Community | October 13, 2009 | 32 comments

US Coal Plants Dump Thousands of Gallons of Waste Into Drinking Water Supplies a Day

source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/coal-plants-dump-thousands-gallons-waste-drinking-wa...

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pjacobs51
Why is anyone fighting to save these things again? A detailed report in the New York Times just revealed that hundreds of coal plants across the country are routinely dumping thousands of gallons of waste water into rivers and lakes--rivers and lakes that millions of people get their drinking water from.

So here's why all that dumping is going on, in a nutshell--coal plants, as you well know, are extremely heavy polluters. Some plants pollute so heavily, some even spewing sickly yellow smoke, that little coal waste chunks litter nearby residents' yards and coat their property in a thin film. So when a community gets tired of this--and gets sick of the respiratory illnesses and intermittent acid rain the plant creates as well--sometimes they're able to get the state to insist on stricter pollution regulations.

If they're lucky, as in the case of the super-polluting coal plant in Masontown, Pennsylvania, they're successful, and the coal company installs 'scrubbers' that trap up to 150,000 tons of the pollution and keep it from entering the air. Hooray! Right?

Not so fast. Since the scrubbing process creates waste water from all that pollution, it turns out that the coal companies are simply dumping all of into nearby rivers and lakes, many of which Americans get their drinking water from.

And if you're anything like me, you're first reaction will be something like, "how the hell are they allowed to do that?" The answer is, oftentimes they're not. But they're getting away with it unpunished. You see, there's no federal regulation--at all--that specifically determines how much, if any, waste coal plants can dump into water sources. There are state regulations, and restrictions set by the Clean Water Act, but the Times found that while the plants are receiving notices for violations, nothing is being done about it:

Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators.

It also notes those few plants that have had to pay fines--but they're egregiously low, even for excessive violations:

Hatfield's Ferry has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006. For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plant's parent company earned $1.1 billion.

In other cases, there's no existing framework at all to prevent companies from dumping harmful chemicals. This, for example, is particularly alarming:

only one in 43 power plants and other electric utilities across the nation must limit how much barium they dump into nearby waterways ... Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

The atrocities go on and on. No wonder coal companies are balking at the prospect of limiting their pollution under a climate bill--they're evidently entirely unfamiliar with taking the environment and/or people's health into account at all. So allow me to hark back to my opening question: coal plants pollute the air, give people heart and respiratory problems, contribute to climate change, and now, dump tons of dangerous waste into our drinking water every day. Why is anyone trying to save these things?
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    Environment,  Toxicity,  Water contamination,  Coal Plants
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32 comments // US Coal Plants Dump Thousands of Gallons of Waste Into Drinking Water Supplies a Day

  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  

    • Coal burning power plants can be easily changed to natural gas. Just take out the grates in the furnaces, and replace them with gas burners---sort of like a giant kitchen stove.

      Nothing else needs to change, boilers, turbines, generators, condensers, buildings, controls, electrical grid.........everyting else stays the same.

      Go to your local utility board meetings, and make you voice heard. Tell them you want the utilties to be required to change to natural gas. Let your elected officials know also. If enough people demand it, things will have to change.

      Oh, and by the way---no air pollution---it is clean enough to cook with inside your home----and no strip mines.

    • 2 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  

    • Looks like that great man the world sees as President gets to see that great man more than America does.

      It's his watch now and he lets things like this float around....

      I think they should do what was done in that one movie and offer bottled water for free to all Coal Mine owners and then after they show appreciation tell them where it comes from....that fresh, spring yummy river water they dump in. MmmMMm Contagious.

    • 2 years ago
  • zack
    • 0
      zack  
    • Image

    • Socialistic Regulation is in order in a market place out of control.

      Corporate Fascism. The will of the corporation is done, By the buying of legislation in favor of corporate ideals, and Enforced on the people by the government.

      Socialist Regulation. The will of the people is Enforced on the market place and the Corporate entity by the might of the government.

