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EIP FACT SHEET: 

• About 500 power plants in the U.S. burn over a billion tons of coal each year. [1] [2]
• These plants generate about 140 million tons of waste annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and scrubber sludge.[3]
• There are 1,425 ash waste disposal sites in 37 states.[4]
• Wastewater from coal ash landfills and ponds seeps into groundwater, streams, rivers, and lakes; and sometimes is released directly into waterways.[5] This wastewater is loaded with toxic pollutants such as boron (which can cause low birth weight and reproductive problems), arsenic (a carcinogen and neurotoxin), chromium (which can cause cancer), cobalt (which has been linked to health effects on the heart, blood, and thyroid gland), lead and mercury (which can cause brain and nervous system damage), selenium (toxic to aquatic life, and, at high concentrations, to humans), and sulfate (which can cause diarrhea, a major health concern for infants).[6]
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has acknowledged that 133[7]  ash dumps and impoundments across the country have contaminated nearby waters, some of which are used by local communities for drinking water.
• No federal regulations exist for managing this coal waste.   Long-delayed federal rules for containing waste at coal ash dumps are expected in December.
• EPA has determined that “exposure to combustion wastewater has been associated with fish kills, reductions in the growth and survival of aquatic organisms, behavioral and physiological effects in wildlife and aquatic organisms, and changes to the local habitat.  As well as directly…contaminating drinking water wells.”[8]
• The National Academy of Sciences concluded this about ash waste:  “Contamination of surface waters (at multiple coal ash landfills) has resulted in considerable environmental impacts; in the most extreme cases, multiple species have experienced local extinctions.”[9]
• According to EPA, there are at least 1,070 ponds across the U.S. holding coal ash in a liquid form (mixed with water).[10]  These ponds can rupture and spill tons of coal ash into rivers and lakes, causing serious damage to the environment.[11]
• Since 2002, seven major ash spills have happened at six different coal plants across the country: Plant Bowen, in Georgia;[12] Martins Creek Station, in Pennsylvania;[13] Oak Creek Plant, in Wisconsin;[14] Eagle Valley Generating Station, in Martinsville, Indiana (two dam breaks);[15] the Kingston Fossil Plant, in Tennessee;[16] and the Dan River Steam Station, in North Carolina.[17]
• In 2008, a dam on a coal ash pond in Kingston, Tennessee, ruptured,[18] spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of waste into the Emory River, and forcing the evacuation of 22 homes in one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history.[19] In February 2014, a Duke Energy coal waste pond in North Carolina spewed 39,000 tons of ash into the Dan River.[20]
• The Environmental Integrity Project and allies in 2012 filed notice of a lawsuit against the owners of the largest coal ash waste pond in the country, the Little Blue Run Ash Impoundment northwest of Pittsburgh, next to the Ohio River.  In response, Pennsylvania in February 2014 ordered FirstEnergy Generation to post a $169 million bond to close and clean up the leaking facility.[21]