Melissa Williams, melissa.williams@sierraclub.org
ATLANTA, Ga. — EPA today proposed giving Georgia control over its own coal ash permitting program, further gutting oversight and protections for the public health and safety of Georgia’s families and children.
EPA Director Andrew Wheeler, who formerly enjoyed a long career as a lobbyist for corporate polluters, is doubling down on his refusal to carry out the agency’s stated mission to protect human and environmental health. Today’s announcement comes just days after EPA released its Dirty Power Plan—an illegal and deadly replacement of the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever safeguards for communities against carbon pollution from existing power plants.
Meanwhile, Georgia is one of the top coal ash-generating states in the country, producing more than 6 millions tons of coal ash every year. And for many years, the state has also been a dumping ground for coal ash from Florida and the Carolinas.
Yet, the Peach State also has some of the weakest coal ash disposal regulations in the nation, and doesn’t even prohibit the siting of coal ash landfills and ponds directly in the water table. A December report released by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice found that 11 of Georgia’s 12 coal-fired power plants have contaminated groundwater with one or more toxic pollutants.
Coal ash contains some of the most dangerous known toxic chemicals on earth—like arsenic, lead and mercury—which raise the risk for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can inflict permanent brain damage on children.
EPA will take public comment for 60 days upon publication in the Federal Register and will hold a public hearing on Aug. 6 in Atlanta.
In response, Stephen Stetson, senior representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Georgia, released the following statement:
“It’s profoundly dangerous for this EPA to allow a patchwork of state rules to protect our drinking water from the repositories of ash that are being left in place around Georgia. All of these ash sites should be excavated and moved to dry, lined landfills, and we’ve got to have strong federal rules that prevent vulnerable communities from being dumped on. And we also obviously need to quit burning coal in the first place, and cut off this problem at the source.”
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