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How Breathing Coal Ash Is Hazardous to Your Health 1 Coal Ash Spilled from the TVA Kingston Power Plant Covered 300 Acres and Damaged 40 Nearby Homes

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How Breathing Coal Ash Is Hazardous to Your Health 1 Coal Ash Spilled from the TVA Kingston Power Plant Covered 300 Acres and Damaged 40 Nearby Homes 81 51 80 82 92 Sb 121.760 Tl 204.38 ANTIMONY 5 Pb THALLIUM Hg 207.2 33 U B LEAD 238.02 200.59 10.81 BORON URANIUM MERCURY 24 34 Ashin 74,92159 16 42 ARSENIC Cr Se 48 78.971 LungS Mo 51.9961 95.95 SELENIUM 32.06 MOLYBDENUM CHROMIUM Cd SULFUR HOW BREA112.414THING COAL AsH IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH CADMIUM AlaN H. LOCKWOOD, MD, FAAN, FANA Senior Scientist and Past President Physicians for Social Responsibility and Emeritus Professor of Neurology, University at Buffalo LISA EVANS, J.D. Senior Administrative Counsel, Earthjustice Special thanks to Julie Weathering-Rice, PhD., Senior Scientist, Bennett & Williams Environmental Consultants, Inc., and Karlana Lewis, Yale Law School and Yale Environmental Protection Clinic. II ASH IN LUNGS the toxic metals present in the ash, such as arse- Toxic coal ash dust INTRODUCTION at the Making Money nic, mercury, chromium (including the highly Having Fun Landfill in ake a deep breath. But if you live near toxic and carcinogenic chromium VI), lead, Bokoshe, OK. a coal-burning power plant that dumps uranium, selenium, molybdenum, antimony, Tcoal ash into a nearby landfill or lagoon, nickel, boron, cadmium, thallium, cobalt, copper, don’t inhale too deeply because you’re probably manganese, strontium, thorium, vanadium and breathing fugitive dust made up of airborne coal others. Ironically, as coal plant pollution controls ash filled with dangerous and toxic pollutants. like electrostatic precipitators and baghouse Whether blown from an uncovered dump site or filters become more effective at trapping fly ash from the back of an open truck, toxic dust con- and decreasing coal plant air pollution, the waste taminates hundreds of fence line communities being dumped into coal ash waste streams is across the country. Acrid dust stings residents’ becoming more toxic. eyes and throats, and asthmatics, young and Coal ash is best known for polluting our old, are forced to reach for inhalers. Breathing drinking water, lakes, rivers and streams, and this toxic dust can be deadly, and yet no federal the threat it poses when dumped into large standards exist to protect affected communities. earthen dams that can and do break, caus- This report describes the health impacts of the ing catastrophic spills and leaks. In February pollution found in coal ash dust. It also points to 2014, just days after the U.S. Environmental the imminent need for federal controls to limit Protection Agency (EPA) announced a deadline exposure and protect the health of millions of for finalizing federal coal ash regulations, an Americans who live near coal ash dumps. underground pipe beneath a coal ash pond in Coal combustion waste (or coal ash1), par- North Carolina ruptured, sending 82,000 tons ticularly fly ash, a major component of coal ash of coal ash into the Dan River. In December waste, poses significant health threats because of 2008, a massive coal ash pond at the Tennessee HOW BReaTHING COal ASH IS HaZARDOUS TO YOUR HealTH 1 Coal ash spilled from the TVA Kingston Power Plant covered 300 acres and damaged 40 nearby homes. 2 ASH IN LUNGS CateGOries OF COal COMbustiON waste FLY ASH 50% Coal ash is comprised of four categories of combustion waste. BOTTOM ASH 10% Fly ash makes up the largest percentage (about half) by weight. Fly ash is the lightest BOILER SLAG 2% of the four wastes and the most likely to become airborne. It is carried up with hot FLUE GAS flue gases and trapped DESULPHURIZATION 38% by stack filters. (FGD) SLUDGE SOURCE: WWW.EPA.GOV/ RADIATION/TENORM/ COALANDCOALASH.HTML Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Protective practices to control toxic dust, Harriman, Tennessee, burst, sending more such as moistening dry ash or covering it daily than 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge across in a landfill, can minimize the dangers to public 300 acres, destroying and damaging 40 nearby health. Yet there are currently no federal require- homes and polluting miles of two nearby rivers. ments to control fugitive toxic dust. At most coal These are two examples of more than 200 docu- ash dumps state regulations do not mandate mented instances of coal ash contaminating daily cover, and adequate