Truckloads of the coal ash product EZBase were delivered to one Florida homeowner's property.  (Clean Water Action)

Recent sampling of paths constructed of coal ash near J.L. Wilkinson Elementary School in Middleburg, Florida reveal high levels of vanadium, a hazardous substance linked to cardiovascular disease and nervous system damage. Vanadium levels were up to seven times higher than levels deemed safe for residential soil by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Earthjustice sampled two paths near the school after concerns were raised that EZBase, a product made from toxic fly ash and bottom ash residuals at coal-burning power plants and marketed by Jacksonville Electric Authority, may have been used to construct paths near the elementary school.

Exposure to high levels of vanadium in the air can cause lung and cardiovascular damage. In addition, nausea, mild diarrhea and stomach cramps have been reported in people ingesting vanadium. Vanadium is classified as “possibly carcinogenic” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Children are particularly susceptible to impacts from toxic exposure due to low body mass and developing systems.

Mississippi River at Vicksburg closed after barge hit railroad bridge and began leaking oil. (Photo: WLBT)

Utility giant FirstEnergy Corp unveiled plans last week to barge 3 million tons of coal ash annually nearly 100 miles on the Monongahela and Ohio rivers for disposal in an unlined pit in LaBelle, PA. The ash comes from its Bruce Mansfield Power Station—one of the largest coal burning power plants in the U.S.

There's not a thing right about this scheme, according to residents who take their drinking water from the river. Also unhappy are citizens of LaBelle, PA, whose water and air are already poisoned by nearly 15 years of coal ash dumping.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

The Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research arm of the Library of Congress, drew anger from two legislators after it issued an unfavorable report on their coal ash bills (S. 3512 and H.R. 2273). Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) have aggressively pursued the CRS since early December, after it gave both bills a failing grade, finding their weaknesses “unprecedented” in environmental law. The CRS concluded in no uncertain terms that the bills lack a clear purpose and cannot ensure state standards “necessary to protect human health and the environment.”

In light of CRS’ unfavorable legal analysis, the reasonable course for Hoeven and McKinley was to redraft their bills—but instead they demanded that the CRS redraft their report. This is not the first time in recent months that Republicans have played this game.

Water that has come into contact with coal ash has been found to contain poisonous levels of arsenic, lead and other pollutants at more than 200 sites across the nation.

In Missouri, rape apparently does not cause pregnancy, and it’s OK for children to eat coal ash.

When Missouri Republican Todd Akin said last August that “legitimate rape” rarely results in conception, the congressman caused quite a stir—and this offensive nonsense, broadcast coast to coast, likely cost him a Senate seat.

More provocative baloney was recently heard in Missouri—this time from toxicologist Lisa Bradley about the safety of children eating coal ash—the waste produced by burning coal.  Never mind that coal ash contains an alphabet soup of toxic trash, such as arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury and a dozen other hazardous metals, Dr. Bradley testified at a public hearing in Union, MO that “a child could consume coal ash every day and have no increased exposure to arsenic.”

Dr. Bradley is a vice president and senior toxicologist at AECOM, a prominent international consulting firm that has received numerous contracts to investigate coal ash sites, including controversial investigations of the Kingston TVA disaster and the Town of Pines Superfund Site.

Outgoing EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.  (The National Academy of Sciences)

During her four-year tenure as administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson was a true champion for public health and environmental justice.

One of her greatest legacies is the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, a rule that will help Americans breathe a little easier since it sharply limits the amount of mercury and other toxic metals that can be emitted by coal-fired power plants. The rule finally requires the capture of mercury, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, nickel, selenium and other heavy metals at the plant smokestacks.

CRS found that S.3512's and H.R.2273's weaknesses are “unprecedented” in environmental law.

