Kentucky coal-ash dumping tracked by hidden cameras

by Renee Lewis March 17, 2014 11:05PM ET

Environmental groups allege dumping is illegal, plan to sue company they say is responsible for ‘continuous’ discharge

A Google Earth image that the Sierra Club on Monday, saying it shows illegal coal-ash dumping into the Ohio River by Louisville Gas & Electric.

Sierra Club handout/Google Image

Environmental groups announced their intent to sue a Kentucky coal ash plant for “unabated” dumping into the Ohio River on Monday, after a hidden camera they set up captured alleged illegal discharges of chemicals by the company.

“We deserve clean water,” Thomas Pearce, regional organizer for the Sierra Club in western Kentucky, told Al Jazeera. “We’re calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to put forward more stringent guidelines for coal ash because states aren’t policing it. Look at North Carolina and the Duke spill.”

The allegations against Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) are the latest in a series of controversies over coal-ash dumping. Last month, Duke Energy, the country’s largest electricity provider, spilled 35 million gallons of toxic coal-ash slurry into the Dan River. Coal ash contains high levels of arsenic, lead, selenium and other heavy metals that the EPA says can cause cancer, birth defects and respiratory problems.

The Sierra Club and EarthJustice say their soon-to-be-filed lawsuit against LG&E is based on time-lapse photography from a camera they strapped to a tree. The camera captured a year’s worth of images showing “dangerous” coal ash wastewater being dumped continuously into the Ohio River.

A spokesperson for LG&E said Monday the company hasn’t received the environmental groups’ notice of intent and won’t comment on pending litigation.

The photos, along with Google Earth satellite images from 1993 to the present collected by the groups, will be used to support the environmentalists' claims that LG&E has violated the federal Clean Water Act and the terms of the utility’s own permit — which allows for only “occasional” discharge into the river.

“It’s a violation of their permit under the Clean Water Act … our photos were taken every three seconds for a year,” Pearce said. “If you look at the photos, it’s not an occasional discharge, it’s a steady stream coming out of the coal ash containment pond … every day, all day, all night.”

Now that the groups have filed notice of intent, LG&E has 60 days to remediate the problem. If, at the end of that period, the problem remains, Pearce said the lawsuit will go forward.

The Kentucky Division of Water, responsible for protecting and managing local water resources, told local media Monday that it doesn’t believe the company’s discharges violated the company’s permit.

“The discharge reflected in photos contained in news stories today and as referenced in the NOI (notice of intent) is a legally permitted discharge. While the permit description and narrative of the fact sheet describe the direct discharge component of outfall 002 to the Ohio River as ‘occasional,’ the permit effluent requirements do not restrict the frequency of the discharge. Consequently there is no violation of the permit,” the Division of Water said.

Pearce said, “We are not surprised by the Kentucky Division of Water’s response, and we’ll take that up in court.”

EPA preparing to unleash a deluge of new regulations (Call 

Duck Dynasty!!)

Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property.

On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone.

The EPA is currently crafting 134 major and minor regulations, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending regulations originate from the agency’s air and radiation office, including carbon-dioxide-emission limits on power plants. Carbon-dioxide limits are a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. The EPA is set to set emissions limits that would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they use carbon capture and sequestration technology. Next year, the agency will move to limit emissions from existing power plants — which could put more older coal plants out of commission.

“The proposed standards, if finalized, will establish achievable limits of carbon pollution per megawatt hour for all future units, moving the nation towards a cleaner and more efficient energy future,” the agency said in its agenda. “In 2014, EPA intends to propose standards of performance for greenhouse gas emissions from existing and modified power plant sources.”

Hundreds of coal plants that have been closed or slated for early retirement due to Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to coal industry estimates.

“Already, EPA regulations have contributed to the closure of more than 300 coal units in 33 states,” said Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

However, the agency isn’t just working on limiting emissions from coal plants. The EPA is also working on a rule that would expand the definition of “waters of the U.S.” under the Clean Water Act to include water on private property.

Republicans have hammered the EPA’s draft water rule as the largest expansion of agency power in history.

“The EPA’s draft water rule is a massive power grab of private property across the U.S. This could be the largest expansion of EPA regulatory authority ever,” Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith. “If the draft rule is approved, it would allow the EPA to regulate virtually every body of water in the United States, including private and public lakes, ponds and streams.”

The EPA’s rule is heavily supported by environmentalists who argue that it’s necessary to protecting water quality. Smaller water sources, they argue, eventually affect larger water sources that people use for recreation or their livelihood.

“It’s taking the way the Clean Water Act works back, so that it works the way water works in the real world,” Bob Wendelgass, president and CEO of Clean Water Action, told Fox News.

The EPA says the rule is needed to clear up uncertainty left in the wake of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the agency’s regulatory authority over bodies of water.

“The [Clean Water Act] does not distinguish among programs as to what constitutes ‘waters of the United States,’” the agency said. “As a result, these decisions affect the geographic scope of all [Clean Water Act] programs.”

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