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PEERPUBLIC EMPLOYEES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

PEER

2000 P Street, NW, Suite 240, Washington, D.C. 20036 202-265-PEER (7337) fax: 202-265-4192

e-mail: info@peer.org web: http://www.peer.org

Field Ofces: California Florida New England New Jersey

Refuge Keeper Rocky Mountain Southwest Tennessee Texas

Cuddle Up to Coal AshDear PEER Supporter:

From climate change to desertication, many of our major environmental crises arise because we e

in practices without thinking through the consequences we look at short-term convenience an

remain oblivious about tomorrow.

A prime example of short-sightedness has to do with coal - by far thedirtiest form of energy. The

biggest waste stream in the U.S. is debris from coal mining itself. The second biggestwaste stream

coal ash and other combustion wastes left behind in power plants, prevented from going up po

plant smokestacks by the scrubbers and other technology that protect our air. How big is this

waste stream? Coa l combustion creates125 million tons of it each year. These wastes (including

ash, bottom ash, boiler slag, and ue gas desulfurization

gypsum) are incredibly hazardous, full of arsenic, mercury,

cadmium, and other nasty heavy metals.

Where do these wastes go? Into your home, ofce,

school, and even inside your medicine cabinet.

Incredibly, it is policies of our own EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) that are creating a profound

toxic legacy from coal combustion wastes, and with no

containment strategy. Under EPA sponsorship, 60 million

tons (nearly half the total) of coal ash and other wastes

are used in mine ll, cement, wallboard, snow and

ice control, agriculture, lipstick and other cosmetics,

utensils, cattle feeders, kitchen countertops, carpet

backing, paint ller, modeling clay, bowling balls, shoe

soles, and buttons.

Your support will help ensure that coal ash is treated as the hazardous waste that it is.

Not Your Daddys Coal Ash

Due to stronger air pollution controls on emissions of mercury and other toxics, the mercury levelscoal ash and other wastes have been rising and will likely nearly double this decade. The data EPA

to make its 2000 regulatory determination that coal ash is not hazardous is no longer representative

todays waste stream.

]Moving to ban coal ash for mine ll or contouring, or

any other surface uses;

] Exposing the lipstick and allcosmetic brands with

coal combustion waste ingredients; and

] Forcing EPA to acknowledge mercury and other

toxic pathways from coal ash, including product end-of-

life when any encapsulated pollutants are released into

the environment through incineration, pulverization, or

unregulated dumping.

Even if we only accomplish a portion of this ambitious

agenda, it will have huge impacts and we hope to count on your support.

Whats at Stake

Converting from coal is the single biggest change America can make to cut greenhouse gas emissions

and curb calamitous climate change. Our effort willeliminate the huge backdoor subsidy to coal-

red electric generation by making it treat its wastes as the hazards they are rather than as some sort of

product. Imagine if the nuclear industry were allowed to shred its spent fuel rods and throw them into

the bottom of uranium mines and call it recycling. This is precisely what is now going on with coal.

At the rate of 60 million tons per year, the presence of coal ash in the environment will steadily build

up until it becomes an unquestioned problem. On that day, the question will be:How did we let this

happen? Please help us make sure that day never arises.

Sincerely,

Jeff Ruch

Executive Director

P.S. As always, thank you for your past support. If you would prefer to receive these messages

electronically, to help save PEER save resources, just e-mail ourMembership & Outreach Coordinator

Kate Hornyan at khornyan@peer.org.

P.P.S. Your dollar goes farther at PEER. We have aFour Star Charity Navigator rating the highest

rating for efciency with the lowest overhead. That meansover 90 cents of every $1 donation goes

directly back to PEERs programs.(Over, please)

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Sludge spill.A disastrous December 2008 coal ash impouspill in Tennessee prompted belated EPA effregulate. This sludge spill was 100 times laExxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

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Under pressure from PEER, EPA suspended its7-year partnership with the coal industry called theCoal Combustion Products Partnership (or C2P2),which promoted coal ash reuse.

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Despite the absence of safety and health research,EPA has operated under a partnership pact with

the coal industry to market its combustion wastes for consumer, agricultural and industrial

uses. Today, EPA still actively promotes the benecial uses of coal ash. Under pressure from the

coal industry, EPA backed off from its own scientic recommendations made back in 2000 that coal

combustion wastes should be classied as hazardous. As a result, they remain virtually unregulated

today, despite unquestionable toxicity.

