Our Stories

The Latest by Lisa Evans

Senior Counsel

June 21, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: Two Years is Too Long

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Although the EPA’s proposed coal ash rule was published two years ago, a final rule is nowhere in sight. Two years is more than enough time for the EPA to decide on a set of reasonable, health-protective standards for the country’s second largest industrial waste. The EPA blames the delay on 450,000 public comments. However, …

April 20, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: The Coal Breath of Betrayal

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

The House’s embrace of David McKinley’s (R-WV) amendment and its attachment to the transportation bill is nothing short of a deadly betrayal of public health. This measure ensures that the nation’s dangerous and leaking coal ash ponds and landfills will continue to operate indefinitely without regulation or federal oversight. If it passes the Senate, it …

April 4, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: It’s About Time

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Today, 3 years after the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history, 11 environmental and public health groups will file a lawsuit to force the Environmental Protection Agency to complete its rulemaking and finalize public health safeguards against coal ash pollution. The EPA has delayed federal protection for decades despite overwhelming evidence that carcinogenic, neurotoxic, mutagenic …

March 21, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: The Wait For Clean Water

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Tomorrow is World Water Day and across the globe, the United Nations and many grassroots groups are holding events to highlight the importance of clean water to our health and global security. In North Carolina, Appalachian Voices will gather residents in and around Asheville for a “Clean Water Not Coal Ash” Rally to call attention …

March 14, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: “Charleston, We Have A Problem”

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Has Rep. David McKinley had a change of heart?  In a letter dated March 8, 2012, the primary author of EPA- bashing HR 2273 and best friend of coal ash, McKinley (R, WV) wrote Secretary Randy Huffman, head of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, to request that he accompany him on a visit …

March 7, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: Risky Retirement

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Across the country, communities near retiring coal plants are breathing collective sighs of relief. Closures, however, raise vexing questions about the millions of tons of toxic waste that may lie beneath the surface. Over decades, most plants have buried battleship-sized deposits of coal ash in landfills and lagoons near their plants. In the absence of …

February 27, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: Lessons Unlearned from Buffalo Creek Disaster

By Lisa Evans

February 26, 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of the Buffalo Creek disaster—the “most destructive flood in West Virginia history,” which took 125 lives in Logan County, West Virginia, injured 1100, and left 4000 homeless. The accounts of the manmade tsunami, borne of greed and negligence, are heartbreaking. The close-knit community was destroyed in an instant …

February 22, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: $2 Billion Coal Ash Suit In Chesapeake

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

On Tuesday, Virginia attorney Ted G. Yoakam, representing nearly 400 people living near the Battlefield Golf Club in Chesapeake, refiled a lawsuit against Dominion Virginian Power, MJM Golf LLC (the owner of the golf course) and two additional parties involved in building the course, requesting more than $2 billion in damages.  The refiling doubles the demand …

February 15, 2012

Two-Headed Fish, Brought to You by Polluters

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

An Idaho stream is home to two-headed trout, thanks to selenium pollution, a common contaminant from phosphate mining, agriculture and—you guessed it—coal ash.

February 3, 2012

Tr-Ash Talk: Coal Numbers Don’t Add Up

By Lisa Evans  /  Washington, D.C. Office

The American Coal Ash Association is trying with might to mislead us. In a recent press release, they exaggerated the impact the Environmental Protection Agency’s rulemaking process is having on coal ash recycling, claiming a decrease in the recycling of combustion waste from coal plants since the EPA started work on a coal ash rule.The …