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Coal ash: A big unknown
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 a
protective liner for the first stage of dumping but has placed ash directly on the ground in the second stage, raising concerns about groundwater contamination.
Dave Sehorn, left, of Pines, Ind., reacted as he was told by Kenneth Theisen of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that drinking-water wells in the area are
polluted. Theisen believes heavy metals in coal ash buried in a landfill and used as
construction fill are to blame. Resident Jan Nona said communities need to be
vigilant about where coal combustion waste goes. ‘‘If someone thinks ash can’t
cause problems, I’ve got a bridge to sell them in San Francisco.’’
LANDFILL
E. Kentucky company able to dump ash beyond protective liner
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 mountain
hollow near Ivel in Floyd County was required
by the Kentucky Natural Resources and Envi-
ronmental Protection Cabinet to install a syn-
thetic liner.
The result of a legal challenge from local
residents, the liner was intended to prevent
contaminants in the ash from getting into the
Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, which
supplies drinking water to Pikeville in neigh-
boring Pike County.
Costain Coal, now operating as Lodestar
Energy, installed the liner in Stratton Branch
hollow and piled ash on it during the first
stage of its dumping.
But when it ran out of room and moved into
the second stage, the company placed ash di-
rectly on bare ground farther up the hollow.
State regulators did nothing to stop the
dumping of ash beyond the liner because the
original 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 of
Administrative Hearings, required that the lin-
er extend only so far up the hollow, Gilbert
said. It was signed by representatives of local
residents, 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 the
BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL
bottom part would get a liner,’’ Gilbert said,
adding that a liner higher up wasn’t needed.
‘‘The higher up you get, you have more soil
between the bottom of the ash and the top of
the groundwater.’’
Any pollutants from the ash ‘‘in theory’’
would be filtered by the dirt before they got to
the groundwater, he said.
‘‘The state’s position is absurd,’’ countered
lawyer 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 company
to extend the liner, FitzGerald said.
‘‘Our assumption was that liner would be
extended if the facility was expanded,’’ Fitz-
Gerald said.
At the very least, state officials could have
informed the Kentucky Resources Council or
deBourbon of the situation so local residents
could have had a chance to request a liner for
the dump’s second phase, FitzGerald said.
Records on file in Frankfort show that state
officials are coming around to FitzGerald’s
position that a liner is needed for the entire
landfill.
In July 2001, Lodestar applied for a permit
to extend the life of the ash landfill to 40
years from about 12 years. It intends to dump
a total of 14.7 million cubic yards of ash on 71
acres, piled 600 feet high at its deepest point.
The state intends to require the company to
install a liner under all ash that will be
dumped after the permit is approved, said
Mark York, spokesman for the cabinet.
In the past decade, there’s been a growing
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002
BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
Some fear toxic threat INSIDE
USES: Coal
ash is used
in power plant waste in products
ranging from
wallboard to
construction
fill to
By JAMES BRUGGERS and it’s been causing great impacts to cement.
jbruggers@courier-journal.com aquatic systems,’’ Stant said. Page A18
The Courier-Journal The issue of regulation is drawing in- BACK AND
creasing attention as power companies pro- FORTH:
The nation’s coal-fired power plants are pose a new generation of coal-fired plants,
producing mountains of ash — more than urged on by the Bush administration’s na-
Under one
100 million tons annually, fueling a debate tional energy strategy. There are proposals arrangement,
over the environmental threat it poses. for eight new coal plants in Kentucky and coal was
A byproduct of burned coal, coal ash is two in Indiana. shipped to
sometimes converted for use in products With those plants, the two states are brac- Florida
such as wallboard and cement, but 70 per- ing for more ash — 6 million additional tons plants and
cent ends up in landfills, settling ponds and yearly in Kentucky alone, or about as much the waste
old strip mines. as Indiana produces now. ash sent
Across the country, just one year’s worth At the same time, regulations that govern back to
of ash, placed on a football field, would ex- how power companies manage combustion Kentucky.
tend 11.1 miles high. waste are inconsistent — and in some cases Page A18
And while the energy industry has long are all but non existent. RISKS:
argued that the material is benign, with coal Thirty families in the Northern Indiana
undergoing a national resurgence, environ- town of Pines understand what’s at stake. Technology
mental leaders are questioning anew the ex- An EPA emergency response team, led by has reduced
tent to which coal ash and the traces of po- on-site coordinator Kenneth Theisen, told the air
tentially toxic heavy metals contained in it them this summer that their private drink- pollution
threaten groundwater supplies, streams, riv- ing-water wells are ruined — 15 years after from
ers, lakes and aquatic life. government scientists first suggested that a burning coal,
‘‘The regulation of coal ash is haphazard nearby ash landfill might be spreading pol- but some
at best,’’ said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana con- lution. wonder if the
sultant to the Boston-based Clean Air Task Theisen said he believes a toxic plume of danger has
Force — a nonprofit advocacy group — and heavy metals from power plant ash, buried only shifted.
a leading national critic of how power com- in the landfill and scattered around town as Page A24
panies manage their ash. construction fill, is the likely culprit. EPA
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-
cy ‘‘has been asleep at the switch. The fact See ASH
is, (pollution from ash) is getting to people, Page 23, col. 1, this section
Paintsville
114
Bert T. Combs Prestonsburg
Mountain
Parkway
IVEL
FLOYD 80
119
COUNTY 80
Pikeville
80
80
Hazard Louisville
AREA
ENLARGED
BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J
awareness that ash landfills can cause
groundwater pollution problems, Gilbert said,
adding that he’s not aware of such a problem BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
at the Ivel fill. Bill Justice, a Lodestar Energy engineer, stood atop coal ash at a landfill in Ivel, Ky., that
The plan will leave some ash in direct con- the company plans to expand. ‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no problems,’’ he said.
tact with the ground. The state doesn’t know
how much ash rests on bare earth, Gilbert Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has found a that’s on bare ground, said Bill Justice, an en-
said, because the company’s permit did not replacement for $3.4 million in environmental gineer with Lodestar.
require such accounting. performance bonds that the state considered But Justice said that neither the original lin-
Groundwater monitors around the landfill at risk of default, York said. er nor the planned new one, to be constructed
will be able to detect pollution if it occurs, Lodestar is working to secure the new at a cost of $20 million, are needed because
York said. bonds as part of its reorganization, said Mike the ash is environmentally benign.
No decision will be made on Lodestar’s pro- Francisco, a Lodestar vice president. ‘‘We’ve been here eight years, and no prob-
posed landfill expansion until the Pikeville- The landfill expansion will be engineered to lems,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t expect that to
based company, which is operating under minimize any potential effect from the ash change.’’
 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A18