    • 2 years ago
  • twohawks
    • 0
      twohawks  
    • Image

    • In related news...
      A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal

      By BRENDA NORRELL

      Former chairmen of the Hopi Nation have revealed that the Hopi Tribal Council has been taken over by a pro-Peabody Coal faction. Further, Hopi reveal that the tribe’s attorney and the media are being used to carry out Peabody Coal’s agenda.

      Peabody Coal used the same tactic originally to seize Black Mesa for coal mining and bring about Navajo relocation for coal mining, by way of attorney John Boyden, who worked for Peabody and the Hopi Tribe. The media was also coopted in the original seizure of Black Mesa by Peabody Coal, with the media cheerleading and proclaiming the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute.

    • 2 years ago
  • twohawks
    • 0
      twohawks  
    • Image
    • twohawks:

      And if you are SW Native American, its not just about the damned coal...
      (shameless soapboxing,.. but how much do you really know, or want to know, about it?...)

      Contamination threatens Hopi water supply
      http://jackcentral.com/news/2008/09/contamination-threatens-hopi-water-supply/
      A series of studies conducted by consultants of the Hopi tribe and Navajo Nation show uranium contamination within 100 feet of water supply wells that provide all the drinking water to the village of Lower Moencopi. In addition, contamination is within 2,000 feet of the water supply spring that provides all the drinking water to the village of Upper Moenkopi. As of the 2000 census, the two villages are home to 901 people.

      Sharon Masek-Lopez, a hydrologist for the Hopi Water Resources Program, said the consequences of this contamination would be severe.

      --------------------------------------------------
      Havasupai Gather to Halt Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon
      http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/08/americas-havasupai-gather-to-halt.html
      Indigenous Havasupai people held a gathering to stop uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and protect ancestral Havasupai Territory, at the south rim of the Grand Canyon, in July of 2009. Indigenous peoples and activists came from the four directions, from Arizona Hopi land and from as far away as Hawaii, to participate with sacred songs and ceremonies.

      --------------------------------------------------
      The High Cost of Uranium in Navajoland (in depth)
      http://www.ratical.org/radiation/UraniumInNavLand.html
      About half the recoverable uranium within the United States lies within New Mexico -- and about half of that is beneath the Navajo Nation. As in South Dakota, many Navajos have come to oppose the mining, joining forces with non-Indians who regard nuclear power-plants and arms proliferation as a twofold menace.

      --------------------------------------------------
      Woven Ways
      http://www.wovenways.org/film.html
      Black Mesa isn’t the only area of the reservation affected by coal mining. The valley that stretches from Shiprock to Gallup traps deadly toxins emitted daily from six of nation’s dirtiest coal power plants. While the six coal plants located in the Four Corners region contribute just 7% of the country’s annual coal power production, the combined yearly CO2 emissions from these plants amounts to more than half the total CO2 emitted in the entire United States. Outrageously high incidences of cancer, respiratory disease, and birth defects now add to the health and social challenges that plague the Navajo.

    • 2 years ago
  • twohawks
    • 0
      twohawks  
    • twohawks:

      Oh yeah, if you were to ask me why I think this is even relevant to this posting, this would somewhat represent why...

      Manufacturing Thirst: The Hidden Water Costs of Our Industrial Economy
      http://www.forestcouncil.org/tims_picks/view.php?id=1414

      ......
      Water Equals Power

      Nothing gets manufactured without electricity -- and manufacturing electricity often requires water. Power generation is the thirstiest sector of the industrial economy, slurping up 195 billion gallons per day, according to the USGS. While about a third of this is saline (either ocean water or brackish groundwater), the rest is freshwater from lakes and rivers.

      About 70 percent of US electricity comes from coal and nuclear plants, each of which produce power by heating water to make steam, which spins a turbine. Typical coal-burning or nuclear power plants have "open" or "closed" cooling systems. Closed systems reuse the same water multiple times and therefore require much less water. An open system runs water just once through the plant and then returns it to the source. In plants that use "once-through" water systems, the water is returned to the lake, ocean, or river it came from about 30 degrees warmer.

