Oklahoma is one of the few states nationally that has had the power and enforcement of coal ash oversight after receiving the power from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2018, but the Trump administration wants to transfer the power to even more states. At the same time, it wants to roll back certain federal protections.
Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, North Dakota and Wyoming have approved coal ash programs and handle their enforcement of environmental regulations covering the waste of burned coal at electric generating plants. President Trump gave Oklahoma it’s authority during his first term.
According to a report by Grist, some environmental states are fighting Trump’s expansion move and at the same time, they are critical of Oklahoma and the four other states that have enforced the coal ash rules for the past several years.
“The state agencies that have programs where they can issue permits, we’ve seen, unfortunately, that they’ve not been rigorous in enforcing standards,” said Nick Torrey, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “We know that they are underfunded, underresourced. The utilities are often the most powerful entity in the state and call the shots.”
Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality handles the coal ash enforcement and its solid waste program includes 14 people, including engineers, environmental specialists, management and support staff. They work on all facilities regulated under the solid waste program including what are called Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) facilities. CCRs are the materials that remain after coal is burned.
Oklahoma coal ash sites
There are four currently permitted and operating CCR disposal facilities in Oklahoma. Only one facility has an active surface impoundment which is in the process of closing.
- Western Farmers CCR Landfill, Permit No. 3512008
- Grand River Dam Authority CCR Landfill, Permit No. 3549012
- Big Fork Ranch CCR Landfill Permit No. 3552014
- AEP – PSO NE Power Station CCR Landfill Permit No. 3566010 and Surface Impoundment Permit No. 3566010- SI
For instance, the Grand River Dam Authority CCR Landfill located at the Grand River Energy Center two miles east of the city of Chouteau is allowed to accept fly ash, bottom ash and spent powdered activated carbon used to control flue gas emissions. The landfill is close to the coal-fired boiler units within the complex and has been in operation since 1981. It consists of approximately 67 acres, of which only 47 acres are used by the CCR disposal.
The AEP-PSO NE Power Station CCR sites are at Northeaster 3&4 plant and include a bottom ash pond and the landfill. Both are still in active use.
The Western Farmers CCR landfill is near Fort Towson and handles materials from the Hugo Power Station, a coal-fired electric generating plant which went into commercial operation in 1982. The CCR is fly ash, economizer ash or bottom ash and is held in a two-cell unit landfill covering more than 35 acres. It has a storage capacity of 1,044,000 cubic yards. The company sells most of the fly ash while the remainder is held in storage. As of last November, the approximate volume of CCR in the site was 519,746.35 cubic yards, leaving a remaining capacity of more than 524,000 cubic yards.
There are no current or expected future CCR impoundments at the Big Fork Ranch facility as it is in the process of being closed. The Big Fork Ranch coal combustion residual (CCR) landfill is located at 2750 County Rd 250, Marland, Oklahoma 74644. Operated by Evans & Associates Construction Company, Inc., it is situated south of Ponca City in Noble County,. The site functions as a ranch and includes permitted CCR reclamation cells.
The DEQ’s regulatory monitoring of the CCRs includes permitting, compliance, and enforcement activities and is funded as part of the overall solid waste budget that DEQ uses to regulate other solid waste disposal facilities. DEQ regulated CCR disposal facilities long before federal CCR regulations existed.
Oklahoma’s funding
Skylar McElhaney, Director of the Offices of Continuous Improvement and Communications/Education explained the sole the sole source of funding for DEQ solid waste regulation is provided by 27A O.S. 2-10-802.
It governs fee collections by the agency but is not funded by the legislature.
The statue requires commercial landfills, incinerators, composting, and roofing material facilities to collect a $1.25 fee for every ton disposed at the facilities. The fee is remitted to DEQ to fund operation of the solid waste program. The fee has not increased in over three decades. No appropriated funds are received from the Oklahoma legislature or EPA for purposes of implementing the solid waste program including CCR regulation.
According to the Grist report, some state legislatures have slashed budgets for environmental agencies in some of the states with coal ash enforcement power. Texas, Georgia and Wyoming reportedly cut their budgets at least 20% and the staffing at Georgia was reduced by nearly 16%. According to an analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit founded by former EPA enforcement officials under both parties, more than half of states have cut funding for environmental agencies in the last 15 years.
The four coal ash facilities in Oklahoma are among more than 670 coal ash ponds across the country, according to the EPA. Some range in size of a few acres while others take up a thousand or more acres. One of the dangers of the sites is the possibility of spills into waterways.
One of the worst accidents took place in 2008 when a dike at a Tennessee Valley Authority pond failed, releasing more than a billion gallons of coal ash. The flood buried homes, and residents are still reporting health issues. Similar incidents have occurred on the Dan River in North Carolina and in eastern Kentucky.
“State environmental agencies know their communities, their geology, their utilities, and their facilities better than any federal regulator in Washington, and empowering them to run their own permit programs, under a federal floor of protection that cannot be lowered and with continuing EPA oversight, delivers stronger, faster, and more accountable results for the people and resources at stake,” the EPA spokesperson told Grist.
But environmental groups are still challenging the Trump administration’s expansion efforts, going to federal court earlier this year.
An attorney for Earthjustice, the same group that sued over the 2018 decision that supported Oklahoma’s DEQ administering coal ash monitoring stated, “If the proposal is not finalized, the plants would have to close their [coal ash] impoundments and cease burning coal by 2028.”
Lisa Evans, a senior attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice charged“the plants will continue to burn coal, thus creating additional air pollution,” and contamination from coal ash.