RECYCLING

Coal ash turns up in growing range of products

By JAMES BRUGGERS
jbruggers@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
At two new factories in Northern
Kentucky, workers turn what was
once waste from air pollution scrub-
bers into wallboard for home and
business construction.
Lafarge Gypsum and BBP Celotex
have added roughly 500 jobs while
keeping more than 1.3 million tons of
coal combustion waste out of landfills
and settling ponds each year.
The wallboard plants — one in
Silver Grove and the other in Carroll-
ton — illustrate the trend in the elec-
tric generating industry: finding more
ways to put ash and scrubber sludge
to beneficial uses.
‘‘Coal can be part of sustainable de-
velopment in this country,’’ said
James C. Hower, a scientist at the
University of Kentucky’s Center for
Applied Energy Research and editor
in chief of the International Journal of
Coal Geology. ‘‘There is so much that
can be done with these byproducts.’’
Nationally, 30 percent of roughly
100 million tons of coal combustion
waste annually is put to so-called
‘‘beneficial reuse’’ — practices that
commonly carry broad exemptions
from environmental regulations.
The amount of ash reused is in-
creasing by about 3 percent a year,
said David C. Goss, president of the
American Coal Ash Association.
Indiana reuses about 29 percent of
the ash it generates; Kentucky, 13 per-
cent.
Products include insulating glass
beads incorporated into heat shields
of the space shuttles, an ingredient in
cement, and a substitute for dirt and
gravel fill at construction sites.
While some reuse practices can be
controversial — such as unscrutinized
use of ash as construction fill —
there’s broad support for methods
that ensure the environment won’t be
harmed.
‘‘There are, in fact, legitimate bene-
ficial uses of coal ash,’’ said longtime
coal industry watchdog Tom FitzGer-
ald, director of the Kentucky Re-
sources Council, an environmental
group. ‘‘The question is always, ‘Are
you managing the material in a way
that 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 research
center. The practice is employed by
Jefferson County’s Cosmos Cement
Co., 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 of
the UK energy research center. In
Kentucky, for example, ash substi-
tutes for about 18 percent of cement,
the binding agent in concrete.
While coal-fired power plants are
major sources of the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide, blamed in part for
global warming, their ash can be used
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
released from cement kilns, Robl said.
The kilns release a ton of carbon
dioxide for every ton of cement that’s
made.
‘‘If we took all the concrete in the
whole world,’’ Robl said, ‘‘and we in-
creased the substitution rate of fly ash
for Portland cement to a level of 50
percent, we would reduce the amount
of greenhouse gases by 750 million
tons, which would represent 25 per-
cent of the emissions of all autos in
the world.’’
The wallboard plants benefit from
changes that LG&E Energy and Cin-
ergy have made to some smokestack
scrubbers that use ground-up lime-
stone to remove sulfur dioxide — a
component of acid rain.
While older scrubbers produce an
unusable waste product of calcium
sulfite and calcium sulfate, the newer
pollution control devices produce only
calcium sulfate. With refining at their
power plants, the companies can turn
calcium sulfate into a high-grade syn-
thetic gypsum.
Four of LG&E Energy’s Kentucky
plants are producing gypsum — some
sent to Carrollton, and some shipped
by barge to New Orleans.
WHERE COAL-FIRED
POWER PLANT ASH
GOES
YEAR 2000
KENTUCKY TOTALS
Struc. fill Blasting grit/
3.2% roof granules
4.8%
Cement Other
1.2% 0.4%
Gypsum
7.3%
Pond
32.1%
Landfill
51%
U.S. TOTALS
Blasting grit/ Ash
roof granules (road base)
2.1% 2%
Anti-skid material
Waste 1%
stabilization Other
1.9% 4.9%
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, which
he 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 for Struc. fill
Portland cement to a level of 50 percent, we would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases by 750 million tons.’’ 4.2% Pond
21.6%
Cement
‘‘We are the feedstock for them,’’ 10.5%
said Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental af-
fairs director for LG&E. ‘‘It means the Gypsum
avoidance of (gypsum) mining.’’ 3.1% Landfill
The Wm. H. Zimmer Generating 48.7%
Station, located in Ohio near Cincin-
nati and owned by Cinergy and two
other companies, supplies the Silver
Grove wallboard manufacturing facili-
ty in Campbell County. SOURCE: KENTUCKY NATURAL RESOURCE AND
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION CABINET
At LG&E’s Mill Creek generating
station in Jefferson County, ash from THE COURIER-JOURNAL
the bottom of the plant’s boilers is
screened, sorted and tested for pollu-
tion potential. The Metropolitan Sew- U.S. ASH
er District then uses it under and
around new sewer lines. PRODUCTION, 2000*
‘‘It’s not just Uncle Phil driving up State Tons
in a truck and loading this stuff in,’’
Robl said. 1. Texas 10.1
At LG&E-owned Western Kentucky 2. Ohio 9.2
Energy’s Coleman Power Station in 3. Kentucky 7.4
Hawesville, UK is testing a technology Caryl Pfeiffer, environmental affairs director for 4. Pennsylvania 6.5
