Coal Ash Regulations

Mark Wilson, writing for the Courier Press, notes that an EPA report released in March 2009 concluded people who live near coal ash storage ponds with no protective liner have a 1-in-50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic. Burning coal for energy is an intensive, environmentally challenging operation–and the United States uses billions of tons of coal per year. The waste produced in production must be stored. And those reservoirs are, as of yet, not regulated in the way municipal solid waste is.