINDIANA

ChicagoChicagoChicago

GaryGaryGaryTOWN OF PINESTOWN OF PINESTOWN OF PINES

80

65

9490

BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL‘‘Agencies that are supposed to protect the public interest didn’t,’’ said Phyllis DaMota, whose well water in Pines, Ind., was ruled unsafe to drink. Her home is within sight of a landfill where tests have found high levels of boron, which can be toxic. The Environmental Protection Agency is supplying her with bottled water.

MAP BY STEVE DURBIN,THE COURIER-JOURNAL

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✖✖✖

✖✖✖

✖✖✖

✖✖✖

ASH PONDS

ASH LANDFILLS

ASH MINE-FILLS

COALCOMBUSTIONWASTEDISPOSALCoal-fired powerplants dispose of ashand othercombustion wastes insettling ponds andlandfills, andsometimes bysending it to oldstrip mines.

✖✖✖

I N D I A N AI N D I A N AI N D I A N A

K E N T U C K YK E N T U C K YK E N T U C K Y

Wab

ash

Rive

rW

hite R

iver

GreenGreenGreenRiverRiverRiver

KentuckyKentuckyKentuckyRiverRiverRiverOhio

River

Big SandyBig SandyBig SandyRiverRiverRiver

CumberlandCumberlandCumberlandRiverRiverRiver

Source: Indiana Department ofEnvironmental Management andKentucky Natural Resources andEnvironmental Protection Cabinet

LouisvilleLouisvilleLouisville

Ash from coal-fired plantsunder increasing scrutiny

Top view Underside

Research on tadpole development in coal ash ponds at the University ofGeorgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory has linked deformities withheavy metals in the water.

COAL ASH RESEARCH

NORMALTADPOLE

DEFORMEDTADPOLE

SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY

BY DEVON MORGAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Continued from Page A17

BY DEVON MORGAN, THE C-J

COAL COMBUSTION WASTEPLACED IN INDIANA SURFACEMINES SINCE 1989 (in tons)

’89’89’89 ’90’90’90 ’91’91’91 ’92’92’92 ’93’93’93 ’94’94’94 ’95’95’95 ’96’96’96 ’97’97’97 ’98’98’98 ’99’99’99 ’00’00’00 ’01’01’01 ’02*’02*’02* GRANDGRANDGRANDTOTALTOTALTOTAL*1st quarter*1st quarter*1st quarter

270,

364

270,

364

270,

364

254,

806

254,

806

254,

806

000 320,

000

320,

000

320,

000

000 000 185,

942

185,

942

185,

942

150,

804

150,

804

150,

804

148,

908

148,

908

148,

908

292,

388

292,

388

292,

388

274,

072

274,

072

274,

072 1,

097,

540

1,09

7,54

01,

097,

540

1,09

3,23

51,

093,

235

1,09

3,23

5

205,

261

205,

261

205,

261

4,2

93

,32

0

INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

BY JOANNE MESHEW, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

WASTE: BOTTOM ASHA coal-combustion byproduct thatcollects on the wall of the boiler,eventually falling to the bottom, where itis collected. Bottom ash is a ceramic-likematerial.

ScrubberA device used to remove sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the boilerexhaust (flue) gas.

Electric utilities have reduced air emissions significantly while increasing electricity production and tripling the use of coal since 1970. But as air emissions are decreased,the amount of waste ash tends to increase. Future pollution controls could make ash more potentially polluting or more difficult to reuse in commercial products. Theillustration below represents one common type of coal-fired power plant.

SOURCES: EDISON ELECTRIC INSTITUTE, CYNERGY, C-J RESEARCH

Cooling waterOutside water used to condense thesteam passing through the condenser.

StackA structure used toexhaust and dispersethe hot flue gases fromthe boiler.

GeneratorA machine that transforms the mechanicalenergy of the turbine into electric energy.

PrecipitatorA device used to remove the fly ashfrom the boiler exhaust (flue) gas.

AIR

WATER

Steam Generator (Boiler)A large vessel that contains anassembly of tubes in whichwater is heated to steam thatis then used to drive a turbine.

Primary air fan/ pulverizerDevices that prepares coal for burning bygrinding it to a fine powder, drying and mixingit with hot air to create an efficientlycombustible fuel.

CoalElectric utilities use coal togenerate nearly 57 percentof our nation’s electricity

MAIN STEAM

BurnerA nozzle device, generallylocated in the lower boilerwalls, which introduces thepulverized coal into the boilerand mixes with the correctamount of additional air toburn the fuel.

HOW IT’S USED OR DISPOSED OF

ASH AND WASTE FROM COAL-BASED ELECTRIC PRODUCTION

Cooling towerA device that cools thecooling water by evaporatinga small portion of it andreducing the amount of heatthat is released to rivers, lakesand streams.

TransformerAn electromagnetic device that increases the output voltage of thegenerator while reducing the current (amperage) to make thetransmission of electricity more efficient.