to turn ash in the plant’s rapidly fill- LG&E Energy, said four LG&E power plants in 5. Indiana 5.9
ing settling ponds back into energy Kentucky use coal ash to produce gypsum.
and other products. 6. West Virginia 5.7
Pond ash is excavated. The smallest Air Task Force — a nonprofit advoca- 7. Oklahoma 4.3
particles of carbon are separated and cy group — and a critic of how power 8. New Mexico 3.9
reburned with coal. Larger particles companies manage their ash. 9. North Carolina 3.9
can be used for other purposes, in- ‘‘There is simply no financial incen- 10. Florida 3.5
cluding as an absorbent material for tive to recycle.’’ *Coal-fired plants operated by regulated
environmental cleanups. Kentucky lags behind other states utilities only. Other coal ash is produced
The technology holds promise that in putting coal combustion waste to by merchant plants and industrial boilers.
settling ponds and landfills across the other uses, in part because many of SOURCE: U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY
country, which together hold more its power plants are remote, rais- STATS, ANALYZED BY AMERICAN COAL
ASH ASSOCIATION
than 1.5 billion tons of coal plant ing transportation costs of ash,
waste, could someday be tapped for experts said. THE COURIER-JOURNAL
useful products, Robl said. ‘‘Sometimes it’s more effi-
UK scientists have also helped to cient to landfill or dispose
put the cinder back in cinder blocks. of the material,’’ ac-
Air pollution controls in the 1970s and knowledged Goss, of
1980s left too much carbon in bottom the coal ash associ-
ash for the material to be used in cin- ation.
der blocks. So the industry changed
to blocks of concrete.
In recent years, the UK center has
worked with Chara Environmental of
Madisonville to develop ways to re-
move the carbon economically. Chara
now markets a line of products made
from coal combustion wastes.
More ash isn’t reused for a variety
of reasons.
Air pollution regulations have
prompted changes in how coal is
burned, resulting in more impurities
in ash that make the material harder
to convert into commercial products.
And some companies are con-
cerned about the potential liability of
turning waste into commercial proj-
ects, said Jim Roewer, executive di-
rector of the Utility Solid Waste Ac- Jack Groppo of UK’s Center for
tivities Group, a consortium of utility Applied Energy Research held a
operating companies. construction block made with coal
Further, it has been too easy to dis- cinders. The center worked on finding
pose of ash in landfills, ponds or old economical methods to remove carbon
mines, said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana from the ash so that it could be used
consultant to the Boston-based Clean in 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 decade
ago strongly objected to the prospect
of two coal-fired power plants depos-
iting waste ash locally, public offi-
cials listened.
They required that the ash be
shipped back to the Kentucky mining
company 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 back
and now puts it in a mountain hollow
it owns.
This arrangement with Florida
power provider PG&E National Ener-
gy Group is unique in Kentucky and,
according to some, potentially trou-
bling.
Coalfield residents that bear the
environmental brunt of mining are
taking a second hit from ash dispos-
al, said Jerry Hardt, spokesman for
Kentuckians 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 it
in Florida and use it there?’’
PG&E has been assured that the
ash is being disposed of in an envi-
ronmentally responsible way, said
Lisa Franklin, spokeswoman for the
company.
The arrangement had nothing to
do with any differences in environ-
mental laws between the states, she
said. Florida environmentalists say,
in fact, that their state’s ash-disposal
regulations are among the most lax
in the country.
‘‘It was a matter of the counties
not wanting the coal ash. They want-
ed it sent back to the mine to be used
for 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 rail
to a power plant at Indiantown in
south Florida. Rail cars returning to
Kentucky for more coal bring back
the ash, where it has been filling up the
Stratton Branch hollow for the past
eight years.
Until last year, before Lodestar ob-
tained bankruptcy protection and
canceled one of its contracts, the
company also sent coal to a PG&E
plant 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 pro-
vider, said Bill Justice, a Lodestar en-
gineer. He said it gave the company
a marketing edge over other sources
of coal and has helped the company
employ 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 came
from out of state, said attorney Mi-
chael deBourbon of Pikeville, who
represented them. They were wor-
ried about their water supply in the
Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River,
he said.
The landfill has not harmed the
environment, and the coal jobs have
been good for the region, said Mike
Francisco, vice president of Lodestar.
Too often the coal industry is BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
wrongly portrayed negatively, he Coal from Lodestar Energy’s Ivel, Ky., site is being shipped to a power
said. plant in Florida. The waste ash is then sent back to Kentucky.
 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A23

