Environment Full Circle: Wastewater Regulations for Coal Fired Power plants
I spend a lot of time wading through the never ending flow of environmental news, both during my day job and as an angler and a guide. Personally, I think it’s the responsibility of anglers, hunters, climbers, trail runners, bikers, hikers, etc(outdoors people in general) to be up to speed on what is happening on the environmental front. Decisions about the environment are made from the federal level all the way down to your neighborhood association and almost all of them matter. Is it the sexiest news? Usually not, but it almost always has human health impacts, not to mention how it might impact your fishing game. Remember, environmentalism presents itself in many different ways, it’s an inter-sectional issue.
So, on that note, we’re starting a new series called “Environment Full Circle.” These will be in the form of short blogs, videos or maybe even just a post on FB or Instagram. The idea is to keep the wide spectrum of environmental issues top of mind for anglers. We’ll do our best to address why this might be good to know for the angling community. We’re not going to go into a ton of depth, we’re hoping you’ll go and do your own research, but we’ll do our best to paint a clear picture.
In this week’s Environment Full Circle we’re talking about regulatory rollbacks on coal fired power plants. This issue is kind of a no-brainer for the fishing community. It’s certainly worth getting riled up about if you’re a fan of clean, cold fisheries. This isn’t a brand new issue by any stretch, but man has it been bugging me.
The rollback was finalized at the end of August and means that coal fired power plants no longer have to invest in the types of wastewater treatment technology that had been mandated under the Obama administration. Those previous mandates meant that coal power plants would have to show that they were using the most up to date wastewater filtration technology available by the year 2018. Seems like a good thing right…you don’t use a remote from 1976 on your brand new 2020 flat screen.
Of course, that 2018 deadline came and went after Scott Pruitt (former head of the EPA) had a whole bunch of energy executives over for brunch and decided the regulations were too stringent for the energy sector to handle (true, except the brunch part).
The new rule gives coal plants until the year 2025 to comply and exempts any plants that are slated to be closed by 2028. In short, this buys the coal sector another 5 to 8 years of polluting. It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to prop up an industry that really doesn’t make sense anymore. Really…coal is on the way out. Maryland is slated to close two more coal plants next year and plants are closing across the country. Coal doesn’t make financial sense, yet, this administration keeps figuring out ways to throw them a bone. It’s really not a political argument (or even an environmental one), coal just costs too much compared to the other technologies we have available.
Once coal is burned the ash is often mixed with water and stored in giant ponds (If you want to dive down a fun rabbit hole, check out Potomac River Keeper’s work on coal ash from Dominion Energy) which can leak or overflow into groundwater or nearby waterways. The rollbacks give coal power plants more time to let their coal ash sit in storage ponds where toxins like arsenic, chromium and lead can leach into the water. Of course, that’s terrible for the fish but it’s worse for anyone trying to drink or recreate on those waters. Despite links to cancer, kidney and liver damage and cardiac arrhythmia we still treat coal ash as solid waste (like garbage or sewage) and not a hazardous waste. Read the previous link to learn a little more.
This is all to say, you should care about coal plants. Find out where they are. Find out what they’re doing. Find out what waterways may be potentially impacted. Do neighboring communities rely on groundwater to supply their homes and families? Regardless of how you feel about this administration, recognize that buying coal plants more time is not in the public’s best interest, let alone the environment. What’s bad for the environment is bad for people and definitely bad for fish.
That’s all for this week’s Environment Full Circle. Told you we would keep these short. Click on some links and keep learning.