The Trump administration’s sweeping effort to ease regulations on the coal industry could allow power companies to continue operating unlined coal ash dumps that are leaking toxins into groundwater.
Under Administrator Lee Zeldin, EPA has argued that loosening coal ash regulations will ease electric grid challenges triggered by explosive growth of artificial intelligence data centers. But some people living near ash dumps are concerned that the changes could threaten their drinking water.
Coal ash — the material that is left over after the fossil fuel is burned — contains heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, boron, cadmium and chromium. The ash historically has been stored in sprawling pits adjacent to power plants, often without a protective lining to prevent pollutants from spreading.
This month, EPA plans to propose changes to a Biden-era rule that requires companies to monitor groundwater near old ash dumps and clean them up if they are leaking. The agency is also considering giving 11 power plants a three-year extension on a cleanup deadline for 13 unlined ash dumps, each of which spans more than 40 acres.
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the extension aimed to promote grid reliability and would apply to “a small subset of baseload coal-fired power producers.” She also accused the Biden administration of attempting to “destroy the coal industry.”
“EPA will accept comments on this proposal through February 6, 2026,” Hirsch said in an emailed statement.
Barbara Deardorff lives in Tefft, Indiana, a few miles from the Schahfer Generating Station’s ash dump site. Several years ago, she discovered arsenic and lead in her well water above the recommended safe levels, prompting her to relocate the well elsewhere on her property, she said.
“I spent several thousand dollars drilling test wells in my yard until I found clean water, put in a well and hooked it to the house,” Deardorff said. “I realize the EPA has an enormous job to do in monitoring all these industries under all the regulations, but also, I wish they took stronger enforcement action.”
Schahfer’s owner, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. or NIPSCO, has documented potentially unsafe levels of molybdenum, arsenic and lithium in groundwater at its ash dump. While the company was previously supposed to close the unlined dump by 2028, EPA in November proposed giving NIPSCO and 10 other plant owners until October 2031 to do so.
NIPSCO has argued that there is nowhere that it could safely move the coal ash at Schahfer, which the Trump administration ordered to keep burning coal last month. Joshauna Nash, a spokesperson for NIPSCO parent company NiSource, said its data does not indicate that pollutants are migrating off-site, and that the dump will close by 2031, “in accordance with rules recently proposed by EPA.”
“In compliance with federal and state requirements, NIPSCO has implemented a comprehensive program to protect groundwater at Schahfer Generating Station,” Nash said in an email.
At least two other plants — the Naughton Power Plant in Wyoming and the Baldwin Power Plant in Illinois — that EPA proposed granting the same three-year cleanup extension have also reported contamination of groundwater at their ash dumps.
In November, Naughton reported that groundwater at one of its dumps exceeded groundwater protection standards for arsenic, lithium and radium, a radioactive metal. In July, Baldwin reported exceedances of groundwater standards for fluoride and lithium. While EPA does not regulate lithium in tap water, too much fluoride is potentially linked to lower IQ in children.
PacifiCorp, which owns the Naughton Power Plant, stopped burning coal on Dec. 31 and plans to convert to natural gas, said utility spokesperson David Eskelsen. It will not be taking advantage of EPA’s extension and will stop disposing of ash at the unlined dump by Sept. 30, Eskelsen said. The company maintains that groundwater pollutants at the dump came from an “alternative source.”
Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson at Vistra Corp., which owns the Baldwin plant, said the company has “a comprehensive groundwater protection program in place” and is meeting Illinois and federal requirements.
“The proposed EPA extension would provide additional flexibility in assessing the status and future operations of existing generation assets,” Lyon said in an email.
A history of pollution
For decades, EPA left most oversight of coal ash to the states. That changed following two massive ash spills in rivers in 2008 and 2014.
In 2015, the agency finalized a rule requiring power companies to identify ash dumps, monitor for groundwater pollution, and report those findings. Companies were also supposed to stop placing ash into leaking, unlined pits and, in certain cases, transfer the material sealed landfills or recycle it into things like concrete.
The regulation did not encompass everywhere that power companies have stored coal ash, however. In particular, the 2015 rule excluded ash dumps at older power plants that had already stopped receiving ash, an exemption that an appeals court later ruled was “unreasoned, arbitrary, and capricious.”
The Biden administration issued a regulation in 2024 that was meant to fill that gap, encompassing what have been dubbed “legacy” coal ash dumps. For one type of ash dump targeted by the rule, EPA at the time identified over 100 sites that would be subject to cleanup requirements, estimating “potential” groundwater contamination at least 35 of them.