COAL ✖
COMBUSTION ASH PONDS
WASTE
DISPOSAL ✖ ASH LANDFILLS
ASH MINE-FILLS
Coal-fired power I N D I A N A
plants dispose of ash
and other
combustion wastes in
settling ponds and Source: Indiana Department of
landfills, and Environmental Management and

ver
Kentucky Natural Resources and
sometimes by Environmental Protection Cabinet

sh Ri
sending it to old
strip mines.

Waba
MAP BY STEVE DURBIN,
THE COURIER-JOURNAL

r
✖

ive
eR
✖

it
Wh
✖ ✖
✖
✖
✖ Kentucky

Ri hio
✖ River

r
ve
O
Louisville ✖ Big Sandy
BY DURELL HALL JR., THE COURIER-JOURNAL
‘‘Agencies that are supposed to protect the public interest didn’t,’’ said Phyllis DaMota, whose well water in
✖ ✖ River

Pines, Ind., was ruled unsafe to drink. Her home is within sight of a landfill where tests have found high levels
✖
of boron, which can be toxic. The Environmental Protection Agency is supplying her with bottled water.
✖✖ K E N T U C K Y ✖
✖
Ash from coal-fired plants ✖
✖
Green
River Cumberland
River
✖

under increasing scrutiny

Continued from Page A17 power plants. or strip mines as hazardous two years
LAKE Wilder, Ky., south of Cincinnati, ago, after it found that 86 percent of
MICHIGAN 94
MICHIGAN COAL COMBUSTION WASTE has used ash extensively for several groundwater samples taken near ash
tests at some homes near the landfill Chicago
have revealed boron levels 13 times Chicago 80 90 PLACED IN INDIANA SURFACE years for construction sites along the landfills contained arsenic levels
Licking River — even within the
higher than the agency uses to decide TOWN
TOWN OF
OF PINES
PINES MINES SINCE 1989 (in tons) boundaries of the 100-year flood
more than 10 times the EPA’s new
whether federal money can be tapped Gary
Gary plain. health standard.
for remediation. The determination could have cost
High doses of boron can damage ‘‘If we thought there was anything
AREA hazardous, we wouldn’t have done the industry hundreds of millions, if
the stomach, liver, kidneys and brain, 65
SHOWN this,’’ said Terry Vance, city adminis- not several billions, of dollars. In the
ILLINOIS

according to the U.S. Agency for Tox-

ic Substances and Disease Registry. INDIANA trator. ‘‘So far it’s worked out pretty end, the draft decision that would
INDIANA good.’’
1,097,540

1,093,235

When water was tested from a have done so was reversed after in-
ditch that flows next to the landfill, it Indiana lawmakers have granted dustry lobbying.
Indianapolis
4,293,320

showed considerably higher levels of these legislatively defined ‘‘beneficial EPA officials still intend to propose
pollutants than water tested upstream reuses’’ of ash a complete exemption
from environmental laws, said Bruce a national rule on ash disposal to
from the landfill, he said.
270,364

