Coal Ash

Coal ash is a byproduct from burning coal, one that poses numerous environmental and health risks. This ash is stored either in landfills or in “ponds” mixed with water. Water samples taken from areas exposed to coal ash reveal the toxic metals in this seemingly harmless byproduct: lead, thallium, barium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and nickel. The consequences of coal ash exposure can range from as mild as headaches and nausea, to as serious as organ failure and death.

The victims of coal ash spills demand payouts from the offending company to pay for their medical expenses, pollution cleanup and/or capping and fixing coal ash dumping sites. The cost can be in the millions, sometimes even billions, of dollars. Not only does this mean that companies take out large, expensive insurance policies, but they are often willing to try and coerce insurers to help pay for cleanup even when their policies had expired decades ago.

Background

Coal ash is created from the burning of coal, and is trapped in the smoke stack or caught by filters put in place to reign in air pollution. Unfortunately, these efforts to reduce air pollution have led to pollution by other means. Coal ash is known to be have been disposed of in around 2,000 dumping sites across the nation, but the number is likely even higher as there is no regulation requiring the reporting of coal ash dump sites, and the EPA only has data from 33 states. Coal ash is disposed of by mixing the ash with water and keeping it in wet ash “ponds”, dumping the ash in landfills, or filling abandon mines. Coal ash is also recycled and gets used as structural fill, a soil additive for farms, spread on snowy or unpaved roads, or even as a top layer on school running tracks.

Coal ash can have different properties depending on the type of coal source, and how it was burned. “Fly ash” is a fine powder that is carried up the smokestack as exhaust. “Bottom ash” is coarser and falls to the bottom of the furnace. “Boiler slag” is created from molten bottom ash, and when cooled by water turns into hard pellets. Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is caused by air pollution control systems. These “scrubbers” spray lime into the flue gas, reacting with sulfur to form calcium sulfite which is then processed into FGD. Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) is created by using specialized combustion methods and may include fly ash and bottom ash.

Coal ash becomes toxic for humans when they drink water or eat food contaminated by coal ash, or breathe in coal ash dust. The dust is most commonly created when coal ash is used in construction work, or from a power plant run on coal. Water toxicity occurs because of weaknesses in coal ash disposal. Once the water is poisoned, the local fish and wildlife can also become poisoned and die, or be eaten by another animal, contaminating the entire food chain. A town’s water supply can even become contaminated when a wet ash pond overflows or bursts, as one did in 2008.

Three days before Christmas the coal ash pond near Kingston, Tennessee burst and 1 billion gallons of toxic water flooded into the river valley, destroying three homes, damaging others, and contaminating the nearby Emory and Clinch Rivers. Water samples taken afterwards revealed toxic metal levels 149 times the standard for drinking water. Disasters like the kind that struck Kingston are the kind that get the most attention, but are not the most common way coal ash effects communities. Most often, coal ash mixed with water leaks or leaches into the local water supply, traveling through an aquifer near the dumping site, or washed into rivers and streams by rain. This is primarily due to ineffective lining methods for dumping sites that do not adequately prevent leaching.

Leaking, or leaching, cases are no less devastating. R.G. Hunt was a sheepherder in Waterflow, New Mexico. When a utility company built the San Juan Power Plant near his land, they dumped coal ash into the creek that Hunt, his family, and his herd used as drinking water. Hunt and his family would spend years suffering from severe illness, and for two years had to buy drinking water and carry it back to their home. Meanwhile, Hunt’s herd of 1,400 sheep all died from a lack of safe drinking water. In many cases leaching goes unnoticed for years or decades. When it is discovered it is usually only after people or plants and animals have been contaminated. The levels of toxic metals in the water that can result are far above the EPA’s standards. For example, the levels of chromium can be 73 times the standard, the levels of cadmium 580 times higher, and the levels of arsenic and antimony can be as much as 1800 times the standard.

Injuries and Damages

Coal ash toxins that leach or spill out of disposal sites have numerous adverse effects for humans and the environment. For example, when Belews Lake in North Carolina became contaminated 19 of the lake’s 20 fish species were entirely wiped out, including all major sporting fish. Animals that fed on the fish were either poisoned themselves or died out from a lack of food. Fifteen years after the initial contamination the state was still advising people not to eat any fish caught in the lake. Not only were the effects devastating for the Belews Lake environment, but it also harmed the local economy.

Coal ash exposes a person to arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, molybdenum, thallium, and selenium. The EPA has estimated that living near a coal ash disposal site can increase an individual’s cancer risk to 1 in 50. The toxic metals contained in coal ash can cause not only cancer, but damage to the heart, lung disease, respiratory distress, kidney disease, reproductive issues, and gastrointestinal illness. The effects can be even worse for children, who may suffer from all of the above as well as birth defects, developmental delays and behavioral problems. Children are also at greater risk due to their tendency to stick items in their mouths, breathe more rapidly, and the fact that their bodies are not as fully developed as adults. It should also be noted that while the effects of the individual metals found in coal ash are well known, little is known about what happens when a person is exposed to all of these metals at once, as in the case of coal ash. There could be a cumulative effect, or even entirely new symptoms that result from combining the toxic metals.

