Utility waste pond ruptures, this time in Ala.

Utilities: Federal rules not needed
The industry already runs a voluntary program encouraging energy companies to install groundwater monitors. Industry officials argue that a federal regulation will do little to prevent pollution at older dump sites.

"Having federal regulations isn't going to solve those problems," said Jim Roewer, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activity Group, a consortium of electricity producers based in Washington. "What you have to look at is what the current state regulatory programs are. The state programs continue to evolve."

Despite improvements in state programs, many states have little regulation other than requiring permits for discharging into waterways — as required by the federal Clean Water Act.

In North Carolina, where 14 power plants disposed of 1.3 million tons in ponds in 2005, state officials do not require operators to line their ponds or monitor groundwater, safety measures that help protect water supplies from contamination.

Similar safety measures are not required in Kentucky, Alabama, and Indiana.

And while other states like Ohio have regulations to protect groundwater, those often don't apply to many of the older dumps built before the state rules were imposed.

Government enforcement has been spotty, leaving citizens who suffered from the contamination to file lawsuits against power companies.

$25 million settlement in Montana
In May, the owners of a Montana power plant — storing more ash in ponds than any other facility in the country — agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 57 plant workers and nearby residents. The plant's ponds were blamed for contaminating water supplies in subdivisions and a trailer park.

Many of the ponds at the Colstrip, Mont., plant were in place before regulation. State environmental officials say the operator, PPL Montana, is working to fix leaks.

Just last week, a judge in Baltimore approved a $54 million lawsuit settlement against a subsidiary of Constellation Energy. The company was accused of tainting water supplies with coal ash it dumped into a sand and gravel quarry.

Neither of these made the EPA's 2007 list of 67 cases of known or possible contamination stemming from power plant landfills or holding ponds.

"The solution is readily available to the EPA," said Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group. "We wouldn't like it, but they could say that municipal solid waste rules apply to coal ash. They could have done that, but instead they chose to do absolutely nothing."

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