From: Emily Enderle [mailto:eenderle@earthjustice.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 2:10 PM

Subject: Organizational CEO-level Sign on Letter to President Obama - Protect People from Toxic Coal Ash

Thank you all for your continued support on the coal ash issue. We hope your organizations will again join us in supporting another effort to protect people from this toxic waste.

EPA committed to releasing a rule regulating the disposal of toxic coal ash, the second largest industrial waste in the U.S., by the end of 2009. EPA did its part by submitting the rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in mid-October. OMB has taken more than five months to review the rule—an extraordinary length of time. During this time, OMB has had more than 30 meetings with industry groups, providing industry with unprecedented closed-door access. Additionally, the White House itself has met with industry groups on this topic. The longer this rule drags out, the more time industry has to instill fear in lawmakers and the public by wildly exaggerating the costs and impacts of the regulation. In the meantime, as the Administration delays, our communities and environment are put at risk from the devastating impacts of unsafe coal ash disposal.

In this letter, the CEOs of Earthjustice, NRDC, Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark-Atlanta University, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Southern Environmental Law Center, Environmental Integrity Project and Sierra Club, are asking President Obama to stand by his Administration's principles - to allow science not industry to decide, provide a transparent process that enables the public to participate in a meaningful way, and protect people and their environment from toxic waste.

To sign on, please email your CEO-level sign on information to Jeremy Graham at Earthjustice (jgraham@earthjustice.org) by Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Also, it'd be much appreciated if you'd circulate this to your networks.

On behalf of our millions of members and supporters, we urge you to protect communities across this nation from the widespread mismanagement of coal combustion waste that endangers public health and the environment – and for which there are no current federal regulations.

Following the disastrous spill of more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in December 2008, 109 directors of environmental groups called upon EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to develop federally enforceable standards for regulating coal combustion waste. Shortly thereafter, Administrator Jackson pledged to publish a regulatory proposal by December 2009. In keeping with her commitment, Administrator Jackson submitted a draft coal ash rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in October 2009—but over five months later, this rule remains under review at OMB. The undersigned [number of] public interest groups ask you to side with the public and sound science to ensure a rule that protects people and the environment is released in April.

Continued delay in the issuance of federal regulations for the disposal of the 136 million tons of toxic coal combustion waste generated annually is dangerous and unacceptable. Unmitigated harm, often to poor and minority communities, continues to threaten the lives and environment of millions of Americans. Communities near America’s thousands of coal ash dumps are threatened with poisoned drinking water, polluted waterways, and life-threatening failures of decades-old dams. The failure to act makes another catastrophic failure, like the disaster in Kingston, ever more likely, and it makes the poisoning of additional water sources a near certainty.

Releasing the draft rule would trigger the public process of rulemaking, thereby ensuring a fair and open process in which all stakeholders have an equal opportunity to address the complexities of the proposed rule. Until the draft rule is released for public comment, the debate occurs almost entirely behind closed doors. Industry groups that oppose mandatory federal standards have had more than 30 meetings with OMB on this rule – more than ever before on any single topic. These groups continue to present unfounded claims of power plant closures and exaggerated cost estimates as “fact,” thereby fomenting widespread but unwarranted fear of EPA regulations.

One of the issues industry is using to slow down the rulemaking process is the argument that the regulation of coal combustion waste will place a stigma on the recycling of fly ash. We believe this argument is overstated. Our groups support the beneficial use of fly ash. We do not expect the reuse of fly ash to decrease if the disposal of ash is regulated as hazardous waste. On the contrary, companies will be able to avoid the hazardous waste requirements by using coal ash beneficially. Therefore, we think coal ash regulation will promote more beneficial use. However, if the coal ash is not going to be reused or recycled, then it needs to be disposed of following tailored hazardous waste rules.

The EPA’s latest scientific findings lend urgency to the promulgation of federally enforceable standards. New EPA leach tests, specifically designed for coal ash, reveal that toxic chemicals such as arsenic, chromium and selenium, can leak from coal combustion waste in concentrations far exceeding the threshold that the EPA uses to identify hazardous waste. The EPA also found that the cancer risk for children exposed to arsenic in drinking water from unlined ash ponds is as high as 1 in 50, which is 2,000 times the EPA's goal of reducing cancer risk to 1 in 100,000 individuals.

Further, leading coal combustion waste (CCW) scientists, with more than 100 years of combined research experience on the environmental fate and toxic impacts of coal ash, recommend federally enforceable standards. Drs. E. Dennis Lemly and Christopher Rowe, among others, recently submitted a letter to OMB stating “Make no mistake about it, CCW is a deadly poison to fish and wildlife, and a threat to human health when improperly managed.” They conclude:

Some of the most destructive and pressing environmental problems with CCW are not ‘in the distant past’ but are taking place NOW using ‘state approved’ disposal practices. Threats and impacts are not being addressed by the coal power industry and they will not go away. They will be a recurring, escalating problem unless adequate regulatory controls are put in place. State efforts are inadequate….federal regulatory oversight is necessary. Experience shows that CCW’s will need to carry a hazardous waste ‘C’ designation if they are to be regulated and disposed in a manner that will afford adequate protection to fish and wildlife, as well as humankind.

Thus the undersigned [number] public interest organizations, representing several million citizens, respectfully ask the Administration to release the proposed coal ash rule for public comment this month and to ensure that the rule proposes federally enforceable standards that will protect all United States citizens and their environment from a truly toxic substance.

--
Ryan Rittenhouse
Public Citizen Texas
1303 San Antonio St.
Austin, TX 78701
512-477-1155
www.CoalBlock.org

"If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly.
This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful, and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations."
- Nikola Tesla, 1915