earthjustice
February 17, 2023 -
The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting public comments until March 6 on closing a regulatory loophole that exempts hundreds of polluting coal ash landfills from its oversight. The move is part of a proposed settlement in a lawsuit brought last year by environmental health advocates.
September 2, 2022 -
Scores of the coal ash landfills that federal regulators have exempted from oversight are located in Southern states, and they're disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color.
March 16, 2018 -
Data released under the new federal coal ash rule revealed radium contamination of groundwater at many of the utility's coal-fired power plants. But now the Trump administration wants to roll back that rule — including its groundwater monitoring requirements.
December 16, 2016 -
Opponents of opening the Atlantic coast to oil and gas drilling are pressing President Obama to enact a permanent ban. We look at the legal framework for such an action, and how durable it would be under a Trump administration.
April 15, 2016 -
As pressure grows on power companies to move toxic coal ash out of leaky, wet impoundments and into dry, lined landfills, the experience of an African-American community near one such landfill in rural Alabama highlights the potential problems with that approach.
April 1, 2016 -
North Carolina's carcinogen-contaminated drinking water near Duke Energy's coal ash dumps — and the political fight over what to do about it — should serve as a warning for problems to come in other historically coal-dependent states due to a lack of federal oversight for drinking water and coal ash disposal.
March 9, 2016 -
Community advocates say settlement talks with North Carolina's environmental agency fell apart after state officials invited the hog industry into what were supposed to be confidential mediation proceedings in a federal case charging the state's regulation of the industry disproportionately harms communities of color.