A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday to force the Obama administration to finalize new rules regulating the containment and disposal of coal ash, a power plant byproduct activists say threatens public health.
Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Integrity Project, and several other groups want the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize coal ash standards the agency proposed after a massive and expensive 2008 spill.
“It is well past time the EPA acts on promises made years ago to protect the nation from coal ash contamination and life-threatening coal ash ponds,” Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans said in a statement. The groups filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The EPA proposed regulating coal ash, or byproducts of coal combustion in power plants, in 2010, after a spill at a storage site at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant.
