BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Dave Sehorn, left, of Pines, Ind., reacted as he was told by Kenneth Theisen of theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency that drinking-water wells in the area arepolluted. Theisen believes heavy metals in coal ash buried in a landfill and used asconstruction fill are to blame. Resident Jan Nona said communities need to bevigilant about where coal combustion waste goes. ‘‘If someone thinks ash can’tcause problems, I’ve got a bridge to sell them in San Francisco.’’

By JAMES BRUGGERS

jbruggers@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

IVEL, Ky. — The order was simple enough. An Eastern Kentucky mining company con-structing an ash landfill in 1993 in a mountainhollow near Ivel in Floyd County was requiredby the Kentucky Natural Resources and Envi-ronmental Protection Cabinet to install a syn-thetic liner.The result of a legal challenge from localresidents, the liner was intended to preventcontaminants in the ash from getting into theLevisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, whichsupplies drinking water to Pikeville in neigh-boring Pike County.Costain Coal, now operating as LodestarEnergy, installed the liner in Stratton Branchhollow and piled ash on it during the firststage of its dumping.But when it ran out of room and moved intothe second stage, the company placed ash di-rectly on bare ground farther up the hollow.State regulators did nothing to stop thedumping of ash beyond the liner because theoriginal order only covered the first stage,said George F. Gilbert, a high-ranking envi-ronmental engineer in the cabinet.That order, through the cabinet’s Office ofAdministrative Hearings, required that the lin-er extend only so far up the hollow, Gilbertsaid. It was signed by representatives of localresidents, the cabinet and the company, al-though never written into the company’s sepa-rate waste management permit.‘‘I assumed all parties knew that only thebottom part would get a liner,’’ Gilbert said,adding that a liner higher up wasn’t needed.‘‘The higher up you get, you have more soilbetween the bottom of the ash and the top ofthe groundwater.’’ Any pollutants from the ash ‘‘in theory’’ would be filtered by the dirt before they got tothe groundwater, he said.‘‘The state’s position is absurd,’’ counteredlawyer Tom FitzGerald, director of the envi-ronmental group Kentucky Resources Coun-cil, who, along with attorney Michael deBour-bon of Pikeville, helped negotiate the order.The state should have forced the companyto extend the liner, FitzGerald said.‘‘Our assumption was that liner would beextended if the facility was expanded,’’ Fitz-Gerald said. At the very least, state officials could haveinformed the Kentucky Resources Council ordeBourbon of the situation so local residentscould have had a chance to request a liner forthe dump’s second phase, FitzGerald said.Records on file in Frankfort show that stateofficials are coming around to FitzGerald’sposition that a liner is needed for the entirelandfill.In July 2001, Lodestar applied for a permitto extend the life of the ash landfill to 40 years from about 12 years. It intends to dumpa total of 14.7 million cubic yards of ash on 71acres, piled 600 feet high at its deepest point.The state intends to require the company toinstall a liner under all ash that will bedumped after the permit is approved, saidMark York, spokesman for the cabinet.In the past decade, there’s been a growingawareness that ash landfills can causegroundwater pollution problems, Gilbert said,adding that he’s not aware of such a problemat the Ivel fill.The plan will leave some ash in direct con-tact with the ground. The state doesn’t knowhow much ash rests on bare earth, Gilbertsaid, because the company’s permit did notrequire such accounting.Groundwater monitors around the landfill will be able to detect pollution if it occurs, York said.No decision will be made on Lodestar’s pro-posed landfill expansion until the Pikeville-based company, which is operating underChapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has found areplacement for $3.4 million in environmentalperformance bonds that the state consideredat risk of default, York said.Lodestar is working to secure the newbonds as part of its reorganization, said MikeFrancisco, a Lodestar vice president.The landfill expansion will be engineered tominimize any potential effect from the ashthat’s on bare ground, said Bill Justice, an en-gineer with Lodestar.But Justice said that neither the original lin-er nor the planned new one, to be constructeat a cost of $20 million, are needed becausthe ash is environmentally benign.‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no prob-lems,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t expect that tochange.’’

LANDFILL

E.Kentuckycompanyabletodumpashbeyondprotectiveliner

Coal ash: A big unknown

Prestonsburgrestonsburg

Prestonsburg

8080119

Bert T. CombsMountainParkway

114

PaintsvilleHazard

IVELVEL

IVEL

Pikeville

FLOYDCOUNTY

BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J

Louisvilleouisville

Louisville

AREAENLARGED

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNA

Bill Justice, a Lodestar Energy engineer, stood atop coal ash at a landfill in Ivel, Ky., thatthe company plans to expand. ‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no problems,’’ he said.

