CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to regulate coal ash and its disposal, possibly as a hazardous waste.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Tuesday that one option would regulate the ash under the hazardous waste section of the federal Resource Recovery and Conservation Act. The other is regulating it in the non-hazardous waste section of the law.
She said EPA will seek public comment for 90 days before deciding on which method to use.
The announcement came 16 months after a huge coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Plant west of Knoxville. The power plant ash contains substances defined by the Superfund Law as hazardous, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium and zinc.