TurbineA device consisting of fan-type blades attached to a shaft that is spun by expandingsteam, converting the kinetic energy of the steam into mechanical energy.

WASTE: FLUE GAS DUSULFURIZATION WASTE(SCRUBBER SLUDGE) Waste produced during theprocess of removing sulfur gases from the flue gases.

WASTE: FLY ASHA light gray or tan powder that is the largestbyproduct of coal combustion. Fly ashbecomes entrained with, and carried out ofthe boiler by, the hot exhaust (flue) gases.

Coal ash mixed with water poured into first of two settlingponds at the Gallagher power plant in Southern Indiana.

BY DURELL HALL, JR, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Aerial view shows the hollow that is being filled in with coalash at the Lodestar Energy Inc., dump in Ivel, Ky.

LANDFILL BENEFICIAL USESASH PONDSPipes from plant dump effluentinto first pond. Water from thatpond flows into second pond.Cleaner water drains to river.

Roughly 30% of coalcombustion waste goes towardso-called "beneficial re-use."Some of those uses:

BOTTOM ASH■ Asphalt■ Concrete aggregate■ Insulation■ Abrasive grit■ Road and building fill

FLY ASH■ Cement■ Road and building filler■ Waste stabilizer

SCRUBBER SLUDGE■ Wallboard

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL


NEW TECHNOLOGY

Air kept cleaner, but scientists study if risk migratesBy JAMES BRUGGERS


They call it ‘‘clean-coal tech-nology.’’ It involves new methods of burning coal and scrubbing smokestacks that offer hope of cutting emissions from power plants.

That’s a potential relief for asthma sufferers and others with lung problems in Kentucky, Indi-ana and other coal-burning states.

But some of the new technol-ogies produce more combustion waste — up to 60 percent more with one type of burner — that must be disposed of or used com-mercially. And some people, in-cluding environmentalists and Kentucky environmental regula-tors, are concerned that ash may begin to contain larger quantities of potentially harmful pollutants.

‘‘Clean-coal technology is a code word for ‘Let’s just generate more waste than ever before,’ ’’ said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana consultant to the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit advocacy

group based in Boston. He is a leading national critic of how power companies manage their ash.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky and laboratories around the country are beginning to turn their attention to the sub-ject.

What the scientists find will an-swer not only questions about the potential risk of new forms of ash, but also the extent to which the ash can be used commercial-ly. Pollutants or other impurities could threaten groundwater or render the coal waste useless as an ingredient in products such as cement or wallboard.

‘‘We have made as a national decision that air pollution control is the Number 1 priority without considering some of the solid-waste issues that go with it,’’ said Tom Robl, associate director of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research.

‘‘As a result, we’re going to have more solids to handle.’’

Watching closely will be envi-ronmental regulators, who know that any changes in ash content

will need to be scrutinized to pre-vent pollution.

‘‘We’re not going to have the same (ash) materials,’’ said Bob Logan, commissioner of the Ken-tucky Department of Environ-mental Protection.

For example, both President Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative and competing legislation sponsored by Sen. Jim Jeffords, a Vermont independent, seek to reduce mer-cury, a toxic trace metal, in power-plant emissions.

Keeping it out of the air could concentrate it in the ash — rais-ing the risk of groundwater con-tamination from landfills and set-tling ponds.

‘‘This is a potential issue,’’ said Tom Feeley, a project manager at the federal National Energy Tech-nology Laboratory in Pittsburgh.

Preliminary studies suggest that mercury, which can cause brain damage in humans, does not wash out of coal ash, Feeley said.

‘‘But if you are taking the mer-cury out of flue gas, it’s going to go someplace.’’

VIGOVIGOVIGO

BY STEVE DURBIN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

K E N T U C K YK E N T U C K YK E N T U C K Y

PROPOSEDPROPOSEDPROPOSEDCOAL-FIREDCOAL-FIREDCOAL-FIREDPOWER PLANTSPOWER PLANTSPOWER PLANTS

MARTINMARTINMARTIN

ESTILLESTILLESTILL

MUHLENBERGMUHLENBERGMUHLENBERG

HENDERSONHENDERSONHENDERSON

MASONMASONMASON

CLARKCLARKCLARK

KNOTTKNOTTKNOTT

MARSHALLMARSHALLMARSHALL

PIKEPIKEPIKELouisville

Source: IndianaDepartment ofEnvironmentalManagement andKentucky NaturalResources andEnvironmentalProtection Cabinet

SULLIVANSULLIVANSULLIVAN I N D I A N AI N D I A N AI N D I A N A

BY CHRIS HALL JR., SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNALA worker last month loaded gypsum for transport from the Louisville Gas & Electric plant in Bedford, Ky. The plant produces a synthetic gypsum using calcium sulfate waste from the plant’s scrubbers.

courier-journal special report: coal ash - a big unknown

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