By JAMES BRUGGERS

jbruggers@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

The nation’s coal-fired power plants areproducing mountains of ash — more than100 million tons annually, fueling a debateover the environmental threat it poses. A byproduct of burned coal, coal ash issometimes converted for use in productssuch as wallboard and cement, but 70 per-cent ends up in landfills, settling ponds andold strip mines. Across the country, just one year’s worthof ash, placed on a football field, would ex-tend 11.1 miles high. And while the energy industry has longargued that the material is benign, with coalundergoing a national resurgence, environ-mental leaders are questioning anew the ex-tent to which coal ash and the traces of po-tentially toxic heavy metals contained in itthreaten groundwater supplies, streams, riv-ers, lakes and aquatic life.‘‘The regulation of coal ash is haphazardat best,’’ said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana con-sultant to the Boston-based Clean Air TaskForce — a nonprofit advocacy group — anda leading national critic of how power com-panies manage their ash.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-cy ‘‘has been asleep at the switch. The factis, (pollution from ash) is getting to people,and it’s been causing great impacts toaquatic systems,’’ Stant said.The issue of regulation is drawing in-creasing attention as power companies pro-pose a new generation of coal-fired plants,urged on by the Bush administration’s na-tional energy strategy. There are proposalsfor eight new coal plants in Kentucky andtwo in Indiana. With those plants, the two states are brac-ing for more ash — 6 million additional tons yearly in Kentucky alone, or about as muchas Indiana produces now. At the same time, regulations that governhow power companies manage combustion waste are inconsistent — and in some casesare all but non existent.Thirty families in the Northern Indianatown of Pines understand what’s at stake. An EPA emergency response team, led byon-site coordinator Kenneth Theisen, toldthem this summer that their private drink-ing-water wells are ruined — 15 years aftergovernment scientists first suggested that anearby ash landfill might be spreading pol-lution.Theisen said he believes a toxic plume ofheavy metals from power plant ash, buriedin the landfill and scattered around town asconstruction fill, is the likely culprit. EPA

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Lodestar Energy, a mining company, is putting coal ash in Stratton Branch, a hollow near Ivel, Ky. The landfill begins on the left and is being extended into the valley. The company used aprotective liner for the first stage of dumping but has placed ash directly on the ground in the second stage, raising concerns about groundwater contamination.

Somefeartoxicthreatinpowerplantwaste

See ASHPage 23, col. 1, this section

INSIDE

USES:

Coalash is usedin productsranging fromwallboard toconstructionfill tocement.

Page A18BACK ANDFORTH:

Under onearrangement,coal wasshipped toFloridaplants andthe wasteash sentback toKentucky.

Page A18RISKS:

Technologyhas reducedthe airpollutionfromburning coal,but somewonder if thedanger hasonly shifted.

