Impacted Illinois Residents Fly to DC, Testify Against Scott Pruitt’s Rollbacks of Coal Ash Protections

Washington, DC -- Residents from Central Illinois testified before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) yesterday in strong opposition to proposed rollbacks to federal coal ash pollution rules.

USEPA Head Scott Pruitt’s new proposal to weaken the already modest federal clean water protections from toxic coal ash endangers the health of the 1.5 million children that live near coal ash storage sites. Illinois has seventy-five coal ash impoundments across the state. These sites contain some of the most toxic chemicals on earth - like arsenic, lead, mercury, and chromium - which raise the risk for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can inflict permanent brain damage on children. Proposed rollbacks not only cede the authority to monitor pollution to polluters themselves, but also will curtail local residents’ ability to hold companies accountable for damaging local water supplies.

“Scott Pruitt is rewriting the rules to benefit his big coal lobbyist friends. Here in Illinois, Governor Rauner’s IEPA is trying to rewrite the state rules to pad profits for his friends in big coal. Companies like Dynegy-Vistra are only looking out for  their shareholders and our elected officials are refusing to stand up to protect our families,” said Rachel O'Reilly of Peoria, home to the E.D. Edwards plant owned by Dynegy-Vistra.

Recent Illinois groundwater data reported in March showed 15 Illinois coal plant sites with groundwater contamination. Additionally, the Vermillion River was recently named one of the most endangered rivers in the U.S. due to leaching coal ash from Dynegy’s closed Vermillion coal plant. The Vermillion coal plant, shut down in 2011 by Texas based Dynegy because of “poor plant economics that do not favor continued operations.” The federal coal ash rule now being rolled back by the Trump Administration, has been criticized as too lenient for its lack of enforcement measures and exemption of coal ash ponds at shuttered plants, like the ones at Vermillion.

Beginning in 2013, Illinois environmental organizations sought stronger state coal ash protections to fill these gaps in the federal rule, such as the Vermillion exemption, only to be stymied by the Rauner Administration. Rauner’s Illinois EPA dramatically scaled back the new proposed protections in July of 2016 which have since languished without action before the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

“When a plant shuts down, Illinois communities are stuck with the cost. Governor Rauner is pushing backdoor bailouts, like Dynegy-Vistra’s proposed changes to Illinois’ air pollution rules, and obstructing stronger state coal ash protections. We need leaders to be demanding protections for workers and making sure that coal ash messes are notleft to taxpayers to clean up. Instead he’s following in Scott Pruitt’s footsteps and helping his friends at big coal companies cash out,” said Sierra Club Illinois Director Jack Darin.

Texas-based companies Dynegy and Vistra just merged in a deal worth $20 billion. The move has raised red flags about their Illinois coal fleet’s claimed financial instability. Financial hardship that threatened to close coal plants was the company’s primary excuse for needing bailouts. However, since the merger, Dynegy-Vistra has minced few words when it comes to coal investments.

“I don't believe [coal] is going to have a renaissance,” Vistra CEO Curtis Morgan said in a recent CNBC interview. “I think it's on its way out." In February, Vistra Energy, shut down three huge coal plants in Texas "because they just couldn't make it in today's world."