254,806

320,000

185,942

150,804

148,908

292,388

274,072

205,261

Palin, deputy assistant commissioner make sure that states follow a set of
‘‘A coincidence? I don’t think so,’’ minimum protections, Ruddy said.
for the Indiana Department of Envi-
Theisen said. Louisville ‘‘We’re trying to keep track of
ronmental Management’s Office of
The company that owns the land-
0

fill, Brown Inc. of Michigan City, de-
clined to comment for this story. Re-
gina D. Biddings, a spokeswoman for
the NIPSCO power plant that sent ash
to the landfill, said her company was
cooperating with the EPA team.
‘‘If the landfill is contributing to the
community’s groundwater problem,
the company will work with the land-
fill operator, the community and state
and federal agencies to find the best
resolution,’’ Biddings said.
The state of Indiana earlier this
year proposed placing contaminated
sections of the town on the nation’s
Superfund list of most toxic places.
‘‘I’m upset about the whole situa-
tion,’’ said teacher Phyllis DaMota,
who can easily see the privately
owned landfill from her front yard
and whose well water was the first to
be deemed unsafe to drink. ‘‘Agencies
that are supposed to protect the pub-
lic interest didn’t.’’
Activist Jan Nona, a retired steel
mill secretary, said the lesson of her
town of 790 people is that communi-
ties need to be vigilant about where
coal combustion waste goes and how
it’s monitored.
‘‘If someone thinks ash can’t cause
problems, I’ve got a bridge to sell
them in San Francisco.’’
The EPA two years ago stopped
short of declaring coal ash a hazard-
ous waste. The agency is developing
disposal standards that are scheduled
to be released in early 2004.
The regulators’ task won’t be easy,
though. Despite the situation in Pines,
there remains a contentious debate
over the threat posed by coal ash.
Industry leaders describe coal com-
bustion waste as environmentally be-
nign or nearly so.
‘‘There are some very legitimate
concerns in certain situations, but
generally there should not be concern
for heavy metals (washing) out of
coal ash,’’ said Bill Caylor, executive
director of the Kentucky Coal Associ-
ation. ‘‘This public fear of heavy met-
als is blown out of proportion.’’
However, the critics are moving at
least some in government to suggest
that coal ash needs to be treated with
more caution.
‘‘Even though certain regulations
are on the books, are they protec-
tive?’’ asked Bob Logan, commission-
er of the Kentucky Department for
Environmental Protection. ‘‘We have
always had a question. Is this material
what it’s supposed to be?’’
Where’s the harm?
Typically, power plants put their
ash in landfills or settling ponds. In-
dustry officials say this is designed to
keep pollution from getting into the
environment.
At Cinergy’s Gallagher plant in
New Albany, Ind., for example, com-
pany environmental managers point
visitors to an egret that is fishing in
one of two ash ponds, and say the
ponds, which drain into the Ohio Riv-
er after ash has settled to the bottom,
are coexisting well with nature.
‘‘We’re monitoring so many of
these facilities, and they’re showing
no impact,’’ said R. James Meiers,
coal combustion waste expert for Cin-
ergy Power Generation Services.
Some scientists back the industry’s
assertions.
‘‘You get the impression we are
drowning in the stuff,’’ said Tom
BY STEVE DURBIN, THE C-J
Robl, associate director of the Univer-
sity of Kentucky’s Center for Applied
Energy Research, which works close-
ly with industry. ‘‘No, we are not,
and is the material hazardous? Not
really.’’
However, environmentalists and
other scientists — typically biologists
or ecologists — point to a variety of
sites where ash has been blamed for
polluting water and in some cases
harming aquatic life.
With two other researchers, Wil-
liam Hopkins of the University of
Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology
Lab recently completed a survey of
more than 300 reports on ash ponds
and animal toxicity for the EPA.
According to Hopkins, ash-settling
ponds can be problematic for indig-
enous aquatic organisms and those
that use these sites seasonally.
‘‘By building these large contami-
nated wetlands, power plants are ac-
tually attracting wildlife away from
surrounding uncontaminated sites,’’
he said.
Coal combustion waste refers to
several kinds of ash and other materi-
als, including cinders, slag and bot-
tom ash collected at the bottom of the
boilers; fly ash collected from flue
gases; and sludge from scrubbers de-
signed to remove sulfur dioxide — a
cause of acid rain — from air emis-
sions.
The environmental questions arise
from other natural elements in ash —
small amounts of heavy metals or
metal-like substances, such as boron,
selenium, arsenic and manganese.
The effects of ash may be subtle or
drastic, 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 plant
sites 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 from
March 2000 concluded there were 11
cases of proven water pollution from
coal waste in the United States —
with none in Kentucky or Indiana.
Environmental groups and scientists
hired by them as consultants maintain
there are dozens more cases, includ-
ing several in Indiana.
Much of the problem involves older
landfills or ponds, where ash has
been exposed to water for many
years, said Donald S. Cherry, a pro-
fessor of aquatic ecotoxicology at Vir-
ginia Tech University, who conducted
research for the Indianapolis-based
Hoosier Environmental Council.
‘‘The longer the fill sits there
through time, there will be seepage
down-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 more
restrictive and expensive disposal
methods, including detailed tracking
of waste shipments, special liners and
long-term pollution monitoring.
The absence of federal regulations
leaves each state to set its own rules
for disposal. The result is a regulatory
’89 ’90 ’91 ’92 ’93 ’94 ’95
*1st quarter
INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
COAL ASH RESEARCH
Research on tadpole development in coal ash ponds at the University of
Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory has linked deformities with
heavy metals in the water.
NORMAL
TADPOLE
SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY
hodgepodge, even within states.
Consider that Kentucky — which
now says that new ash or scrubber
sludge landfills most likely will need
state-of-the-art plastic liners, water
collection systems, and pollution
monitoring wells — permits power
companies to put ash in ponds with
no plastic liners and has no require-
ment for groundwater monitoring
near or beneath the empoundments.
Kentucky does require power
plants to test the effluent from ash
ponds for toxicity to fish. Indiana
does not.
Randy Bird, project consultant for
Lexington-based EnviroPower, dis-
agreed that the liner for the com-
pany’s Kentucky Mountain Power
plant in Knott County was necessary.
‘‘We agreed to line it just to expe-
dite our permitting process. We didn’t
feel like we wanted to fight the bat-
tle.’’
Kentucky also prohibits the place-
ment of ash in strip mine pits within
four feet of the water table — a law
that has virtually prevented the prac-
tice.
But it’s a different story in Indiana,
where filling mines with ash has
raised the hackles of environmental-
ists and some residents since the state