The Congressional Research Service, dubbed the U.S. Congress’ 'think tank', recently released an authoritative analysis of S.3512 and—to the dismay of the bill’s stalwart sponsors—it’s a bust. CRS, a department of the Library of Congress and nonpartisan research tool for the House and Senate, recently weighed in definitively on the Senate and House coal ash bills, S.3512 and H.R. 2273, and concluded that the bills’ weaknesses are “unprecedented” in environmental law.

CRS found that the bills lack a clear purpose and would not ensure state standards “necessary to protect human health and the environment.” These bills—one passed by the House in October 2011 and the other now pending in the Senate—would prevent the EPA from ever setting federally enforceable safeguards for the disposal of toxic coal ash.

More than a hundred million gallons of coal ash slurry were released when a coal ash dam failed, flooding Buffalo Creek Valley in West Virginia.

In the aftermath of a major catastrophe, lawmakers and regulators should be held accountable to create new safety protocols to avert future disasters. Incidents like the Cuyahoga River catching fire and the Exxon Valdez oil spill prompted changes in how we protect our nation’s waters from industrial chemicals. The Buffalo Creek disaster in West Virginia in 1972 likewise prompted changes to the regulation of dams storing toxic materials. Similarly, we must demand changes to how coal ash is handled, following the largest toxic waste spill in our nation’s history—the spill in Kingston, Tennessee in December 2008, which will have its fourth anniversary in a few weeks.

Former Director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy Jack Spadaro remembers the Buffalo Creek disaster and knows that its grim legacy still casts a shadow today.

H.R. 3409 contains five of the most-anti-environmental bills previously passed by a House distinguished by its radical anti-health anti-science bias.

There’s no doubt that this House of Representatives has amassed the most anti-environmental record in history. According to the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the House voted more than 300 times “to block environmental regulations, weaken environmental laws, and stop environmental research” since January 2011.

In a very, very bad year, the “single worst anti-environmental bill” introduced by the House hits the floor this Friday. Officially (but ironically) titled “Stop the War on Coal Act,” H.R. 3409 actually represents the House leadership’s own elaborate and well-funded war on longstanding protections of clean air and water enjoyed by all Americans. In the guise of saving King Coal, Rep. Upton (R-MI) leads a charge up Capitol Hill to shred the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, enthusiastically eviscerating health and environmental safeguards.

Seeking protection from unsafe dumping practices, more than 300 public interest groups from 43 states, representing millions across the nation, sent a letter this week to the U.S. Senate opposing S. 3512, the “Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2012.”

The bill, introduced last July by Sens. Hoeven (R-SD), Conrad (D-SD) and Baucus (D- MT), prevents the EPA from finalizing its proposed coal ash rule—or ever issuing regulations for the nation’see second largest industrial waste stream. In its place, S. 3512 encourages inadequate state programs that preserve the status quo and extend the lives of hundreds of leaking toxic dumps.

Undoubtedly coal ash ponds are harmful to both our economy and ecology. (EST)

Each year millions of gallons of toxic chemicals flow into lakes, streams, rivers and bays from our nation’s “surface impoundments”—often referred to as “coal ash” ponds. The well-documented result is the death and mutation of fish and wildlife. Recently, two senior scientists examined the damage from those ponds and put a price on their immense harm.

Their article, published last month in Environmental Science and Technology, describes the devastating damage and the high economic cost that is passed onto taxpayers. This article is timely as S.3512, a new coal ash bill in the Senate, threatens to prolong the life of these toxic vats by prohibiting the EPA from finalizing a rule that would require their phase out and put an end to this harmful dumping practice. The peer-reviewed report was completed by A. Dennis Lemly, Ph.D. of the U.S. Forest Service and Joseph Skorupa, Ph.D. of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The scientists conducted a comprehensive review of environmental damage at coal ash ponds since 1967 and found:

• $2.3 billion in past damage to fish and wildlife over the last 45 years from coal ash impoundments.
• $3.85 billion in projected damage from coal ash ponds over the next 50 years.
• $4.82 billion to $7.17 billion potentially saved—simply by protecting fish and wildlife—over the next five decades if coal ash ponds are phased out.