Page A24

P E C I A L

E P O R T

F o u r - P a g e

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002

A17

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A18

RECYCLING

Coalashturnsupingrowingrangeofproducts

By JAMES BRUGGERS

jbruggers@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

At two new factories in NorthernKentucky, workers turn what wasonce waste from air pollution scrub-bers into wallboard for home andbusiness construction.Lafarge Gypsum and BBP Celotexhave added roughly 500 jobs whilekeeping more than 1.3 million tons ofcoal combustion waste out of landfillsand settling ponds each year.The wallboard plants — one inSilver Grove and the other in Carroll-ton — illustrate the trend in the elec-tric generating industry: finding moreways to put ash and scrubber sludgeto beneficial uses.‘‘Coal can be part of sustainable de-velopment in this country,’’ saidJames C. Hower, a scientist at theUniversity of Kentucky’s Center forApplied Energy Research and editorin chief of the International Journal ofCoal Geology. ‘‘There is so much thatcan be done with these byproducts.’’Nationally, 30 percent of roughly100 million tons of coal combustionwaste annually is put to so-called‘‘beneficial reuse’’ — practices thatcommonly carry broad exemptionsfrom environmental regulations.The amount of ash reused is in-creasing by about 3 percent a year,said David C. Goss, president of theAmerican Coal Ash Association.Indiana reuses about 29 percent ofthe ash it generates; Kentucky, 13 per-cent.Products include insulating glassbeads incorporated into heat shieldsof the space shuttles, an ingredient incement, and a substitute for dirt andgravel fill at construction sites. While some reuse practices can becontroversial — such as unscrutinizeduse of ash as construction fill —there’s broad support for methodsthat ensure the environment won’t beharmed.‘‘There are, in fact, legitimate bene-ficial uses of coal ash,’’ said longtimecoal industry watchdog Tom FitzGer-ald, director of the Kentucky Re-sources Council, an environmentalgroup. ‘‘The question is always, ‘Areyou managing the material in a waythat pollutants of concern will not mi-grate into the environment?’’’He cited one especially good exam-ple of the use of fly ash: as an ingredi-ent in Portland cement, a practice re-searched at the UK energy researchcenter. The practice is employed byJefferson County’s Cosmos CementCo., which uses ash from LG&E Ener-gy’s nearby Mill Creek generating sta-tion.The benefits could be significant,said Tom Robl, associate director ofthe UK energy research center. InKentucky, for example, ash substi-tutes for about 18 percent of cement,the binding agent in concrete. While coal-fired power plants aremajor sources of the greenhouse gascarbon dioxide, blamed in part forglobal warming, their ash can be usedto reduce greenhouse gas emissionsreleased from cement kilns, Robl said.The kilns release a ton of carbondioxide for every ton of cement that’smade.‘‘If we took all the concrete in thewhole world,’’ Robl said, ‘‘and we in-creased the substitution rate of fly ashfor Portland cement to a level of 50percent, we would reduce the amountof greenhouse gases by 750 milliontons, which would represent 25 per-cent of the emissions of all autos inthe world.’’The wallboard plants benefit fromchanges that LG&E Energy and Cin-ergy have made to some smokestackscrubbers that use ground-up lime-stone to remove sulfur dioxide — acomponent of acid rain. While older scrubbers produce anunusable waste product of calciumsulfite and calcium sulfate, the newerpollution control devices produce onlycalcium sulfate. With refining at theirpower plants, the companies can turncalcium sulfate into a high-grade syn-thetic gypsum.Four of LG&E Energy’s Kentuckyplants are producing gypsum — somesent to Carrollton, and some shippedby barge to New Orleans.‘‘We are the feedstock for them,’’said Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental af-fairs director for LG&E. ‘‘It means theavoidance of (gypsum) mining.’’The Wm. H. Zimmer GeneratingStation, located in Ohio near Cincin-nati and owned by Cinergy and twoother companies, supplies the SilverGrove wallboard manufacturing facili-ty in Campbell County. At LG&E’s Mill Creek generatingstation in Jefferson County, ash fromthe bottom of the plant’s boilers isscreened, sorted and tested for pollu-tion potential. The Metropolitan Sew-er District then uses it under andaround new sewer lines.‘‘It’s not just Uncle Phil driving upin a truck and loading this stuff in,’’Robl said. At LG&E-owned Western KentuckyEnergy’s Coleman Power Station inHawesville, UK is testing a technologyto turn ash in the plant’s rapidly fill-ing settling ponds back into energyand other products.Pond ash is excavated. The smallestparticles of carbon are separated andreburned with coal. Larger particlescan be used for other purposes, in-cluding as an absorbent material forenvironmental cleanups.The technology holds promise thatsettling ponds and landfills across thecountry, which together hold morethan 1.5 billion tons of coal plant waste, could someday be tapped foruseful products, Robl said.UK scientists have also helped toput the cinder back in cinder blocks. Air pollution controls in the 1970s and1980s left too much carbon in bottomash for the material to be used in cin-der blocks. So the industry changedto blocks of concrete.In recent years, the UK center has worked with Chara Environmental ofMadisonville to develop ways to re-move the carbon economically. Charanow markets a line of products madefrom coal combustion wastes.More ash isn’t reused for a varietyof reasons. Air pollution regulations haveprompted changes in how coal isburned, resulting in more impuritiesin ash that make the material harderto convert into commercial products. And some companies are con-cerned about the potential liability ofturning waste into commercial proj-ects, said Jim Roewer, executive di-rector of the Utility Solid Waste Ac-tivities Group, a consortium of utilityoperating companies.Further, it has been too easy to dis-pose of ash in landfills, ponds or oldmines, said Jeffrey Stant, an Indianaconsultant to the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force — a nonprofit advoca-cy group — and a critic of how powercompanies manage their ash.‘‘There is simply no financial incen-tive to recycle.’’Kentucky lags behind other statesin putting coal combustion waste toother uses, in part because many ofits power plants are remote, rais-ing transportation costs of ash,experts said.‘‘Sometimes it’s more effi-cient to landfill or disposeof the material,’’ ac-knowledged Goss, ofthe coal ash associ-ation.

Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental affairs director forLG&E Energy, said four LG&E power plants inKentucky use coal ash to produce gypsum.

SOURCE: U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY STATS, ANALYZED BY AMERICAN COALASH ASSOCIATION

U.S. ASHPRODUCTION, 2000*

1.Texas10.12.Ohio9.2

3. Kentucky 7.4

4.Pennsylvania6.5

5. Indiana 5.9

6.West Virginia5.77.Oklahoma4.38.New Mexico3.99.North Carolina3.910.Florida3.5

State Tons

*Coal-fired plants operated by regulatedutilities only. Other coal ash is producedby merchant plants and industrial boilers.THE COURIER-JOURNALTHE COURIER-JOURNAL

WHERE COAL-FIREDPOWER PLANT ASHGOES

Pond

32.1%

Landfill

51%

Gypsumypsum

Gypsum

7.3%.3%

7.3%

Cement

1.2%

Struc. fill

3.2%

Blasting grit/ roof granules

4.8%

KENTUCKY TOTALS

Pond

21.6%

Landfill

48.7%

Gypsumypsum

Gypsum

3.1%.1%

3.1%

Cementement

Cement

10.5%0.5%

10.5%

Struc. filltruc. fill

Struc. fill

4.2%.2%

4.2%

Wastestabilization

1.9%

Blasting grit/ roof granules

2.1%

Ash(road base)

Other

4.9%

U.S. TOTALS

Other

0.4%

SOURCE: KENTUCKY NATURAL RESOURCE ANDENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION CABINET

YEAR 2000

Anti-skid material

Jack Groppo of UK’s Center forApplied Energy Research held aconstruction block made with coalcinders. The center worked on findingeconomical methods to remove carbonfrom the ash so that it could be usedin the blocks.

A ROUND-TRIP DEAL

Coal shipped to Florida power plants; waste ash returned to Kentucky

By JAMES BRUGGERS

jbruggers@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

When Florida residents a decadeago strongly objected to the prospectof two coal-fired power plants depos-iting waste ash locally, public offi-cials listened.They required that the ash beshipped back to the Kentucky miningcompany producing the coal as a re-quirement of the power plant con-struction permits.Lodestar Energy, of Pikeville, Ky.,agreed to take the waste ash backand now puts it in a mountain hollowit owns.This arrangement with Floridapower provider PG&E National Ener-gy Group is unique in Kentucky and,according to some, potentially trou-bling.Coalfield residents that bear theenvironmental brunt of mining aretaking a second hit from ash dispos-al, said Jerry Hardt, spokesman forKentuckians For The Common- wealth, an environmental group.‘‘If it (ash) is such a benign sub-stance, as we are led to believe,’’Hardt said, ‘‘why don’t they keep itin Florida and use it there?’’PG&E has been assured that theash is being disposed of in an envi-ronmentally responsible way, saidLisa Franklin, spokeswoman for thecompany.The arrangement had nothing todo with any differences in environ-mental laws between the states, shesaid. Florida environmentalists say,in fact, that their state’s ash-disposalregulations are among the most laxin the country.‘‘It was a matter of the countiesnot wanting the coal ash. They want-ed it sent back to the mine to be usedfor reclamation,’’ Franklin said. As it turns out, the mining com-pany doesn’t use the ash for reclama-tion.

Here’s what happens:

Coal mined from Lodestar’s Ken-tucky strip mines is shipped by railto a power plant at Indiantown insouth Florida. Rail cars returning toKentucky for more coal bring backthe ash, where it has been filling up theStratton Branch hollow for the pasteight years.Until last year, before Lodestar ob-tained bankruptcy protection andcanceled one of its contracts, thecompany also sent coal to a PG&Eplant in Jacksonville, Fla., and ac-cepted its ash.The coal company offered to ac-cept the ash as a way to secure long-term contracts with the power provider, said Bill Justice, a Lodestar en-gineer. He said it gave the companya marketing edge over other sourcesof coal and has helped the companyemploy 200 people in the region. When residents near Ivel, Ky., op-posed the landfill in the early 1990s,they weren’t upset that the ash camefrom out of state, said attorney Mi-chael deBourbon of Pikeville, whorepresented them. They were wor-ried about their water supply in theLevisa Fork of the Big Sandy River,he said.The landfill has not harmed theenvironment, and the coal jobs havebeen good for the region, said MikeFrancisco, vice president of Lodestar

Too often the coal industry is wrongly portrayed negatively, hesaid.

BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNA

Coal from Lodestar Energy’s Ivel, Ky., site is being shipped to a powerplant in Florida. The waste ash is then sent back to Kentucky.

PHOTOS BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Tom Robl, associate director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, discussed the properties of coal ash, whichhe says has beneficial uses. ‘‘If we took all the concrete in the whole world,’’ Robl said, ‘‘and we increased the substitution rate of fly ash forPortland cement to a level of 50 percent, we would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by 750 million tons.’’

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A23

tests at some homes near the landfillhave revealed boron levels 13 timeshigher than the agency uses to decidewhether federal money can be tappedfor remediation.High doses of boron can damagethe stomach, liver, kidneys and brain,according to the U.S. Agency for Tox-ic Substances and Disease Registry. When water was tested from aditch that flows next to the landfill, itshowed considerably higher levels ofpollutants than water tested upstreamfrom the landfill, he said.‘‘A coincidence? I don’t think so,’’heisen said.The company that owns the land-fill, Brown Inc. of Michigan City, de-clined to comment for this story. Re-gina D. Biddings, a spokeswoman forthe NIPSCO power plant that sent ashto the landfill, said her company wascooperating with the EPA team.‘‘If the landfill is contributing to thecommunity’s groundwater problem,the company will work with the land-fill operator, the community and stateand federal agencies to find the bestresolution,’’ Biddings said.The state of Indiana earlier thisyear proposed placing contaminatedsections of the town on the nation’sSuperfund list of most toxic places.‘‘I’m upset about the whole situa-tion,’’ said teacher Phyllis DaMota,who can easily see the privatelyowned landfill from her front yardand whose well water was the first tobe deemed unsafe to drink. ‘‘Agenciesthat are supposed to protect the pub-lic interest didn’t.’’ Activist Jan Nona, a retired steelmill secretary, said the lesson of hertown of 790 people is that communi-ties need to be vigilant about wherecoal combustion waste goes and howit’s monitored.‘‘If someone thinks ash can’t causeproblems, I’ve got a bridge to sellthem in San Francisco.’’The EPA two years ago stoppedshort of declaring coal ash a hazard-ous waste. The agency is developingdisposal standards that are scheduledto be released in early 2004.The regulators’ task won’t be easy,though. Despite the situation in Pines,there remains a contentious debateover the threat posed by coal ash.Industry leaders describe coal com-bustion waste as environmentally be-nign or nearly so.‘‘There are some very legitimateconcerns in certain situations, butgenerally there should not be concernfor heavy metals (washing) out ofcoal ash,’’ said Bill Caylor, executivedirector of the Kentucky Coal Associ-ation. ‘‘This public fear of heavy met-als is blown out of proportion.’’However, the critics are moving atleast some in government to suggestthat coal ash needs to be treated withmore caution.‘‘Even though certain regulationsare on the books, are they protec-tive?’’ asked Bob Logan, commission-er of the Kentucky Department forEnvironmental Protection. ‘‘We havealways had a question. Is this materialwhat it’s supposed to be?’’

Where’s the harm?

