Coal ash remains one of our nation’s largest toxic industrial waste streams. For decades, utilities disposed of coal ash — the hazardous substance left after burning coal for energy — by dumping it in unlined ponds and landfills. Earthjustice analyzed industry data to explain, state by state, how and where coal ash is disposed and which dump sites are not yet monitored or regulated.

The EPA’s 2015 Coal Ash Rule created the first-ever safeguards for coal ash disposal, but many coal ash dumps remained unregulated due to sweeping exemptions for legacy coal ash ponds and inactive landfills. At many of these legacy sites, the EPA determined that coal ash has contaminated groundwater, but the 2015 rule did not require monitoring, closure or cleanup. Industry has often blamed pollution from regulated dumps on nearby unregulated dumps, a sleight of hand that allows them to avoid cleanup responsibility. In many states, the number of unregulated toxic dumps far exceeded the number of regulated dumpsites.

In 2024, after years of litigation and grassroots activism, the EPA issued a new rule that extended federal monitoring and cleanup requirements to hundreds of previously excluded older coal ash landfills and ponds that have been leaking toxic pollution into groundwater.

The rule addresses gaps in the 2015 Coal Ash Rule that left half of coal ash unregulated and allowed coal plants to avoid cleaning up toxic coal ash across the country.

Click on the states above to learn more about the number of federally regulated landfills and surface impoundments (ponds) in each state, as well as how many coal ash dumps were not regulated by the 2015 Coal Ash Rule.