Cleaning Up Power Plant Water Pollution

Toxic water pollution sickens people, and power plants are by far its largest source. The toxics in coal plant waste raise cancer risk, make fish unsafe to eat, and can inflict lasting brain damage on children. Arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead and other pollutants are being discharged into public waters from power plants without any specific limits.

Case Overview

Power plants are by far the largest contributors of toxic pollution to U.S. waters. In 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that power plants dump more pollutants, such as mercury, arsenic and lead, into our waters than the next nine industries combined. The heavy metals in the waste discharges can cause neurological and developmental damage, cause harm in utero, damage internal organs and cause cancer.

Heavy metals in the waste, such as lead, arsenic and mercury, don’t degrade over time, and they can concentrate as they travel up the food chain, impacting fish and wildlife and ultimately collecting in our bodies and our children’s bodies. Power plant pollution can also make municipal water bills more expensive, because water treatment plants may have to spend more money to ensure that they deliver safe water to their customers.

After decades of inaction, limits for these toxic discharges from coal power plants were finally updated by the Obama administration in September 2015, due to a court order secured by Earthjustice, representing environmental groups. The new safeguards would have required power plants to eliminate the vast majority of this pollution, protecting our nation’s drinking water sources and making thousands of river miles safer for swimming and fishing.

Power plants were set to begin meeting these new safeguards starting in 2018, but in an order issued on April 25, 2017, the EPA abruptly put an indefinite hold on the new safeguards, allowing power plants to continue discharging toxics without any specific limits, using standards set in 1982.

On May 3, 2017, Earthjustice, representing a coalition of environmental and public health advocates, filed a federal lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the EPA’s April 25 order. The suit asks the court to find that the EPA didn’t have legal authority to put the protections on hold, didn’t give public notice or allow public participation before doing so, and selectively applied its action to prioritize the interests of the coal industry over public health.

A power plant located next to a waterway.
Power plants are the biggest sources of water pollution in the country. Power plant water discharges are filled with toxic pollution such as mercury, arsenic, lead, and selenium. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Photo)

Case Updates

John Amos Power Plant on the Kanawha River in West Virginia
March 8, 2023 Press Release: Victory

EPA Proposes Improved Wastewater Treatment Standards for Coal-fired Power Plants

A legal victory decades in the making, the EPA will require modern wastewater treatment at all remaining coal-fired plants

June 14, 2021 In the News: E&E News

Coal plants rush to flush under Trump EPA rule

Thomas Cmar, Coal Program, Earthjustice: “This is really just the leading edge of what will become a much broader wave of power plants seeking to extract as much of an advantage as they can out of the handouts that the Trump EPA gave them.”

November 2, 2020 Document

ELG Petition for Review

Pursuant to Section 509(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1), and Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(a), Clean Water Action, Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc., Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Center for Biological Diversity, PennEnvironment, Inc., Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and Prairie Rivers Network hereby petition this Court for review of the final action of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Andrew Wheeler entitled Steam Electric Reconsideration Rule, which was published in the...