By Matthew Daly, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major action to address toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday ordered an Ohio utility to stop dumping dangerous coal ash into unlined storage ponds and speed cleanup of the site.
The order to the Gen.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/11/ap-epa-orders-ohio-power-plant-stop-dumping-coal-ash/
By Kari Lydersen, Energy News Network
This story was first published on the Energy News Network and was republished here with permission.
More than nine out of 10 coal ash impoundments nationwide are contaminating groundwater in violation of federal rules, according to environmental groups’ comprehensive analysis of the latest industry-reported data.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/11/analysis-finds-lack-of-compliance-with-coal-ash-rules-groundwater-at-risk/
In August, the “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash” student reporting initiative investigated the complicated policy and impacts of coal ash in the Great Lakes. The special collaboration included Great Lakes Now, The Energy News Network, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
Keep up with more coal ash news published by The Energy News Network as part of this project:
How Puerto Rico’s banned coal ash winds up in rural Georgia
After Puerto Rico banned coal ash storage, the toxic waste from its coal plant is being quietly shipped through Florida to Georgia.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/10/more-from-poisonous-ponds-tackling-toxic-coal-ash/
As coal plants close nationwide, they leave behind nearly a billion tons of toxic coal ash. The Medill School of Journalism spent months investigating the coal ash threat and how regulators, companies and environmental groups are handling it.
Here are the basics that will help you understand this looming threat:
What is Coal Ash?
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/coal-ash-101/
Broadcasting in our monthly PBS television program, The Catch is a Great Lakes Now series that brings you more news about the lakes you love. Go beyond the headlines with reporters from around the region who cover the lakes and drinking water issues. Find all the work HERE.
This month, The Catch features stories from “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash,” a collaborative project featuring the reporting work of students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications on Great Lakes Now and Energy News Network programs and websites.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/the-catch-coal-ash-regulation/
Great Lakes Now episodes are packed with important information on current topics.
In “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash,” learn about the complicated policy and impacts of coal ash in the Great Lakes in this special collaboration with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/poisonous-ponds-the-great-lakes-now-episode-quiz/
Broadcasting in our monthly PBS television program, The Catch is a Great Lakes Now series that brings you more news about the lakes you love. Go beyond the headlines with reporters from around the region who cover the lakes and drinking water issues. Find all the work HERE.
This month, The Catch features stories from “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash,” a collaborative project featuring the reporting work of students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications on Great Lakes Now and Energy News Network programs and websites.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/the-catch-lincoln-stone-quarry-coal-ash/
Broadcasting in our monthly PBS television program, The Catch is a Great Lakes Now series that brings you more news about the lakes you love. Go beyond the headlines with reporters from around the region who cover the lakes and drinking water issues. Find all the work HERE.
This month, The Catch features stories from “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash,” a collaborative project featuring the reporting work of students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications on Great Lakes Now and Energy News Network programs and websites.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/09/the-catch-bitcoin-mining-coal-ash/
This lesson will explore the phenomenon of coal ash contamination in groundwater and the threat it poses to Lake Michigan and other areas of the Great Lakes waterways. Students will learn about the history of coal ash disposal, the discovery of coal ash in groundwater, and efforts to address the problem.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/episode-2208-coal-ash-lesson-plan/
The amount of coal ash in the United States is hard to fathom. There are over 700 impoundments holding more than 2 billion cubic yards of ash — enough to cover the entire state of Pennsylvania one-half inch deep.
Coal ash includes heavy metals like chromium, arsenic and selenium — linked to higher rates of cancer and other diseases — that can leach into groundwater.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/reuse-divert-coal-ash-from-landfills-challenges-remain/
As the Great Lakes Now-Northwestern University journalism project “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash” continues to publish, Great Lakes Now producer Anna Sysling made a return to public radio to share more about the issue with Detroit audiences.
Sysling, who left WDET, Detroit’s NPR station last year to join Great Lakes Now full-time, spoke with Morning Edition Host Pat Batcheller about the project.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/great-lakes-now-anna-sysling-talks-poisonous-ponds/
Eighty-eight-year-old Hilda Barg hunched her shoulders and rested her forearms on her hardwood dining table, talking fiercely about coal ash contamination in her neighborhood. Barg, a lifelong resident and former supervisor of Prince William County, Virginia, is leading a local fight against how Dominion Energy — the state’s largest electric utility — is dealing with toxic coal ash at its Possum Point plant 3 miles from Barg’s home.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/excavate-toxic-coal-ash-question/
A special segment for Detroit Public Television’s public affairs program, “One Detroit,” features Great Lakes Now’s collaborative reporting project about coal ash.
A toxic substance, coal ash is what’s left over after burning coal. While the use of coal is declining across the Great Lakes region, the ash that remains from decades of producing energy with it is a problem.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/poisonous-ponds-featured-on-one-detroit-program/
Joliet, Illinois, a city of about 150,000 people southwest of Chicago, has long depended on a deep sandstone aquifer for drinking water – an increasingly strained resource that city officials hope to supplement with a billion-dollar pipeline from Lake Michigan.
But while this highly publicized search for a new source of municipal water unfolds, some residents who rely on private well water face a different threat.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/coal-ash-contaminating-groundwater-near-joliet-to-stay/
Just upstream of Alabama’s Mobile Bay sits a vast region of wetlands known as the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the United States. As well as 21 million cubic yards of wet coal ash.
The J.M. Barry Power Plant has been a flashpoint between environmental advocates and the state utility, Alabama Power, for years.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/climate-change-puts-coal-ash-impoundments-at-risk/
The village of Dresden is nestled amid charming vineyards and the placid blue waters of Seneca Lake, the largest of Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes.
Wineries, breweries, dairy farms, and state parks dot the lake’s shoreline, making it a picture-perfect vacation destination.
But for local residents, the three auburn-colored smokestacks of Greenidge Generation’s plant towering above the trees are an unnerving reminder that their natural resources are at risk.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/bitcoin-mining-plant-dirty-coal-ash-problem/
At almost 300 sites on the Great Lakes and coast to coast, unregulated buried and landfilled coal ash is putting water supplies at risk, alleges a federal lawsuit filed August 25.
This threat is in addition to contamination from up to 700 coal ash repositories that are covered by 2015 federal coal ash rules.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/08/unregulated-coal-ash-poses-brewing-threat-to-lake-michigan/
By Beth Edwards, Indiana Environmental Reporter
Some northern Indiana residents remain skeptical that communities in the area will be free of contamination from toxic coal ash, despite a renewed commitment by government agencies and one of the state’s biggest energy companies to clean up polluted sites and transition to renewable energy sources.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/04/indiana-residents-coal-ash-cleanup/
By Matthew Daly, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is taking its first major action to address toxic wastewater from coal-burning power plants, ordering utilities to stop dumping waste into unlined storage ponds and speed up plans to close leaking or otherwise dangerous coal ash sites.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/01/ap-epa-dangerous-coal-ash/
By Kari Lydersen
This story was republished with permission from Energy News Network.
Coal ash will remain in the ground at the site of a closing coal plant on the shores of Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Illinois.
Owner NRG explained its plans on Dec.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2021/12/historic-coal-ash-concerns/
By Kari Lydersen, Energy News Network, through the Institute for Nonprofit News network
Illinoisans voiced their fears about coal ash silently contaminating their drinking water, or coal ash impoundments failing and deluging rivers with toxic sludge, during public hearings this week.
It was the latest step in a years-long debate in Illinois, which has the nation’s second-highest number of contaminated coal ash sites, according to a 2011 study.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/08/illinois-coal-ash-rules-state-proposal/
