The Environmental Protection Agency has attempted to classify fly ash as a national priority for recycling. Conversely, environmentalist groups are lobbying for the EPA to designate fly ash as a ‘hazardous’ by-product of coal power plants. The government agency is struggling through the opposition as it attempts to promote the re-use of the by-products through its Coal Combustion Products Partnership. The EPA is hesitant to label the fly ash as hazardous because it believes such a label may cause companies considering to use the ash to back out of the recycling process.
The environmentalists’ arguments on the danger of the fly ash are based on the December 2008 spill of fly ash slurry at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Harriman, Tennessee. At the plant, the dike holding back the slurry gave way spilling over 5.4 million cubic yards of the material into the nearby Emory River and adjacent neighborhoods. Thankfully, no lives were lost during the incident; but the slurry leached levels of lead and thallium into the river. Events like these are what environmentalists hope to prevent by having the EPA label the fly ash as hazardous. The government regulations on the fly ash as ‘hazardous’ would force more careful storage and removal of the by-products of coal combustion.
AECOM Technology Corporation’s senior toxicologist Lisa Bradley holds a different opinion than the lobbying groups. She has said, “To characterize fly ash or other coal combustion byproducts as ‘toxic’ or ‘hazardous’ in all cases is misleading.” She does admit, however, that certain conditions can make the ash hazardous to your health.
The cement industry is concerned with the argument over fly ash. Otherwise, fly ash would end up in a landfill causing further harm to the ecosystem – as opposed to being encased as concrete. The environmentalist groups at grips with the EPA need to re-evaluate their thinking on whether they want greater government regulations or truly lower impact on the environment.
[...] Ash Debate Continues By Lehigh Ben, on April 26th, 2010 Talks are still underway concerning government regulation of fly ash by-product. Members of the Portland Cement Association (PCA) are part of a coalition of various [...]