Trump Administration’s Plan to Put Louisiana in Charge of Toxic Coal Ash Pollution Threatens Sources of Drinking Water

Today, Earthjustice, the Alliance for Affordable Energy Louisiana, and the Sierra Club urged the Trump administration to abandon its plan to put the State of Louisiana in charge of oversight of toxic coal ash waste due to the state’s abysmal environmental track record. Coal ash is generated when coal is burned, and massive quantities are stored at coal-burning power plants near Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Shreveport.

Coal ash contains arsenic, mercury, chromium, lead, lithium, radium, and other heavy metals, which have been linked to numerous types of cancer, heart and thyroid disease, respiratory illness, reproductive failure, and neurological harm.

At all three active Louisiana coal plants (Big Cajun 2, Brame Energy Center, R S Nelson), and one retired plant (Dolet Hills), records indicate groundwater contamination with toxic chemicals above federal safe drinking water standards. Chemicals found above those levels in groundwater at one or more plants include arsenic, boron, cobalt, lead, lithium, radium, sulfate, and thallium. More than 61 percent of Louisiana’s population relies on groundwater for all or part of their drinking water supply.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) has repeatedly allowed coal plants to violate federal coal ash protections. For instance, LDEQ has allowed plants to close coal ash dumps with ash in groundwater, ensuring that the dumps will contaminate groundwater with toxic chemicals indefinitely. The LDEQ should not be in charge of issuing permits that let coal plants continue to violate the law. These permits will shield power plants from federal enforcement and prevent Louisiana residents from stopping coal ash pollution.

“Coal ash pollution in Louisiana will go from bad to worse if the Trump administration has its way,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Mychal Ozaeta. “When someone completely fails at a job, you shouldn’t give them a major promotion to cause even more problems. The only things that the State of Louisiana has succeeded at doing when it comes to coal ash are keeping the polluters happy and turning a blind eye to the toxic waste that is putting Louisiana communities at risk.”

“The Trump EPA’s move to hand off regulation of extremely toxic coal ash to LDEQ is an obvious favor to the corporate polluters that own coal plants – and one that will only further harm our health, air, and water,” said Margie Vicknair-Pray, Sierra Club Delta Chapter Conservation Projects Coordinator. “LDEQ is likely one of the most hands-off environmental regulators in the entire country. Allowing LDEQ to manage coal ash and its dangerous mercury and heavy metal pollution means that we can all expect severely diminished oversight of these toxins.” 

LDEQ is known as a severely understaffed and extremely lenient environmental regulator. In addition to its coal ash failures, its air monitors are far away from Louisiana’s heaviest air-polluting facilities, and the agency has for years been criticized for approving permits for wealthy polluters, including LNG terminals and a massive Formosa plastics factory. Louisianans know all too well that LDEQ fails to protect low-income communities of color, and it creates a lax regulatory environment that has enabled disasters like the recent Smitty’s Supply explosion and spill. 

Please see the Earthjustice Louisiana coal ash page.