authorized the practice in 1988. The
ash can be dumped by itself or mixed
with dirt directly in the water table,
and with no long-term monitoring or
long-term financial assurances that
future 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. Black
Beauty has one permit to dump ash
and is seeking a second one.
‘‘If we don’t have water, we’re not
going to have anything here,’’ Zink
said. ‘I’ve never heard anything good
about ash.’’
Black Beauty officials referred
’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01
BY DEVON MORGAN, THE C-J
DEFORMED
TADPOLE
Top view
BY DEVON MORGAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
questions about mine-placement of
ash to Nat Noland, president of the
Indiana Coal Council.
It’s important that Indiana coal
companies be allowed to return ash to
mines, because some power compa-
nies don’t have enough space for the
material, Noland said.
This is something that Illinois al-
lows, and Indiana coal companies
need an even playing field with its
competitors across the state line, he
said.
In addition, the practice has proved
to be safe, Noland said.
Indiana Department of Natural Re-
sources officials agree with Noland’s
assessment.
The relatively impermeable soil on
the bottom and sides of the strip mine
pits will slow the movement of any
potential contaminants, said Bruce
Stevens, director of the DNR’s Divi-
sion of Reclamation.
‘‘We look and see where people’s
drinking-water wells are,’’ Stevens
said. ‘‘We are going to err on the side
of caution.’’
The well shared by Zink and the
Divelys ‘‘is a mile away from the
nearest mining,’’ Stevens said. ‘‘Their
well supply won’t be impacted.’’
But Roland Baker, a neighbor, said
nobody is worried about the wells go-
ing bad in just a year or two. ‘‘It may
not take until our grandkids,’’ he said.
‘‘But by then, nobody will be respon-
sible.’’
Construction fill
concerns
Environmentalists are also worried
about one increasingly popular use of
ash as construction fill.
Kentucky and Indiana allow any
volume of ash to be used this way,
requiring neither liners nor ground-
water monitoring.
Some cities, with rugged terrain
and few buildable flat surfaces, are
grateful for what amounts to free or
nearly free construction material from
Land Quality.
Palin said he knows of no abuses.
In Kentucky, power plants must re-
’02* GRAND port once a year how much of their
TOTAL
ash goes to beneficial uses and identi-
fy them.
But there’s no requirement that
power plants, haulers or building con-
tractors file any advance notice so
regulators can make sure the dump-
ing follows proper engineering princi-
ples and is not merely being done to
avoid the cost of using a landfill.
There’s also no requirement that
the companies obtain a permit that
assures the construction fill will be
designed to prevent pollution.
Hancock County Judge-Executive
Jack B. McCaslin discovered how
loose the beneficial-use regulations
were last year, when a constituent
complained about ash dumped on
eight acres of rural land in his West-
ern Kentucky county.
The property was being filled so
the landowner could put up a storage
building, McCaslin said.
But the ash pile looked like an open
dump to him, so he contacted the en-
vironmental protection cabinet. The
cabinet stepped in and stopped West-
Underside
ern Kentucky Energy, filing a notice
of violation.
The fill was too large in relation to
the size of the building, said Ron Gru-
zesky, environmental engineering
branch manager in the cabinet’s Divi-
sion of Waste Management.
LG&E Energy, the parent company
of Western Energy, said in a letter
from its legal staff to state officials
that it had done nothing wrong with
the Hancock County ash. The com-
pany said the Hancock project was
like many others the state allowed.
The company later decided not to
proceed with the project, said Caryl
Pfeiffer, 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 we
gotta have power. But I think the state
needs to get a better handle on this
stuff.’’
State officials agreed with McCas-
lin’s assessment.
Absent a permit-approval process,
sometimes inspectors must rely on
tips 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 power
plants and their haulers come to it
first 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 a
legitimate practice and one that the
EPA wants to encourage, said Dennis
Ruddy, the EPA’s point person on
coal waste issues. But that’s only if
ash is tested in advance for potential
toxicity, and if its placement is engi-
neered to minimize its contact with
water, he said.
‘‘If you back up a dump truck and
fill up a hollow with no pre-planning
and engineering . . . that is what we
are trying to avoid.’’
An eye to the future
EPA officials came close to classify-
ing ash destined for landfills, ponds
where you put it for future genera-
tions,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re trying to pre-
vent future problems.’’
He acknowledged that the rules
might call for long-term monitoring of
ash landfills and places where ash is
dumped in strip mines.
With mine-filling, he said, the gov-
ernment may require companies to
post environmental performance
bonds that extend for decades, ensur-
ing a pot of money to pay for future
remediation.
Originally, the EPA promised it
would release the draft rules next
year. It has since moved the deadline
back to early 2004 because of a need
for 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 charge
for ash dumped in old strip mines to
raise money for future environmental
cleanups if they’re needed.
The groundwater standards also
may force restrictions on ash ponds,
said Tim Method, deputy commission-
er for the Indiana environmental
management department.
‘‘We are going through a process to
identify any activities that currently
are not regulated or are under-regu-
lated,’’ Method said. ‘‘Ash ponds
would fall on that list.’’
The moves address only some of
the critics’ concerns.
The coal industry will likely fight
any tax on ash disposal, said Noland
of the Indiana Coal Council.
‘‘We are so close to seeing what the
EPA is going to recommend to the
states,’’ he said. ‘‘To get ahead of the
EPA at this point does not make a lot
of sense.’’
Kentucky’s environmental protec-
tion has called for several changes,
among them:
Ω The establishment of statewide
groundwater standards.
Ω Groundwater monitoring at all
ash ponds.
Ω Greater scrutiny of ash when
used as construction fill, including
groundwater monitoring.
Patton administration officials have
little hope that the General Assembly
will tighten the rules on coal ash. Too
many people in Kentucky think envi-
ronmental regulations have gone too
far and are too costly, said Logan, the
environmental protection department
commissioner. So his cabinet is look-
ing at what can be done within exist-
ing laws, he said.
Regulators may not need to look
further than the state’s new power
plant siting law, which requires great-
er scrutiny of new power plants.
‘‘The legislature made it clear that
if (new) plants are going to site here
in the state, they will be expected to
pay the full cost of doing business
here,’’ said Tom FitzGerald, director
of the environmental group Kentucky
Resources Council, who helped write
the bill. ‘‘They can’t shift those costs
. . . by undermanaging their wastes.’’
 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002 — A24

