WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sierra Club submitted 33,647 public comments from its members and supporters to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today calling for the immediate implementation of the Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) compliance guidelines for coal-fired power plants - also known as the water toxics rule. These standards went into effect in 2015, but on June 6, Scott Pruitt’s EPA published notice of a rule to stay ELG compliance deadlines as the rule was being reviewed. This review period was widely seen by public health advocates, environmental organizations, and environmental justice groups as a ploy to weaken or scrap them at the urging of Pruitt’s polluter allies.
“These tens of thousands of comments are saying in one voice that industrial sludge from coal plants has no place in America’s drinking water supplies, and that EPA must fulfill its mission to protect communities from polluters,” said Mary Anne Hitt, Director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “These clean water protections should never have been delayed in the first place. It’s just common sense that coal plants should not be allowed to dump their sludge in our communities’ drinking water”.
The water toxics rules were strengthened in 2015 by the Obama Administration after scientists, policy experts, and environmentalists petitioned the government that the current protections were inadequate and hadn’t been updated in three decades. Before the standard was strengthened, the prior inadequate water toxics rules allowed coal-fired power plants to release billions of pounds of contaminated wastewater directly into rivers, lakes, and bays every year -- the nation’s single biggest source of toxic water pollution. Making matters worse, nearly 40 percent of all coal plants discharged toxic pollution within five miles of a downstream community’s drinking water intake.
“Scott Pruitt must listen to the people affected by his delay, follow the law, and allow the implementation of compliance guidelines to proceed on schedule,” Hitt continued. “Clean drinking water is a universal right and at the very foundation of the EPA’s mission. The Trump Administration must stop turning a blind eye to polluters and do its job, because failure to do so will put lives on the line.”
Scott Pruitt’s decision to delay, and possibly scrap, the new clean water protections could have grave consequences for communities living near coal plants - which dump toxic heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, and lead into local water supplies. These toxic heavy metals can cause a host of developmental issues in children and provide serious health risks to pregnant women. These health risks are what prompted the EPA decision to institute the stronger clean water safeguards, protections that Trump is now seeking to “review.”