Water pollution from coal

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Coal mine reclamation site leaching acid mine runoff in KY. Photo courtesy of ilovemountains.org.

Water Pollution from Coal includes negative health and environmental effects from the mining, processing, burning, and waste storage of coal.

Acid Mine Drainage

Acid mine drainage (AMD) refers to the outflow of acidic water from coal or metal mines, often abandoned ones where ore- or coal mining activities have exposed rocks containing the sulphur-bearing mineral pyrite. Pyrite reacts with air and water to form sulphuric acid and dissolved iron, and as water washes through mines, this compound forms a dilute acid, which can wash into nearby rivers and streams. AMD discharges elevated concentrations of acidity, iron, manganese, aluminum, and sulfate into receiving streams and rivers, depleting the buffering ability of water by neutralizing carbonate and bicarbonate ions that form carbonic acid. Streams and rivers with low buffer capacity are not able to neutralize the acid load and consequently become acidic. An estimated 2,390 miles of streams in the Allegheny and Monongahela River Basins have been degraded by AMD to the point of not being able to support fish communities.

Processing

Coal sludge, also known as slurry, is the liquid coal waste generated by washing coal. It is typically disposed of at impoundments located near coal mines, but in some cases it is directly injected into abandoned underground mines. Since coal sludge contains toxins, leaks or spills can endanger underground and surface waters.

Coal sludge also contains many heavy metals. Small amounts of heavy metals can be necessary for health, but too much may cause acute or chronic toxicity (poisoning). Many of the heavy metals released in the mining and burning of coal are environmentally and biologically toxic elements, such as lead, mercury, nickel, tin, cadmium, antimony, and arsenic, as well as radio isotopes of thorium and strontium.

Burning

When coal is burned, toxins in the coal are released into the smokestack. With modern air pollution controls, airborne toxins are captured through filtration systems before they can become airborne, and contained in a fine ash called coal ash, fly ash, or coal waste. As a result, heavy metals such as mercury are concentrated in what the EPA considers "recycled air pollution control residue."

Emissions from coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury in the United States, accounting for about 41 percent (48 tons in 1999) of industrial releases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eight percent of American women of childbearing age had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood, putting approximately 322,000 newborns at risk of neurological deficits. Mercury exposure also can lead to increase cardiovascular risk in adults. When mercury is deposited on land or in water, microorganisms convert part of it to a highly toxic form called methylmercury. When fish and animals eat these microorganisms, the toxins accumulate and can interfere with reproduction, growth, and behavior, and can even cause death.

Thermal pollution from coal plants is the degradation of water quality by power plants and industrial manufacturers - when water used as a coolant is returned to the natural environment at a higher temperature, the change in temperature impacts organisms by decreasing oxygen supply, and affecting ecosystem composition.

Waste

Coal combustion waste is the nation's second largest waste stream after municipal solid waste. According to a New York Times analysis of EPA data, power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic, paint manufacturing, and chemical plants. It is disposed of in landfills or "surface impoundments," which are lined with compacted clay soil, a plastic sheet, or both. As rain filters through the toxic ash pits year after year, the toxic metals are leached out into the local environment.

The use of bagpipes and scrubbers to trap pollutants and toxins from power plant emissions - such as arsenic, aluminum, boron, chromium, manganese, nickel, or chemicals that have been linked to health risks - can leach into groundwater and waterways, contaminating drinking water supplies.

Water pollution and regulations

As of June 2010, no federal regulations specifically govern the disposal of power plant discharges into waterways or landfills. Some regulators have used the Clean Water Act to try and limit pollution, but the law does not mandate limits on many dangerous chemicals in power plant waste, like arsenic and lead.

According to a New York Times analysis of EPA records, 21 power plants in 10 states have dumped arsenic into rivers or other waters at concentrations as much as 18 times the federal drinking water standard. State officials sometimes place no limits on water discharges of arsenic, aluminum, boron, chromium, manganese, nickel or other chemicals that have been linked to health risks. Only one in 43 U.S. power plants must limit how much barium is dumped into nearby waterways, despote being commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater and linked to heart problems and disease. EPA records indicate power plant landfills and other disposal practices have polluted groundwater in more than a dozen states, while a 2007 EPA report suggested that people living near some power plant landfills faced a cancer risk 2,000 times higher than federal health standards.

Power plants have often violated the Clean Water Act without paying fines or facing other penalties: ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that violated the law since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators. And fines are often modest: Hatfield’s Ferry has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006, but has paid less than $26,000, even as the plant’s parent company earned $1.1 billion.

According to the New York Times, after five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued Allegheny Energy to install scrubbers at one of its coal plants, the company began dumping tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River. The River provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh.

Resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Acid mine drainage
• Air pollution from coal-fired power plants
• Air pollution from coal mines
• Climate impacts of coal plants
• Coal sludge
• Coal waste
• Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources 2002-2008
• External costs of coal
• Federal coal subsidies
• Fly ash
• Global warming
• Health effects of coal
• Heavy metals and coal
• Mercury and coal
• Mountaintop removal
• Natural gas transmission leakage rates
• Particulates and coal
• Radioactivity and coal
• Retrofit vs. Phase-Out of Coal-Fired Power Plants
• State coal subsidies
• Sulfur dioxide and coal
• Thermal pollution from coal plants
• United States and coal
• Waste coal
• Water consumption from coal plants

External links

• The Dirty Truth about Coal: Why Yesterday's Technology Should Not Be Part of Tomorrow's Energy Future", Sierra Club, June 2007.
• Water Polluters Near You: Coal-Fired Power Plants, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1996 (Tables A-1 to A-6)