GAO Report: Coal Combustion Residue and EPA Regulation Efforts

The US Government’s General Accounting Office (GAO) has released its report on the 22 December 2008 surface impoundment failure at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston, Tennessee facility. That failure released 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash across 300 acres. TVA nows estimates cleanup costs north of $1 billion, with final cleanup to be completed in the next two to three years. The GAO’s October/November 2009 report identifies the number and locations of coal ash surface impoundments in the United States; problems, if any, with the storage of coal ash, and how those problems are being addressed; and the type of federal oversight that exists for this segment and what, if any, issues need to be resolved. Read the full briefing here.