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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-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.

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.

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.

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.

North Antelope Rochelle Mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. (EcoFlight)
From the Experts June 3, 2025

The Republican Megabill’s Big Coal Handouts

Leasing more of our public lands to coal companies and padding their bottom lines will do nothing to promote energy security or reduce costs for everyday Americans.

<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.

Clockwise from top left: Laura Beth Resnick of Butterbee Farm. (Alyssa Schukar for Earthjustice) Controlled burn during BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. (Petty Officer First Class John Masson / U.S. Coast Guard) Subway train on the 7 line in Queens, New York City. (Marco Bottigelli / Getty Images) An oil-coated feather on a Florida beach in 2010, following the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. (Tech. Sgt. Emily F. Alley / U.S. Air Force)
feature June 12, 2025

Our Lawsuits Against the Trump Administration

We will defend the progress we have made and keep moving forward.

In the News: National Parks Traveler May 16, 2025

Interior Department Mum On How It Plans To Unleash Public Lands

Blaine Miller-McFeeley, Senior Legislative Representative, Earthjustice: “These heavily redacted FOIA records confirm what we already know: that the Trump administration is selling off and selling out our public lands to benefit a wealthy few, and they’re doing it all behind closed doors. These action plans should be communicated to the public — we all have…

From the Experts October 9, 2024

Toxic Coal Ash Used in Neighborhoods Poses Health Risks Even Decades Later

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

document May 22, 2025

Pacific Monument Complaint: District of Hawaii

This case challenges President Donald J. Trump’s unlawful Proclamation 10918 of April 17, 2025, which purports to strip core protections from the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument and to open the Monument to commercial fishing.

document May 22, 2025

NEVI EV Charging Lawsuit Complaint

A coalition of groups filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit from 17 states against the Trump administration for the unlawful freeze of billions for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure

document May 20, 2025

Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief: 2025 Gulf Drilling Biological Opinion

Earthjustice, on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, filed suit to properly protect rare species, including Rice’s whales and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, from being harmed or killed by fossil fuel drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection took this photo of the waste coal ash pile at the Scrubgrass Power Plant, in Kennerdell, Venango County.
Press Release: Victory March 7, 2025

Scrubgrass Cryptomining Facility to Expedite Removal of Toxic Coal Ash ‘Mountain’

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

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

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.

The aftermath of the devastating coal ash spill at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant near Kingston, Tenn., in 2008. More than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge burst from a dam, sweeping away homes and contaminating two rivers. (Dot Griffith/ Appalachian Voice via United Mountain Defense)
feature April 25, 2024

Coal Ash Contaminates Our Lives

Coal ash is what is left behind when power plants burn coal for energy, It is a toxic mix of carcinogens, neurotoxins, and other hazardous pollutants.