Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
lutants in coal ash are uncertain. EPA data show a disturbingly high
cancer risk for up to one out of every fi fty Americans living near wet
ponds used to dispose of ash and scrubber sludge from coal-fi red
power plants in the United States. In 2000 the EPA said it wanted to
set a national standard for these holding ponds but has since backed
away from regulating the wastes because of fi erce opposition from
the coal industry and utilities.
42
As a result, coal ash ponds are subject
to less regulation than landfi lls accepting household trash. This may
soon change. The current EPA administrator planned to issue new coal
ash regulations by the end of 2009, but they had not appeared by
mid-2010.
An excellent example of the diffi culty of passing needed legislation in
Congress is provided by the public's expressed desire to decrease the use
of highly polluting coal. California gets only 1 percent of its electricity
from coal-fi red plants. A congressional representative from the state
proposed a climate change plan in 2009 that would put a price on carbon
dioxide emissions, a concept of charging for pollution favored by the
Obama administration in Washington. Coal-producing states and states
that rely heavily on coal-fi red power plants are opposed to the California
bill because it would harm their economies. West Virginia, Indiana,
Kentucky, and Wyoming are among the most dependent on coal, with
more than 90 percent of their electricity generated in-state coming from
coal-burning plants. They, the Midwest, and the Plains states will lead
the opposition to the bill. As an executive at a large coal-producing
company noted, California, the Northwest, and New England are the
ones driving the legislation because they're the ones that aren't going to
have to pay for it. As these three groups of states have many fewer than
half the votes in the House of Representatives, the bill from the Califor-
nia congressman faces an uphill battle.
Legislating changes in entrenched but outmoded ways of doing things
is always diffi cult, whether it is the American habit of eating meat and
dairy products, driving gas-guzzling cars, eliminating the use of pesticides
in agriculture, or decreasing the use of polluting energy sources. If voters
do not make such changes the most important consideration in their
voting choices for representation in their local, state and federal govern-
ments, change is unlikely to happen.
Mercury
Coal-burning plants are the largest source of mercury in the atmo-
sphere.
43
Perhaps half of the mercury spreads considerable distances,