Paying the Piper

By allowing virtually unlimited reuse of coal ash, EPA is allowingthe most potent pollutants the

same ones that cost billions of dollars to keep from billowing out of smokestacks to reach the

environment in the manufacture, use, and disposal of second generation coal ash products.

Without regulation, utilities looking to save money can say virtually any use of coal ash is recycling

when it is in fact dumping. In twenty years,the mercury load from hundreds of millions of tons of

discarded coal ash products will be staggering.

How Mercury Escapes

EPA is ignoring its own scientic ndings about mercury and other toxics reaching the environment

from cross-media transfers (e.g., air to water), exposure, and disposal of coal ash:

Manufacture. Cement manufacture is the

single biggest reuse, but studies show that the

high temperatures in cement kilns release all of

the mercury in the coal combustion waste into

the atmosphere. Similarly, gypsum wallboardplants are a secondary release point for mercury;

Leaching and Loss. Mercury and other toxics

spill in transport, leach out of products, and

escape when the product is broken; and

Disposal. Products containing coal ash are

disposed of in ways that release their toxic

elements when the products are incinerated,

pulverized, or buried in unlined pits.

By refusing to recognize its own research on growing toxicity and release of coal ash,EPA is putting

its head in the sand. Help us make EPA formally recognize what its own scientists are nding.

Huge Hidden Coal Subsidy

EPA promotion of coal wastes generate more than$11 billion each year for the industry,but industry

derives immensely greater economic benet byavoiding costs it would face if coal ash was treated

as hazardous waste. In essence, EPA is subsidizing coal-red power, making it harder for renewables,

which have to responsibly handle their wastes, to compete.

Turning the Tide

Working with concerned EPA and state health specialists, PEER is working to make Big Coal acco

for its full economic as well as environmental costs. Over the past several months, PEER has:

1. Helped produce an expos on CBSs 60 Minutes in which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackso

admitted that her agency had no idea whether coal ash re-use was safe. Quote:I dont know. I

have no data that says thats safe at this point.

2. Revealed that more than 180,000 tons of coal combustion wastes areapplied to agricultura

elds as a soil amendment and used in livestock feeders.

3. Forced the suspension of the formal EPA/coal industry joint venture called the CoalCombustion Products Partnership (C2P2) wherein the EPA was actually in the business of

promoting coal ash reuse.

4. Exposed that EPA wasletting the coal industry rewrite EPA reports and presentations to

downplay the risks of coal ash.

5. Filed a legal challenge to force EPA toformally retract its claims of greenhouse gas bene

from coal ash re-use.

This is only the beginning. Acc omplishing major changes requires your continued support.

Next Steps

We aim to bring about what industry says it fears

we want to stigmatize reuse of coal waste and

thereby reverse the growth trend in coal by-product

marketing. The pivot point for this phase is overdue

regulations promised by the Obama administration

which will decide whether coal combustion wastes

must be classied as hazardous waste. These proposed

regulations walk a timid middle ground by only

classifying wet storage of coal ash in sludge ponds as

hazardous.

Once EPA makes that ruling it will be harder to market

products deemed too hazardous for holding ponds. While

we support this regulation, it is only the rst step. Our

next steps include

]Pushing to ban federal procurement of coal ash under new rules mandating that agencies

reduce their carbon footprint in purchasing. This move will ban use of coal ash as road de-ice

and in highway construction;

] Criminalizing placement ofcoal ash in surface and ground waters under the Clean Water

Act to stop use of coal ash in river levees or to control ice oes;

] Stripping green building credits from coal waste construction uses to force recognition

that coal ash re-use is a brown, not a green, practice;

(Ove(Next page, please)

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Take Action plant (with coal ash piles in froEach year, 60 million tons of toxic coal c ombuare dumped into mines, spread on elds, put iand added to a growing array of products.

Billowing Smokestacks.Coal-red plants are one of the leading sources ofair pollution. Yet, the most potent pollutants that wespend billions of dollars to keep from billowing out ofsmokestacks are concentrated in coal ash that reachesthe environment in a growing recycling market.