Typically, power plants put theirash in landfills or settling ponds. In-dustry officials say this is designed tokeep pollution from getting into theenvironment. At Cinergy’s Gallagher plant inNew Albany, Ind., for example, com-pany environmental managers pointvisitors to an egret that is fishing inone of two ash ponds, and say theponds, which drain into the Ohio Riv-er after ash has settled to the bottom,are coexisting well with nature.‘‘We’re monitoring so many ofthese facilities, and they’re showingno impact,’’ said R. James Meiers,coal combustion waste expert for Cin-ergy Power Generation Services.Some scientists back the industry’sassertions.‘‘You get the impression we aredrowning in the stuff,’’ said TomRobl, associate director of the Univer-sity of Kentucky’s Center for AppliedEnergy Research, which works close-ly with industry. ‘‘No, we are not,and is the material hazardous? Notreally.’’However, environmentalists andother scientists — typically biologistsor ecologists — point to a variety ofsites where ash has been blamed forpolluting water and in some casesharming aquatic life. With two other researchers, Wil-liam Hopkins of the University ofGeorgia’s Savannah River EcologyLab recently completed a survey ofmore than 300 reports on ash pondsand animal toxicity for the EPA. According to Hopkins, ash-settlingponds can be problematic for indig-enous aquatic organisms and thosethat use these sites seasonally.‘‘By building these large contami-nated wetlands, power plants are ac-tually attracting wildlife away fromsurrounding uncontaminated sites,’’he said.Coal combustion waste refers toseveral kinds of ash and other materi-als, including cinders, slag and bot-tom ash collected at the bottom of theboilers; fly ash collected from fluegases; and sludge from scrubbers de-signed to remove sulfur dioxide — acause of acid rain — from air emis-sions.The environmental questions arisefrom other natural elements in ash —small amounts of heavy metals ormetal-like substances, such as boron,selenium, arsenic and manganese.The effects of ash may be subtle ordrastic, from changes in blood chem-istry to birth defects to death, Hop-kins said.Most of the evidence of harm to wildlife came from eight power plantsites in such states as North Carolina,Texas and Wisconsin, Hopkins said.None of the studied sites were in Ken-tucky or Indiana. An internal EPA document fromMarch 2000 concluded there were 11cases of proven water pollution fromcoal waste in the United States — with none in Kentucky or Indiana.Environmental groups and scientistshired by them as consultants maintainthere are dozens more cases, includ-ing several in Indiana.Much of the problem involves olderlandfills or ponds, where ash hasbeen exposed to water for many years, said Donald S. Cherry, a pro-fessor of aquatic ecotoxicology at Vir-ginia Tech University, who conductedresearch for the Indianapolis-basedHoosier Environmental Council.‘‘The longer the fill sits therethrough time, there will be seepagedown-gradient,’’ Cherry said. ‘‘It’s just a matter of time.’’

States set own rules

For 25 years, the EPA has exempt-ed coal ash from its ‘‘hazardous waste’’ definition. This decision, which it ‘‘tentatively’’ reaffirmed two years ago, exempts the ash from morerestrictive and expensive disposalmethods, including detailed trackingof waste shipments, special liners andlong-term pollution monitoring.The absence of federal regulationsleaves each state to set its own rulesfor disposal. The result is a regulatoryhodgepodge, even within states.Consider that Kentucky — whichnow says that new ash or scrubbersludge landfills most likely will needstate-of-the-art plastic liners, watercollection systems, and pollutionmonitoring wells — permits powercompanies to put ash in ponds withno plastic liners and has no require-ment for groundwater monitoringnear or beneath the empoundments.Kentucky does require powerplants to test the effluent from ashponds for toxicity to fish. Indianadoes not.Randy Bird, project consultant forLexington-based EnviroPower, dis-agreed that the liner for the com-pany’s Kentucky Mountain Powerplant in Knott County was necessary.‘‘We agreed to line it just to expe-dite our permitting process. We didn’tfeel like we wanted to fight the bat-tle.’’Kentucky also prohibits the place-ment of ash in strip mine pits withinfour feet of the water table — a lawthat has virtually prevented the prac-tice.But it’s a different story in Indiana, where filling mines with ash hasraised the hackles of environmental-ists and some residents since the stateauthorized the practice in 1988. Theash can be dumped by itself or mixed with dirt directly in the water table,and with no long-term monitoring orlong-term financial assurances thatfuture pollution problems will be cor-rected.This worries Perry and Linda Dive-ly, and their neighbor, Ethel Zink.The three share a drinking-water well near the Black Beauty Coal Co.mine in southwestern Indiana near Pi-mento, south of Terre Haute. BlackBeauty has one permit to dump ashand is seeking a second one.‘‘If we don’t have water, we’re notgoing to have anything here,’’ Zinksaid. ‘I’ve never heard anything goodabout ash.’’Black Beauty officials referredquestions about mine-placement ofash to Nat Noland, president of theIndiana Coal Council.It’s important that Indiana coalcompanies be allowed to return ash tomines, because some power compa-nies don’t have enough space for thematerial, Noland said.This is something that Illinois al-lows, and Indiana coal companiesneed an even playing field with itscompetitors across the state line, hesaid.In addition, the practice has provedto be safe, Noland said.Indiana Department of Natural Re-sources officials agree with Noland’sassessment.The relatively impermeable soil onthe bottom and sides of the strip minepits will slow the movement of anypotential contaminants, said BruceStevens, director of the DNR’s Divi-sion of Reclamation.‘‘We look and see where people’sdrinking-water wells are,’’ Stevenssaid. ‘‘We are going to err on the sideof caution.’’The well shared by Zink and theDivelys ‘‘is a mile away from thenearest mining,’’ Stevens said. ‘‘Their well supply won’t be impacted.’’But Roland Baker, a neighbor, saidnobody is worried about the wells go-ing bad in just a year or two. ‘‘It maynot take until our grandkids,’’ he said.‘‘But by then, nobody will be respon-sible.’’

