Clean Coal is awesome:

It has been six years since a contractor from Delray Beach brought the black dusty residue to the province of Samaná, and three years since the ash was cleaned up. Several civil lawsuits and criminal cases later, just when everyone thought it was over, the other shoe has dropped.

A civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in Delaware charges that toxic levels of waste dumped at the Arroyo Barril port has made people nearby sick. After years of repeated miscarriages, women whose blood levels show abnormal levels of arsenic are giving birth to babies with cranial deformities, with organs outside their bodies or missing limbs.

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The ash, a concentrated form of naturally occurring contaminants, is what is left over from burning coal for power. It usually contains arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium and nickel. But as towns in Tennessee and Maryland clean up massive spills of the substance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to rule on whether it should be classified as hazardous — which would be a tremendous blow to influential power companies that have long lobbied against such a classification.

Learn more about clean coal.

Facing South:

An in-depth review of monitoring data from coal ash ponds located next to 13 coal-burning power plants in North Carolina has revealed that all of them are contaminating groundwater with toxic metals and other pollutants — in some cases at levels exceeding 380 times state groundwater standards.The contaminants reported include arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead — metals known to cause cancer, neurological problems and other serious illnesses.

The analysis was conducted by Appalachian Voices’ Upper Watauga Riverkeeper team based on data submitted to state regulators by Duke Energy and Progress Energy, the state’s two largest investor-owned electric utilities. The companies conducted the tests as part of a self-monitoring agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The following two documents explain the key findings of the study.

Every well at every plant had a violation:

Final_Duke_Progress_Coal_Ash_Pond_Ground_Water_Violations_October_2009 –

There were 681 violations, up to 380 times the standard:

Final_Duke_Progress_Coal_Ash_Pond_Ground_Water_Violations_Maximum_October_2009 –

From an EPA Release. Story at Grist

WASHINGTON – To ensure the most vulnerable Americans are adequately protected from exposure to lead from the air, EPA will reconsider some of its lead air pollution monitoring requirements, Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced today. Even at low levels, lead exposures can damage a child’s IQ, learning and memory.

“We have a fundamental responsibility to protect every child from environmental threats, especially contaminants like lead that can cause behavioral and learning disabilities and create a lifetime of challenges,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “We’re putting in place rigorous standards to prevent contamination. To make them fully effective, we need close interaction and monitoring in the communities where harmful levels of airborne lead are most likely to be found.”

Air quality monitoring measures concentrations of a pollutant in the outdoor air. EPA revised its air quality monitoring requirements for lead in 2008, at the same time the agency tightened the national air quality standards for lead for the first time in 30 years. The current rule requires air quality monitoring in areas where any industry emits at least one ton of lead to the air each year, and in the 101 urban areas with populations of 500,000 or more.

As part of today’s action, EPA will consider whether additional monitoring near industrial sources of lead is warranted. The agency also will reconsider the monitoring requirements for urban areas as part of its review. EPA is not reconsidering the lead standards.

Lead that is emitted into the air can be inhaled or can be ingested after it settles out of the air. Ingestion is the main route of human exposure. Children are the most susceptible because they are more likely to ingest lead and their bodies are developing rapidly. Exposures to low levels of lead early in life have been linked to damage to IQ, learning, memory and behavior. There is no known safe level of lead in the body.

The reconsideration will not delay implementation of the 2008 lead standards. EPA will issue a proposal and take public comment before deciding whether to revise the lead monitoring requirements. The agency anticipates issuing a proposal for public review and comment later this summer, and a final rule in early spring 2010.

More information: http://www.epa.gov/air/lead/