Legislation and Regulation

In 2015, the EPA under the Obama administration issued the first federal regulations on coal ash disposal. Up to this point, coal ash disposal had been solely regulated by a series of local and state laws. Coal ash dumping sites were made to adhere to certain engineering standards and new pits had to be lined properly to prevent seepage into the water supply. Companies were also required to monitor water quality near their dumping sites and report the results publicly. Any site that could not comply with the rules was to be closed. However, the EPA classified coal ash as a solid waste, rather than a hazardous waste. As a hazardous waste coal ash would have been even more strictly regulated. Additionally, all enforcement of the new rules was to be done by the states and not the EPA itself, though private citizens and environmental groups had the right to sue companies for noncompliance.

In 2018 the EPA under the Trump administration announced it would be rolling back the 2015 Obama era regulations. The new rules model the disposal of coal ash after the regulations for disposing of household trash created in 1991, allowing companies to extend how long they use unlined coal ash ponds, and letting states alter the frequency of groundwater tests.

Liability and Insurance

Companies are often held liable for the pollution caused by coal ash disposal sites. This includes paying for the damages to the environment, paying to create a new, improved disposal site, and paying those individuals who may have become ill due to exposure to toxic metals. This leads companies to seek pollution liability insurance. This is usually a simple matter, especially for large companies. But in some cases of pollution the main polluter is not the only one who bears responsibility. Depending on the nature of the environmental crisis, transportation companies, materials manufacturers and midmarket companies may find themselves facing penalties. These businesses, which can be significantly smaller, may look to protect themselves using “captive” insurance companies, coverages written through a self-funded captive rather than a conventional policy.

Litigation

Dynegy Inc. scrapped the Vermilion Power Station, the last coal fired plant in Illinois, but seven years later orange and purple hued water was discharging into the Vermilion River. The cause was leakage from coal ash disposal sites that were improperly lined. The nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network has sued Dynegy for violations of the federal Clean Water Act. Dynegy at one point suggested it could cap the site, preventing rain and snowmelt from causing runoff. But the natural flow of the river is eroding the bank by up to three feet per year, a rate that would quickly expose the site to the river below the proposed caps. Dynegy has estimated the costs of moving the coal ash to a new site at $192 million. The case is ongoing.

Duke Energy Corp. was found liable for pollution left behind by decades of coal fired plants in the Carolinas. Duke has estimated the costs of cleanup at $5.2 billion over the next several years. Dozens of insurance companies were sued by Duke for refusing to help cover the costs. Duke claimed it should have been covered by polices issued between 1971 and 1986. Insurers countered that Duke was well aware that the dumping sites it was using were inadequate to prevent pollution and that the costs Duke is now facing is not an insurable risk.

Future Outlook

Coal ash can continue to be toxic for hundreds of years, and materials that are effective at lining dump sites, like clay, often have a lifespan that is much shorter. This means that coal ash is a waste byproduct that human beings will have to deal with far into the future. Right now, it is important that we gather more data on where coal ash dumping sites are, their condition, and which ones need to be improved immediately. Additionally, better regulations are necessary to prevent toxic spillovers and leaking that cost communities, companies, and insurers vast sums of money. The health effects and difficulty in disposing coal byproducts like coal ash may also be reason for us all to reconsider our use of coal entirely.

The insurance industry will have to be prepared for payouts in the event of a pollution incident that falls under a policy, and will need to be ready for companies that come calling for payments decades after the policy ended. Insurers should consider encouraging energy companies to appropriately store their coal ash in order to limit or prevent future issues.

In the News

2020

• Duke Energy Agrees to Coal-Ash Cleanup Settlement - Valerie Bauerlein, The Wall Street Journal (01/02/2020)
  Duke Energy Corp. has agreed to move 80 million tons of coal ash to lined landfills at six power plant sites in what state regulators are calling the biggest cleanup of its type in U.S. history.
  
  

2019

• Coal Plants Would Get More Flexibility on Waste Under EPA Proposal - Timothy Puko, William Mauldin, The Wall Street Journal (11/04/2019)
  The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed easing 2015 rules for disposing of coal ash and wastewater from coal-fired power plants.

2018

• Poisoned Kingston disaster workers still searching for justice a decade later - Jamie Satterfield, Knoxville News Sentinel (11/13/2018)
  Nearly a decade ago, this trio of women watched as their healthy husbands rushed from their Knoxville homes to rescue the residents of Roane County from the 7.65 million tons of coal ash bearing down on them. . . . Now, Betty Johnson, Janie Clark and Dorothy Bass watch their husbands struggle to walk, to breathe, to sleep. . . . “You look at your husband, and you’re thinking, is that his last breath?” Johnson said. . . . Last week a federal jury gave them hope they say has been sorely lacking since their husbands and hundreds more heavy equipment operators just like them responded to the nation’s largest coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in December 2008 and wound up poisoned.

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