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The coal-fired Morgantown Generating Station in Newburg, Maryland, in 2014. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)
feature May 9, 2025

Toxic Coal Ash in Maryland: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy

Massive quantities of coal ash are stored at ten power plant sites in Maryland. All but one of these sites include older ash dumps that industry is only now beginning to quantify and monitor.

Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, Mass., in 2012. (Denis Tangney Jr. / Getty Images)
feature May 9, 2025

Toxic Coal Ash in Massachusetts: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy

Significant quantities of coal ash are stored at three power plant sites in Massachusetts. All of these sites include older coal ash dumps that industry is only now beginning to quantify and monitor.

The Navajo Generating Station, near Page, Ariz., in 2010. (Sylvia Schug / Getty Images)
feature May 9, 2025

Toxic Coal Ash in Arizona: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy

Massive quantities of coal ash are stored at five power plant sites in Arizona.

A South Texas rancher looks out over his family’s land that has been contaminated by pollutants from the San Miguel Electric Plant, in the background. (Ari Phillips / EIP)
feature May 9, 2025

Toxic Coal Ash in Texas: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy

Massive quantities of toxic coal ash are stored at 19 coal-burning power plant sites in Texas.

The Coal Creek coal-fired power plant near Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota, in 2012. (John Elk / Getty Images)
feature May 8, 2025

Toxic Coal Ash in North Dakota: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy

Massive quantities of coal ash are stored at eight power plant sites in North Dakota.

<a href="https://clausa.app.carto.com/map/bf8b6eb1-9904-4c34-9a0b-00bacd4f6582" target="_blank" class="a_color--black">Use this map</a> to understand where coal ash is stored near you. This map displays the locations of current and former coal plants with coal ash dumps. The dumps were identified using data gathered by EPA and self-reported by the coal industry. (Caroline Weinberg / Earthjustice)
feature April 17, 2025

Where are Coal Ash Dump Sites?

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

In the News: WOSU Public Media March 25, 2025

Coal companies want a relaxation of coal ash standards. The EPA may give it to them.

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.”

In the News: Maryland Matters March 24, 2025

Maryland could lock in Biden-era coal ash rules, as Trump EPA considers rollbacks

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.”

In the News: Grist March 24, 2025

Power companies would rather not clean their toxic messes. Trump’s EPA is granting their wish.

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.”

In the News: The Allegheny Front March 13, 2025

Crypto mining company agrees to speed cleanup of its coal ash pile

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…

In the News: Tampa Bay Times January 30, 2025

Duke Energy asks Trump admin to roll back pollution regulations

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…

In the News: Canary Media January 29, 2025

Power companies pressure Trump EPA to roll back rules on toxic coal ash

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.”

In the News: Bay Journal January 21, 2025

‘Ticking time bombs’: Nearly 100 coal ash dumps pepper the Chesapeake Bay watershed

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.”

The now-closed Waukegan Generating Station, on the shore of Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Ill. The coal-fired power plant still has sizable coal ash ponds threatening the environment. (Jamie Kelter Davis for Earthjustice)
Press Release December 11, 2024

Statement on the Supreme Court Denial of a Stay of EPA’s Legacy Coal Ash Rule

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

A bird flies by the emissions from the coal-fired Gavin Power Plant in Cheshire, Ohio. (Stephanie Keith / Getty Images)
Press Release: Victory June 28, 2024

Federal Court Blocks Attempt by Coal Power Plants to Evade Cleaning Up Coal Ash Contaminating Water

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

In the News: IndyStar May 23, 2024

Error in Pines coal ash cleanup plan put residents’ health at risk

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

In the News: NC Newsline April 26, 2024

New EPA rules will force fossil fuel power plants to cut pollution

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…

Changemakers call for the EPA to hold utilities accountable for their coal ash pollution, on the day of an in-person public hearing held by the agency in Chicago on Jun. 28, 2023. (Jamie Kelter Davis for Earthjustice)
feature April 25, 2024

‘Do Your Job, EPA’: Stories From the Frontlines of Coal Ash

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