On July 13, EPA proposed handing ADEM control over how coal ash gets cleaned up in Alabama. Nothing is final. Written comments are open until September 14, and there’s a public hearing on September 3.
THE BACKGROUND
Coal ash is the toxic waste that remains after coal is burned. It contains high concentrations of heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, selenium, chromium, and lead which are hazardous to human health, wildlife, and waterways near coal ash pits. Click here to learn more about coal ash.
Across Alabama, there are more than 117 million tons of toxic coal ash in unlined pits next to our waterways at nine different sites with more than 50 groundwater violations. Alabama Power, TVA and PowerSouth own these unlined pits, and they are polluting our rivers and reservoirs. What EPA decides here shapes what happens to all of them.
In 2024, EPA denied Alabama’s coal ash program. The problem was not the language in ADEM’s rulebook. EPA said that language largely matched federal law. The problem was the permits ADEM actually wrote.
In 2024, EPA denied Alabama’s coal ash program. The problem was not the language in ADEM’s rulebook. EPA said that language largely matched federal law. The problem was the permits ADEM actually wrote.
EPA looked at the permits ADEM had issued to Alabama Power, PowerSouth, and TVA and found failures:
- the permits did not require unlined pits to be closed properly,
- did not require adequate groundwater monitoring, and
- did not require real cleanup of the contamination already there.
EPA said the permits were not as protective as federal law requires.
These problems haven’t been fixed. We are dealing with the same faulty permits, the same toxic coal ash, and the same threats to public health and natural resources. EPA’s own account of what happened next is blunt: the state agency did not revise its permits and did not explain how they measured up.
After the denial, EPA changed its position on whether it has to review a state’s existing permits at all. Now, EPA maintains that a state can simply ask that its permits be left out of the review, and the agency doesn’t have to look at them.
In its May 2026 application, ADEM pulled every one of those permits off the table.
The permits that EPA condemned in 2024 are the same permits today, with the same closure plans and the same monitoring gaps. It’s the same ash in the same groundwater. Nothing has been corrected.
The standard is simple: you can’t close a coal ash pit with coal ash sitting in the water.
Federal rules do not allow a utility to cap a coal ash pit and walk away if the ash stays saturated with groundwater after closure. That is the standard ADEM’s permits failed to meet in 2024.
At Alabama Power’s Gadsden plant on the Coosa, the ash was capped and closed. Testing afterward found arsenic in the groundwater at 100 times the federal limit. Covering ash that sits in water doesn’t stop the pollution.
Utilities across the Southeast figured this out. In Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, more than 250 million tons of coal ash are moving out of unlined pits into lined storage or getting recycled into cement and concrete. Duke Energy agreed to clean up every coal ash site in North Carolina. Virginia passed bipartisan legislation requiring Dominion to remove all 29 million tons from its unlined pits.
Alabama is the outlier.
Because nobody has been required to do it.
THE MAIN POINTS
NOTHING WAS FIXED.
EPA identified specific failures in ADEM’s permits in 2024 and gave the state a chance to correct them. ADEM didn’t. Those permits are unchanged.
SETTING THE PERMITS ASIDE IS NOT THE SAME AS FIXING THEM.
EPA should not approve a program by agreeing to ignore the record that got it denied.
THE PERMITS ARE THE PROBLEM.
A rulebook is only as good as what the agency does with it. ADEM’s rules looked fine on paper in 2024 too. And ADEM is in no hurry to revisit them. The state told EPA it would review and amend the permits “as appropriate,” potentially as late as the time each permit comes up for renewal. Plant Barry’s permit was issued in July 2021 and runs up to ten years. On that schedule, the permit EPA found inadequate in 2024 could sit untouched into the next decade.
IF EPA APPROVES THE PROGRAM THEY MUST MANDATE NEW, COMPLIANT PERMITS
Any approval must come with a condition: ADEM reopens every existing coal ash permit immediately, in full, with public notice and comment, and rewrites each one to comply with the federal CCR rule that ash will not be left sitting in groundwater.
ASH SITTING IN GROUNDWATER HAS TO COME OUT.
No approval should clear a path for capping ash that stays saturated after closure, at Plant Barry or anywhere else in Alabama.
SAY WHERE YOU LIVE AND WHAT WATER YOU USE
If you fish it, swim in it, drink from it, live on it, or make a living on it, let them know.
OR, go to Regulations.gov
Search the docket number (Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OLEM-2022-0903)
Click the DOCKET DOCUMENTS tab and then click
to submit your comments.
You can copy / paste our sample letter from below or upload your own letter or file, including photos!
sample letter
Please copy the draft letter below and tell EPA why this rule is a bad idea. Take the time to edit the letter to include information about you, how you use Alabama’s rivers and streams, and anything else you want the EPA to know.
EXAMPLE: I live in Mobile County, about fifteen miles downstream of Plant Barry. My family fishes the Delta, and we’ve been doing it for three generations. If Alabama’s program allows Alabama Power to close the Plant Barry ash pond with ash in the groundwater, it endangers my family’s ability to keep fishing in the waters we love.
Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OLEM-2022-0903
Subject line: I oppose the proposed approval of Alabama’s partial CCR permit program
I’m writing to oppose EPA’s proposed approval of Alabama’s coal combustion residuals permit program.
In 2024, EPA denied this program. The denial wasn’t about ADEM’s rulebook. EPA said the state’s regulations largely matched federal law. The denial was about the permits ADEM actually issued. EPA found those permits failed to require proper closure of unlined impoundments, failed to require adequate groundwater monitoring, and failed to require real cleanup of existing contamination. EPA raised these problems with ADEM directly, and ADEM neither revised the permits nor showed how they measured up.
Two years later, those permits are unchanged. Same closure plans. Same monitoring gaps. Same ash in the same groundwater. What changed is that EPA revised its interpretation of RCRA section 4005(d) so a state can request that its existing permits be left out of the program review, and ADEM made that request.
Setting a record aside is not the same as correcting it. The conditions that justified the 2024 denial are still on the ground at these sites. I don’t think EPA should approve a program by agreeing not to look at the reason it was denied the first time.
The permits are the program. A rulebook is only as good as what the agency does with it, and Alabama’s rulebook looked adequate in 2024 too. What EPA found wanting was implementation, and nothing in this application demonstrates that implementation has changed.
Federal rules do not allow a utility to cap a coal ash pit and walk away when the ash stays saturated with groundwater after closure. That is the standard ADEM’s permits failed to meet. At Alabama Power’s Gadsden plant, the ash was capped and closed, and testing afterward found arsenic in groundwater at 100 times the federal limit. Covering ash that sits in water does not stop pollution.
If EPA does approve ADEM’s permit program, they must mandate new, compliant permits. EPA should require ADEM to reopen every existing coal ash permit immediately and in full, with public notice and comment on the entire permit, and to rewrite each one to comply with the federal CCR rule. Ash that sits in groundwater has to come out. An ambiguous commitment to act “as appropriate,” at some future date, is not acceptable.
Thank you for considering my comment.
[Name]
[City, State]
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT COAL ASH,
WATCH THE SOUTHERN EXPOSURE FILM, ASHES TO ASHES, BELOW: