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Use this map to understand where coal ash might be stored near you.

Abigail Dillen, President of Earthjustice: “What has been proven over and over again is that the industry can deploy the best science and the best technology, continue to have a very profitable business model, while affording us all of the collective benefits, including economic benefits, of a clean and healthy environment.”

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “I’m thrilled to see that Maryland is stepping up, because we’re going to need the states to hold the line and enforce the federal rule. In a couple of years, those federal regulations may not be on the books.”

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “Utilities have gamed the system at some plants by designing monitoring systems that intentionally miss detecting leakage from a coal ash dump.”

Charles McPhedran, Attorney, Clean Energy Program: “The idea was that the coal ash would be parked there for a little while while it cooled, and then it would be taken to a (permanent) disposal area. It overflowed fences. It overflowed into a ditch with water on it running off the site … it just became…

Unpermitted massive coal ash pile growing for years near the Allegheny River will now be removed by next year, preventing contamination

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “The letter is bluster with no punches, thunder with no lightning… Many of these demands have already been litigated in federal court, and industry lost. The public record reveals that nearly all coal plants have contaminated groundwater with dangerous toxic chemicals above federal standards. Any new regulation proposed…

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “These are powerful corporations asking for the administration to do their bidding even if those actions put health and the environment at risk, which they certainly will.”

Sin importar lo que nos depare, no dejaremos de luchar para eliminar gradualmente las emisiones que calientan el planeta, catalizar una transición energética limpia justa y equitativa, y proteger a las comunidades del desastre climático.

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “To date, state regulators have largely failed to fill the void where federal regulations do not apply…. At the very least, information concerning the past disposal of toxic waste at these sites must be made public and available in a state database.”

President Trump tries to walk away from the climate crisis by exiting the Paris Agreement and undoing federal climate actions.

The EPA’s Legacy CCR Surface Impoundment Rule extends safeguards to hundreds of coal ash dump sites that had been left unregulated

The use of toxic coal ash as a substitute for clean soil in construction and landscaping remains largely unregulated despite the risks.

U.S. Court of Appeals affirms that EPA regulations prohibit closing coal ash dumps with ash sitting in groundwater

Earthjustice petition for review of wastewater treatment standards for coal-fired power plants (ELGs) filed May 30, 2024. Earthjustice is challenging the 2034 retirement loophole and weaker standards for what the Environmental Protection Agency is calling “unmanaged” leachate, leachate that has already leaked out of coal ash ponds and landfills and contaminated groundwater.

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “They have a motivation to not find as much contamination.”

Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Clean Energy Program: “We’re going to see a long-awaited crackdown on coal ash pollution from America’s coal plants, and it’ll be a huge win for America’s health and water resources. They are all likely leaking toxic chemicals like arsenic into groundwater and most contain levels of radioactivity that can be dangerous…

By law, before government regulations are adopted or changed, agencies must ask the public — you — to weigh in.