According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the largest generator of coal ash in the United States. Pennsylvania is home to roughly 100 coal ash disposal facilities, three of which have been classified as “high hazard” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Throughout the country, numerous electric generating facilities have been retiring coal-fired units in favor of natural gas combined cycle units. Still, many of those same electric generating plants find themselves undertaking large-scale coal ash mobilization projects resulting from decades of coal ash accumulation and catalyzed by new regulations from the EPA. With litigation both arising from, and in opposition to, the coal ash regulations, it is an area worth watching at the state and federal levels.
Coal combustion residuals (CCR), commonly known as coal ash, are byproducts of the combustion of coal at power plants by electric utilities and independent power producers. There are several different types of materials produced during the process including fly ash: powdery, fine material composed primarily of silica, made from burning finely ground coal in a boiler; bottom ash: large, jagged, and coarse ash particles that collect at the bottom of the coal furnace; flue gas desulfurization material (FGD): residue from the process of reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from a coal-fired boiler, which may look like wet sludge consisting of calcium sulfate or calcium sulfite or a dry powdery mixture of sulfates and sulfites and; boiler slag: molten bottom ash from slag tap and cyclone furnaces that turns into glassy pellets after being rinsed in water. The composition of coal ash varies, but it generally contains contaminants such as mercury, cadmium, lead and arsenic. Though it contains the aforementioned contaminants, the EPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) currently classify coal ash as nonhazardous waste.
