Coal Ash Likely Heading to Alabama, Not Georgia ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - Last month, the Tennessee Valley Authority loaded onto rail cars a tiny fraction of the more than 5-million cubic yards of coal ash spilled into the Emory River.

On a test basis, TVA sent some to a landfill in Taylor County, about 100 miles south of Atlanta. Other test shipments went to a west-central Alabama landfill.

TVA wanted to see which waste facility could best dispose of the ash, and it appears the utility has made up its mind.

TVA has submitted a plan to send the waste to Alabama, not Georgia. TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martucci says plans remain tentative.

"We do not have anything confirmed as of yet, we're still working with the EPA."

The Environmental Protection Agency must first approve the plan. But Jerome Hand, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, says it's his understanding the waste is coming to Alabama.

"As long as the material is deemed non-hazardous, then it has approval within our permits to be disposed of in a municipal solid waste landfill."

The EPA recently gained oversight of the Kingston coal ash cleanup. It's also responsible for classifying coal ash disposal, which it now deems non-hazardous "solid waste" despite mercury and other heavy materials present in coal ash. Solid waste carries less-stringent oversight than does "hazardous" waste.

Coal ash classification, though, could change, says EPA head Lisa Jackson.

"What we've promised is to make new regulations governing coal ash, to propose them by the end of this calendar year."

In an interview with WABE, Jackson says agency heads are looking at the Kingston disaster to better understand the health and environmental effects of coal ash.

" but how you manage it, once it ends up in a community, and how you insure over time it's not going to be neglected or forgotten--or as happened at Kingston, allowed to build to a point where it's physically unsafe. So we owe that to the American people, we owe it to the people of Georgia."

Or, as the case now appears, the people of Alabama. The cleanup will take years, with a price tag already approaching a billion dollars.

Jim Burress, WABE News
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