New data released for the first time as a requirement of the 2015 federal coal ash rule (the “CCR Rule”) show dangerous levels of pollution at 14 sites around the state where coal ash has been disposed. The federal coal ash rule required that the utilities collect and test groundwater samples near their coal ash, then write and make public a report on the results. This is the first time groundwater testing has been required at all of Indiana’s coal ash dumps, where millions of tons of coal ash sit in unlined pits, polluting groundwater and putting rivers at risk.
Coal ash is a harmful byproduct of burning coal that contains many pollutants that can get into water. In the newly released reports, groundwater samples at Indiana coal ash sites were found to have contaminants many times safe drinking water levels. Which contaminants are present varies from site to site, but they include arsenic, boron, cobalt, lead, lithium, molybdenum, and radium. Examples include samples with arsenic 45 times the safe drinking water level at the Harding Street plant, molybdenum 38 times the safe level at Gallagher, Cobalt more than 6 times the safe level at Gibson, and radioactive radium more than 6 times the safe level at Clifty Creek.
According to records at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, there are private wells within one mile of nearly all of Indiana’s coal ash sites, which are located alongside power plants. At 4 of the power plants, more than 60 private wells are listed within one mile: Bailly in Porter County, the Harding Street plant in Marion County, Schahfer in Jasper County, and the Wabash plant in Vigo County. There are already locations in Indiana where utilities have had to provide alternate drinking water for people whose wells were impacted including in the town of Pines and near the Gibson power plant, but many of these other private wells remain untested.
“Previously we had only spotty data about coal ash contamination,” said Dr. Indra Frank, environmental health director for the Hoosier Environmental Council, [who is leading the review of groundwater testing data]. “With all sites now required to conduct testing, we can confirm that any place where you have unlined coal ash, the groundwater underneath gets contaminated. We recommend anyone with a well within a mile of coal ash get their well tested.”
The new reports also document movement of the groundwater; and at the majority of sites, the contaminated groundwater is moving into the adjacent waterways, including the Ohio, the Wabash, the White, and the Kankakee Rivers, as well as Lake Michigan. Impacts on the rivers and Lake Michigan were not studied as part of these new reports.
At the same time these data are coming out, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) is undergoing a coal ash rule-making process. The federal coal ash rule allows states like Indiana to take on implementation themselves, as IDEM has chosen to do. IDEM recently completed its first public comment period and is starting to draft new rules to amend and expand its existing coal ash rules that were adopted in response to EPA’s first-ever coal ash rules issued in 2015.
On March 1st, just one day before the utilities’ groundwater reports were released, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the administration of Scott Pruitt, proposed a rollback of the federal coal ash rule. “As the Trump administration seeks to gut public health safeguards on coal ash disposal, Indiana is awash in contamination from the toxins in that waste,” said Richard Hill, chair of the Hoosier Chapter Sierra Club.
“We are all calling on IDEM to enact rules that put Hoosiers’ health and safety above the special interests of Indiana’s electric utility companies,” said Jennifer Washburn, counsel on energy and environment for Citizens Action Coalition Indiana.