December 27, 2007--Combustion waste angers residents (Cortez Journal)
Each year, power plants in the United States collectively kick out enough coal combustion waste (CCW) to fill a train of coal cars stretching from Manhattan to Los Angeles and back three and a half times. It’s stored in lagoons next to power plants, buried in old coal mines and sometimes just piled up in the open where it gets washed into an aroyo or leach into the ground. It is the largest waste stream of most power plants, and a recently released study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that people exposed to it have a much higher than average risk of getting cancer. Yet the federal government refuses to classify the waste as hazardous, and has dragged its feet on creating any nationally enforceable standards. And with new attention focused on coal power’s impacts on the air, this great big problem may get worse, and continue to be ignored.
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