NY Times on the Coal Ash Conundrum That Shouldn't Be

By Brantley Hargrove in Hargrove

Wed., Jan. 20 2010 @ 3:29PM

Terry and Sandy Gupton at their ruined pasture, which is now ground zero.

It's been more than a year since the largest man-made environmental disaster in United States history struck a tiny East Tennessee town a devastating blow. And what do we have to show for it so far? Nothing but a poisoned populace, a sullied landscape in the shadow of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston smokestacks, and a vacuum where a bill that federally regulates coal ash as hazardous waste should be.

The Obama administration was supposed to propose new coal ash regulation by the end of 2009. A New York Times editorial wonders why the debate -- framed largely by industry and the Office of Management and Budget -- isn't being carried out on a transparent and purely scientific basis. Business should not enter this equation.

If the criminal negligence that led to the December 2008 spill isn't a clear enough indication, the status quo simply isn't sufficient. Allowing mountains of coal ash to sit in landfills and wet, unlined storage tanks, all the while leaching into subsurface water, should have been a regrettable byproduct of the early industrial age -- not common practice in the present, when we know full well the consequences.

Most states, Tennessee included, would rather crawl in bed with industry than stand up for its citizens. The "patchwork" of shoddy state regulation should be subsumed by comprehensive federal regulation. What's to debate?