Construction fillconcerns

Environmentalists are also worriedabout one increasingly popular use ofash as construction fill.Kentucky and Indiana allow any volume of ash to be used this way,requiring neither liners nor groundwater monitoring.Some cities, with rugged terrainand few buildable flat surfaces, aregrateful for what amounts to free ornearly free construction material frompower plants. Wilder, Ky., south of Cincinnati,has used ash extensively for several years for construction sites along theLicking River — even within theboundaries of the 100-year floodplain.‘‘If we thought there was anythinghazardous, we wouldn’t have donethis,’’ said Terry Vance, city adminis-trator. ‘‘So far it’s worked out prettygood.’’Indiana lawmakers have grantedthese legislatively defined ‘‘beneficialreuses’’ of ash a complete exemptionfrom environmental laws, said BrucePalin, deputy assistant commissionerfor the Indiana Department of Envi-ronmental Management’s Office ofLand Quality.Palin said he knows of no abuses.In Kentucky, power plants must re-port once a year how much of theirash goes to beneficial uses and identi-fy them.But there’s no requirement thatpower plants, haulers or building con-tractors file any advance notice soregulators can make sure the dump-ing follows proper engineering princi-ples and is not merely being done toavoid the cost of using a landfill.There’s also no requirement thatthe companies obtain a permit thatassures the construction fill will bedesigned to prevent pollution.Hancock County Judge-Executive Jack B. McCaslin discovered howloose the beneficial-use regulations were last year, when a constituentcomplained about ash dumped oneight acres of rural land in his West-ern Kentucky county.The property was being filled sothe landowner could put up a storagebuilding, McCaslin said.But the ash pile looked like an opendump to him, so he contacted the environmental protection cabinet. Thecabinet stepped in and stopped West-ern Kentucky Energy, filing a noticeof violation.The fill was too large in relation tothe size of the building, said Ron Gru-zesky, environmental engineeringbranch manager in the cabinet’s Divi-sion of Waste Management.LG&E Energy, the parent companyof Western Energy, said in a letterfrom its legal staff to state officialsthat it had done nothing wrong withthe Hancock County ash. The com-pany said the Hancock project waslike many others the state allowed.The company later decided not toproceed with the project, said CarylPfeiffer, environmental affairs direc-tor for LG&E Energy.McCaslin said the state never would have known about the dump-ing if he hadn’t called. ‘‘I know wegotta have power. But I think the stateneeds to get a better handle on thisstuff.’’State officials agreed with McCas-lin’s assessment. Absent a permit-approval process,sometimes inspectors must rely ontips from the public or local officials,said Bill Burger, manager of the waste management division’s field op-erations branch. As a remedy, the agency has re-cently recommended that powerplants and their haulers come to itfirst with their construction fill plans— even if the law doesn’t require it.‘‘For the majority of cases, individ-uals are coming to us ahead of time,’’said Robert Daniell, director of the waste management division.Using ash for construction fill is alegitimate practice and one that theEPA wants to encourage, said DennisRuddy, the EPA’s point person oncoal waste issues. But that’s only ifash is tested in advance for potentialtoxicity, and if its placement is engi-neered to minimize its contact with water, he said.‘‘If you back up a dump truck andfill up a hollow with no pre-planningand engineering ... that is what weare trying to avoid.’’

