The
Trump administration is loosening rules for toxic water pollution from coal-fired power plants.
Coal plants generate wastewater when they rinse the filters they use to catch pollutants from smokestacks.
That wastewater is discharged into rivers and lakes and often ends up in drinking water.
Steam-based power plants, including coal plants, are the third biggest source of toxic wastewater in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The pollutants they release into the water – either directly or from leaching from ponds where coal ash water is stored – are linked with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and developmental problems for children.
But Betsy Southerland, an Obama EPA water official, said the agency is counting the pollution reductions from some efforts it has made voluntary.
The EPA assumes that about 30% of coal plants will use water treatment technologies that are more effective than those the agency has required, she said.
“It’s clear from this rule that a relatively inexpensive treatment technology is available – the one that they made voluntary – that would eliminate the toxic contamination of drinking water supplies and is very affordable. And yet they did not require it,” Southerland said. “People should be very concerned.”