ASH AND WASTE FROM COAL-BASED ELECTRIC PRODUCTION

Electric utilities have reduced air emissions significantly while increasing electricity production and tripling the use of coal since 1970. But as air emissions are decreased,
the amount of waste ash tends to increase. Future pollution controls could make ash more potentially polluting or more difficult to reuse in commercial products. The
illustration below represents one common type of coal-fired power plant.
Scrubber Stack
A device used to remove sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the boiler A structure used to
exhaust (flue) gas. exhaust and disperse
Coal
Electric utilities use coal to the hot flue gases from
generate nearly 57 percent WASTE: FLUE GAS DUSULFURIZATION WASTE the boiler.
of our nation’s electricity (SCRUBBER SLUDGE) Waste produced during the
Steam Generator (Boiler) process of removing sulfur gases from the flue gases.
A large vessel that contains an Transformer
assembly of tubes in which An electromagnetic device that increases the output voltage of the
water is heated to steam that generator while reducing the current (amperage) to make the
is then used to drive a turbine. transmission of electricity more efficient.
Precipitator
A device used to remove the fly ash
from the boiler exhaust (flue) gas.
Burner
A nozzle device, generally
located in the lower boiler WASTE: FLY ASH
walls, which introduces the A light gray or tan powder that is the largest
pulverized coal into the boiler byproduct of coal combustion. Fly ash
and mixes with the correct becomes entrained with, and carried out of
amount of additional air to the boiler by, the hot exhaust (flue) gases.
burn the fuel.

MA
IN
ST
EA
M
Turbine
A device consisting of fan-type blades attached to a shaft that is spun by expanding
steam, converting the kinetic energy of the steam into mechanical energy.