An eye to the future

EPA officials came close to classify-ing ash destined for landfills, pondsor strip mines as hazardous two yearago, after it found that 86 percent ogroundwater samples taken near aslandfills contained arsenic levelmore than 10 times the EPA’s nehealth standard.The determination could have costhe industry hundreds of millions, inot several billions, of dollars. In theend, the draft decision that woulhave done so was reversed after in-dustry lobbying.EPA officials still intend to proposea national rule on ash disposal tomake sure that states follow a set ominimum protections, Ruddy said.‘‘We’re trying to keep track o where you put it for future genera-tions,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re trying to prevent future problems.’’He acknowledged that the rulemight call for long-term monitoring oash landfills and places where ash idumped in strip mines. With mine-filling, he said, the gov-ernment may require companies topost environmental performancebonds that extend for decades, ensur-ing a pot of money to pay for futureremediation.Originally, the EPA promised i would release the draft rules nex year. It has since moved the deadlineback to early 2004 because of a neefor additional analyses, he said.Indiana’s Natural Resources Com-mission in July preliminarily ap-proved the state’s groundwater pro-tection standards. The DNR also an-nounced it will seek a per-ton chargefor ash dumped in old strip mines toraise money for future environmentacleanups if they’re needed.The groundwater standards alsomay force restrictions on ash ponds,said Tim Method, deputy commission-er for the Indiana environmentamanagement department.‘‘We are going through a process toidentify any activities that currentlare not regulated or are under-regu-lated,’’ Method said. ‘‘Ash pond would fall on that list.’’The moves address only some othe critics’ concerns.The coal industry will likely fighany tax on ash disposal, said Nolanof the Indiana Coal Council.‘‘We are so close to seeing what theEPA is going to recommend to thestates,’’ he said. ‘‘To get ahead of theEPA at this point does not make a loof sense.’’Kentucky’s environmental protec-tion has called for several changes,among them:

Ω

The establishment of statewidegroundwater standards.

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Groundwater monitoring at alash ponds.

Ω

Greater scrutiny of ash wheused as construction fill, includingroundwater monitoring.Patton administration officials havelittle hope that the General Assembl will tighten the rules on coal ash. Toomany people in Kentucky think envi-ronmental regulations have gone toofar and are too costly, said Logan, theenvironmental protection departmencommissioner. So his cabinet is look-ing at what can be done within exist-ing laws, he said.Regulators may not need to loofurther than the state’s new poweplant siting law, which requires great-er scrutiny of new power plants.‘‘The legislature made it clear thaif (new) plants are going to site herein the state, they will be expected topay the full cost of doing busineshere,’’ said Tom FitzGerald, directoof the environmental group KentuckResources Council, who helped writethe bill. ‘‘They can’t shift those cost... by undermanaging their wastes.’’

BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J

LAKEMICHIGAN

MICHIGAN

I L L I N O I S

AREASHOWN

IndianapolisLouisville

INDIANANDIANA

INDIANA

Chicagohicago

Chicago

Garyary

Gary

TOWN OF PINESOWN OF PINES

TOWN OF PINES

80659490

BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL

‘‘Agencies that are supposed to protect the public interest didn’t,’’ said Phyllis DaMota, whose well water inPines, Ind., was ruled unsafe to drink. Her home is within sight of a landfill where tests have found high levelsof boron, which can be toxic. The Environmental Protection Agency is supplying her with bottled water.

MAP BY STEVE DURBIN,THE COURIER-JOURNAL

✖

✖✖

✖

ASH PONDS ASH LANDFILLS ASH MINE-FILLS

COALCOMBUSTIONWASTEDISPOSAL

Coal-fired powerplants dispose of ashand othercombustion wastes insettling ponds andlandfills, andsometimes bysending it to oldstrip mines.

✖

INDIANANDIANA

I N D I A N A

KENTUCKYENTUCKY

K E N T U C K Y

W a b a s h R i v e r

W h i t e R i v e r

Greenreen

Green

Riveriver

River

Kentuckyentucky

Kentucky

Riveriver

River

O h i o R i v e r

Big Sandyig Sandy

Big Sandy

Riveriver

River

Cumberlandumberland

Cumberland

Riveriver

River

Source: Indiana Department ofEnvironmental Management andKentucky Natural Resources andEnvironmental Protection Cabinet

Louisvilleouisville

Louisville

sh from coal-fired plantsunder increasing scrutiny

Top viewUndersideResearch on tadpole development in coal ash ponds at the University ofGeorgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory has linked deformities withheavy metals in the water.

COAL ASH RESEARCH

NORMALTADPOLEDEFORMEDTADPOLE

SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY BY DEVON MORGAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Continued from Page A17

BY DEVON MORGAN, THE C-J

COAL COMBUSTION WASTEPLACED IN INDIANA SURFACEMINES SINCE 1989 (in tons)

’8989

’89

’9090

’90

’9191

’91