Big Coal Ash Settlement in Pennsylvania Shows One Path Forward for Bay Restoration
Chesapeake Bay and clean water advocates in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region celebrated a significant legal win last week as Talen Energy, owner of the notorious Brunner Island coal-fired power plant, agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). The settlement is big news first and foremost because it will result in the closure and excavation of a massive coal ash disposal pond and the treatment of a number of other ponds, thus eliminating a significant source of pollution contaminating water supplies for residents in Central Pennsylvania. The successful settlement and the widespread press coverage that followed also serve as a pointed reminder of the importance of citizen enforcement of our environmental laws.
Under the settlement, Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will collect a $1 million penalty from Talen Energy. That's particularly notable because DEP was not an original plaintiff in this case. EIP filed on behalf of three environmental organizations that represent thousands of concerned Pennsylvanians because, despite years of violations at this high-profile industrial site, the Commonwealth took no action to stop the ongoing contamination until citizens and their lawyers first announced their intent to sue.
Any number of reasons could explain the …
Cross-posted from LegalPlanet.
Understandably, most of the attention at the beginning of the week was devoted to the rollout of the Trump administration's token effort to regulate greenhouse gases, the ACE rule. But something else happened, too. On Tuesday, a D.C. Circuit ruling ignored objections from the Trump administration and invalidated key parts of a rule dealing with coal ash disposal. That rule had originally come from the Obama administration, and the court agreed with environmentalists that it was too weak. Trump's efforts to weaken it further may have hit a fatal roadblock.
Coal ash is produced in huge quantities by coal-fired power plants. As the opinion describes, it's just chock-full of toxic substances. Traditionally, the industry just dumps it, in dry or wet form, in a pond or reservoir. If it escapes suddenly, it can cause a massive toxic flood; if slowly, it can contaminate …
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