      This increase in water temperature can cause fish kills, algae blooms, or otherwise greatly alter the natural biological makeup of the water body. Meanwhile, the intake pipes for such open cooling systems can be lethal for fish and aquatic microorganisms; electricity plants must sometimes be shut down when the pipes are clogged by fish, debris, or ice. Nuclear energy is an especially water-intensive technology.

      A 1,400-megawatt nuclear reactor requires enough water to fill 5,000 Olympic swimming pools per year, according to a 2006 Australian study. The study, commissioned by the Queensland government, warns that the country's severe drought could be exacerbated by building more nuclear power plants, which use about 25 percent more water than coal plants. The Union of Concerned Scientists calls nuclear power plants' need for water "insatiable."

      The mining of the coal and uranium needed to feed these electricity stations is also highly destructive to local water sources. Until it was shut down by a lawsuit in 2005, the infamous Peabody Western Coal Company used precious groundwater from the dry Navajo and Hopi Nations to mix with pulverized coal and piped the slurry all the way from its Black Mesa mine in Arizona 275 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada. In Appalachia, many residents are no longer able to drink from their wells because blasting for coal has fractured their water tables and left their wells dangerously contaminated.
      ............

      ***Oh yeah, and you shold know that Peabody got a new lease ;^)

    • 2 years ago
  • spacemikey
    • 0
      spacemikey [removed]  

    • This can't be true? What with those recent "clean" coal commercials, how could it be? You mean people even buy up ad time on television just to fill your head with shit?

      Besides I thought the worse thing the coal industry did was practice mountain top removal really near to, and just over top of small Appalachian towns? And I was okay with that. I mean a light shower of coal dust, chunks, fragments, and dynamite residue on a bunch of hillbillies everyday was okay....

      But really they're polluting the water for the rest of us too? And here I thought there blatant disregard for life only applied to hillbillies....

    • 2 years ago
  • dudefromtherock
  • JanforGore
  • tommic
    • 0
      tommic  

    • Profits over people

      The new mantra should be people over profits every time you e mail your congressman or senator close your letter with the mantra

      People over profits

      And if you do not write your congressman or senator start today or stop bitching about everything

      tommic

    • 2 years ago
  • Jjjjason7
  • elementaljim
  • twohawks
  • CalgarC
  • sasquatch88
    • 0
      sasquatch88  

    • Whats the difference between a Corporate Company breaking regulations "laws", and a law abiding citizen protecting his family....with violence.
      Honestly with the shit you see and hear on TV these days, I am surprised to hear no one is attempting to physically harm or destroy these plants.
      I mean if the EPA isn't doing anything, who will?
      ...maybe a 20yr old with cancer and nothing else to live for???

    • 2 years ago
  • primalscreamer
  • patrickpants
  • patrickpants
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • how long ago did we climb out of the cave? all this time and we are still burning carbon for light....... dont wade in the water children !

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  

    • Yeah, but if we don't let them poison us, it will hurt industry.

      We wouldn't want to damage profits, would we?

      I'm willing to get cancer for coal profits!

      Who's with me!

    • 2 years ago
  • J_Jammer
  • H20LESS
    • 0
      H20LESS  

    • I agree, this makes me angry if anything. NO COAL, NO CLEAN COAL. I gotta better chance of seeing the tooth fairy before I see clean coal.

    • 2 years ago
  • larrysnotes
  • Skulldragger
    • 0
      Skulldragger  
    • larrysnotes:

      Actually that is Charcoal (made by burning off everything but the carbon from wood) not Coal dug from the ground containing all kinds of crap. You would not come up with clean water using Coal at all. It would be better filtered through dirt!

      I do agree that their are many other media which are better suited to the task however.

    • 2 years ago
  • RuthRuthless
  • monimoni
  • lookatmypix
  • pjacobs51
  • larrysnotes
  • J_Jammer
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • Check out this alarming map of coal plants around the nation that have violated environmental regulations but are going unpunished.

    • 2 years ago
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