Many older coal ash dumps covered by the 2024 rule are unlined, with the material stored directly in groundwater or “very close to the water table,” said Charles Job, manager of regulatory affairs at the National Ground Water Association. The organization advocates responsible use of groundwater.
“Contamination from those impoundments can be carried reasonably quickly to groundwater, and then onto wells and other discharge points, or even waterways nearby,” Job said. “There’s a wide range of contaminants in coal ash, and nearly every one of them has very significant effects on human health.”
Exposure to arsenic and mercury, for example, can increase one’s risk of developing certain cancers.
Since President Donald Trump took office, power company lobbyists have urged EPA to defer requirements under the new coal ash rule. Companies have cited difficulties in finding contractors to install monitoring equipment, weather disruptions and other compliance challenges.
The agency is developing proposed amendments to the 2024 coal ash rule, to be released sometime this month, Jessica Young with EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management wrote in a December court filing. EPA also held a daylong forum last year with industry to hear their “experiences and suggestions” on coal ash, Young stated in the filing.
“The Trump EPA understands that baseload power capacity is critical to providing affordable and reliable energy, bringing down the cost of living for American families, while addressing surging energy demand, increases in American manufacturing, national security interests, and turning the U.S. into the AI capital of the world,” said EPA’s Hirsch.
Dan Chartier, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, said the industry lobbying group wants the agency to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to coal ash regulations. Instead, EPA should allow for greater consideration of specific conditions at ash dumps, he said.
“USWAG supports EPA’s ongoing efforts to address the practical and technical challenges our members face to implement the existing federal [coal ash] rules,” Chartier said in an emailed statement.
EPA declined to provide details on its plans for the 2024 coal ash rule. Under the Biden administration, the agency concluded in a risk assessment that there was “no evidence” that coal ash dumps covered by the 2024 rule posed less significant risks compared with those subject to the original regulations.
Job said allowing coal ash to continue to build up in unlined dumps will exacerbate the potential for contamination.
“We would encourage EPA to move in the direction of having the coal ash impoundments closed sooner,” he said.
A win for grid reliability?
The Trump administration is making the case that postponing coal ash cleanup at Schahfer and other plants will bolster the power grid, which is currently being stretched by data centers for AI. But environmentalists said EPA’s proposal downplays coal ash’s threat to public health.
The proposed rule would extend a carve-out created by the first Trump administration for certain eligible coal plant owners. Under the original carve-out, established during Trump’s first term, plant owners were given the option of potentially keeping their ash in unlined pits if they could demonstrate that there was nowhere else to move it.
The extension was supposed to come with caveats, though: First, it was meant to be given only to power plants scheduled to stop burning coal before Oct. 17, 2028. In addition, plant owners were supposed to receive the extension only if they were complying with federal groundwater monitoring and remediation requirements, said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.
The proposal from November appears aimed at preventing plant closures that may be triggered by the 2028 deadline. Yet the agency has not determined whether the 11 plants identified are in compliance with federal coal ash rules.
“They didn’t mention compliance or groundwater contamination or protection of health and the environment,” Evans said. “The entire justification of the rule was based on a purported deficiency or shortfall in power generation.”
An extension for continued dumping of coal ash in unlined pits would provide needed flexibility for the 11 plant owners, according to EPA. Still, even plants that choose to stop burning coal before the 2031 deadline would not be required by EPA to clean up their ash dumps until Oct. 17 of that year if the rule is finalized.
One state supporting EPA’s proposal is Indiana. Clint Woods, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said during a public hearing this week that the extension was a “reasonable approach” to ensuring power grid reliability.
Indiana has been courting power-hungry data centers, with land owned by NIPSCO near the Schahfer Generating Station currently eyed as a potential location, according to local news reports. Republican Gov. Mike Braun also signed an executive order last summer to evaluate strategies to keep coal plants open. Woods said EPA’s proposal would support that effort.
“EPA action to finalize this common-sense proposal would address a critical obstacle to the continued operation of these units that may not be addressed by DOE’s emergency orders,” Woods said during the hearing, referring to the Trump administration’s effort to prevent coal plant closures.
Deardorff, the Wheatfield, Indiana, resident, said she looks forward to the day when Schahfer closes and she no longer needs to worry about “further contamination of our groundwater and air.”
“I was terribly disappointed when their operations were extended,” she said.