AIR Cooling tower

Primary air fan/ pulverizer A device that cools the
Generator cooling water by evaporating
Devices that prepares coal for burning by A machine that transforms the mechanical
grinding it to a fine powder, drying and mixing WASTE: BOTTOM ASH a small portion of it and
energy of the turbine into electric energy. reducing the amount of heat
it with hot air to create an efficiently A coal-combustion byproduct that
combustible fuel. collects on the wall of the boiler, that is released to rivers, lakes
eventually falling to the bottom, where it and streams.
is collected. Bottom ash is a ceramic-like
material. Cooling water
Outside water used to condense the
WATER steam passing through the condenser.

HOW IT’S USED OR DISPOSED OF

ASH PONDS LANDFILL BENEFICIAL USES
Pipes from plant dump effluent Roughly 30% of coal
into first pond. Water from that combustion waste goes toward
pond flows into second pond. so-called "beneficial re-use."
Cleaner water drains to river. Some of those uses:
BOTTOM ASH
■ Asphalt
■ Concrete aggregate
■ Insulation
■ Abrasive grit
■ Road and building fill
FLY ASH
■ Cement
■ Road and building filler
■ Waste stabilizer
BY DURELL HALL, JR, THE COURIER-JOURNAL BY STEWART BOWMAN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
SCRUBBER SLUDGE
Coal ash mixed with water poured into first of two settling Aerial view shows the hollow that is being filled in with coal ■ Wallboard
ponds at the Gallagher power plant in Southern Indiana. ash at the Lodestar Energy Inc., dump in Ivel, Ky.
SOURCES: EDISON ELECTRIC INSTITUTE, CYNERGY, C-J RESEARCH

BY JOANNE MESHEW, THE COURIER-JOURNAL

NEW TECHNOLOGY

Air kept cleaner, but scientists study if risk migrates

By JAMES BRUGGERS
jbruggers@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
They call it ‘‘clean-coal tech-
nology.’’ It involves new methods
of burning coal and scrubbing
smokestacks that offer hope of
cutting emissions from power
plants.
That’s a potential relief for
asthma sufferers and others with
lung problems in Kentucky, Indi-
ana and other coal-burning
states.
But some of the new technol-
ogies produce more combustion
waste — up to 60 percent more
with one type of burner — that
must be disposed of or used com-
mercially. And some people, in-
cluding environmentalists and
Kentucky environmental regula-
tors, are concerned that ash may
begin to contain larger quantities
of potentially harmful pollutants.
‘‘Clean-coal technology is a
code word for ‘Let’s just generate
more waste than ever before,’ ’’
said Jeffrey Stant, an Indiana
consultant to the Clean Air Task
Force, a nonprofit advocacy
group based in Boston. He is a
leading national critic of how
power companies manage their
ash.
Researchers at the University
of Kentucky and laboratories
around the country are beginning
to turn their attention to the sub-
ject.
What the scientists find will an-
swer not only questions about the
potential risk of new forms of
ash, but also the extent to which
the ash can be used commercial-
ly. Pollutants or other impurities
could threaten groundwater or
render the coal waste useless as
an ingredient in products such as
cement or wallboard.
‘‘We have made as a national
decision that air pollution control
is the Number 1 priority without
considering some of the solid-
waste issues that go with it,’’ said
Tom Robl, associate director of
UK’s Center for Applied Energy
Research.
‘‘As a result, we’re going to
have more solids to handle.’’
Watching closely will be envi-
ronmental regulators, who know
that any changes in ash content
will need to be scrutinized to pre-
vent pollution.
‘‘We’re not going to have the
same (ash) materials,’’ said Bob
Logan, commissioner of the Ken-
tucky Department of Environ-
mental Protection.
For example, both President
Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative and
competing legislation sponsored
by Sen. Jim Jeffords, a Vermont
independent, seek to reduce mer-
cury, a toxic trace metal, in
power-plant emissions.
Keeping it out of the air could
concentrate it in the ash — rais-
ing the risk of groundwater con-
tamination from landfills and set-
tling ponds.
‘‘This is a potential issue,’’ said
Tom Feeley, a project manager at
the federal National Energy Tech-
nology Laboratory in Pittsburgh.
Preliminary studies suggest
that mercury, which can cause
brain damage in humans, does
not wash out of coal ash, Feeley
said.
‘‘But if you are taking the mer-
cury out of flue gas, it’s going to
go someplace.’’

PROPOSED VIGO
SULLIVAN IN D IAN A
COAL-FIRED MASON
POWER PLANTS
PIKE
Louisville
MARTIN
CLARK
HENDERSON
Source: Indiana ESTILL
Department of
Environmental K EN TUC K Y KNOTT
Management and
Kentucky Natural MUHLENBERG
Resources and MARSHALL BY CHRIS HALL JR., SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNAL
Environmental A worker last month loaded gypsum for transport from the Louisville Gas & Electric plant in Bedford, Ky. The plant
Protection Cabinet
BY STEVE DURBIN, THE COURIER-JOURNAL produces a synthetic gypsum using calcium sulfate waste from the plant’s scrubbers.