The Trump administration on Friday unveiled a final rule to delay cleanup of coal ash dump sites that gives companies more than twice as long an extension as EPA initially proposed last year.
The deadline extension chips away at one of the Biden administration’s signature efforts to curb pollution from power plants.
Rather than comply with impending deadlines set by the Biden administration, coal plant owners can now wait an additional 33 months to begin monitoring for groundwater pollution at hundreds of coal ash dump sites. That’s more than double the amount of extra time, 15 months, that EPA last year proposed giving operators.
After hearing from industry, EPA said the initial 15-month proposed extension it had contemplated was “not feasible” because it did not provide enough time for facilities to design and install groundwater monitoring systems and then properly analyze samples from monitoring wells.
Owners now have until Feb. 10, 2031, to comply with the requirements, a timeline based on the time previously given to existing coal ash units and an additional six months because of labor shortages and backlogs.
“This new deadline is based on the Agency’s assessment of the time required to complete the groundwater monitoring requirements and to provide time for unforeseen and facility-specific delay, accounting for delays such as procuring qualified personnel on contractors, seasonal and regional weather, and permitting and approval needs,” the final rule (Reg. 2050-AH36) said.
EPA officials said the delay in groundwater monitoring and inspection reports would relieve the power sector of unreasonable deadlines. Large ash dumps can span dozens of acres, and companies have reported difficulties in obtaining records and finding personnel to complete inspections.
“Today’s deadline extensions and revisions will ensure that electric utilities can efficiently meet regulatory standards while protecting human health and the environment,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.
One of the largest industrial waste streams in the U.S., coal ash is what’s left over after the fossil fuel is burned for electricity and contains toxic heavy metals like mercury, cadmium and lead. The new rule relaxes oversight of older ash dumps, including those located at power plants that have closed down, and which had been exempt from federal regulations for years.
The ash dumps subject to the rule are classified as “legacy” sites and coal combustion residual management units, with a total of almost 200 coal ash sites spread across over 100 power plants. Because both categories include sites established before federal regulations were in place, the ash is often stored in unlined earthen pits, potentially allowing pollutants like mercury, arsenic and lead to seep into groundwater.
The rule would also delay other deadlines set by the Biden administration’s 2024 coal ash policy. Written closure and post-closure care plans are now due August 2031 instead of November 2028, and plants now have until February 2032 to close the coal ash units officially, almost three years after the initial deadline of May 2029.
Environmentalists quickly lashed out at the delayed deadlines.
“Rather than enforcing the law and making polluters clean up their toxic coal ash, Trump’s EPA lets them continue to pollute our water with toxic chemicals that threaten our health,” Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans said in a statement. “The longer industry delays, the more toxic waste enters our water, and the more difficult cleanup becomes.”