cover may only be nearby waters across the country.2 Large-scale required monthly or even yearly. The EPA found catastrophes are dangerous, well documented that such infrequent dust suppression has “the and publicized; but less visible dangers of coal potential to lead to significant risks.”6 ash pose another threat. When suspended in the air as dust, coal ash is a serious health hazard. The inhalation of toxic dust from dis- WHY INHalING COal ASH posal, transport and plant operations can cause IS HARmfUL serious injuries to workers and com munities residing near coal ash dumps. EXPOsure TO SMall Particle The huge volume of ash produced by the POllutiON nation’s 495 coal-burning power plants amplifies the risk.3 In 2007, these plants together generated Coal ash dust is small particles; the smaller the more than 140 million tons of coal ash, enough particle, the greater the health risks. The very to fill train cars stretching from the North Pole smallest particles are inhaled into the deepest to the South Pole.4 This ash was disposed of in part of the lungs where they trigger inflammation approximately 1,070 wet impoundments (or and immunological reactions. Some particles ponds), 435 landfills, hundreds of mines and gain access to the systemic circulation and travel uncounted numbers of gravel pits, piles and to distant organs where they produce heart or other sites.5 When disposed, coal ash dust is lung disease, while others may enter the brain emitted into the air by loading and unload- directly via the nerves in the nose. The disease- ing, transport and wind. Once in the air, it can causing potential of small particles, particularly migrate off-site as fugitive dust. As a result, work- those less than 2.5 micrometers in their aero- ers and nearby residents could be exposed to dynamic diameter (PM2.5), has led the EPA to significant amounts of coarse particulate matter include them among the six criteria pollutants under the Clean Air Act, which requires national (PM10) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). HOW BReaTHING COal ASH IS HaZARDOUS TO YOUR HealTH 3 including stroke, heart attack and the need for When suspended in the air coronary artery bypass surgery, could be deter- mined with great accuracy. The study showed as dust, coal ash is a serious that for a ten microgram per cubic meter increase in the concentration of PM2.5, there health hazard. was a 24 percent increase in the incidence of the aforementioned diseases. Whereas initial studies examined long-term air quality standards for certain pollutants that exposures to particulates, advances in statistical 7 cause adverse health impacts, including PM2.5. methods have made it possible to relate even As epidemiological research becomes more brief increases in the concentration of PM2.5 sophisticated due to improved techniques for to transient increases in the risk for stroke, monitoring air quality and advances in statisti- fatal heart rhythms and out-of-hospital cardiac cal and population sampling methods, it seems arrest. This is made possible because increas- likely that there is no level at which PM2.5 is ing numbers of patients with heart disease have assuredly free from causing adverse health implanted cardiac defibrillators that can detect effects. This principle became clear in a study a potentially fatal heart rhythm and deliver a of 51 metropolitan areas published in the New strong shock to the heart to restore a lifesav- England Journal of Medicine, the world’s leading ing normal rhythm. The painful shock causes peer-reviewed medical journal. The investigators patients to go to the hospital emergency room, who wrote this paper retrieved PM2.5 and mor- where technicians are able to “talk” to the defi- tality data from the late 1970s and early 1980s brillator using radio signals and retrieve the exact and compared it to data obtained about two heart rhythm and the time at which the device decades later. Uniformly, these analyses showed went off. Investigators then compare this time important increases in health benefits as the and rhythm data to additional data from air pol- PM2.5 concentrations fell. For example, in the lution monitoring sites near the patient in order Buffalo, New York, metropolitan area, a reduc- to relate the two seemingly separate data sets, tion of 13 micrograms per cubic meter of air was joined by a common time. Times and pollutant associated with a three- to four-year increase in levels chosen when the device did not fire off life expectancy. serve as controls. Many other studies published in leading Although burning coal is not the biggest peer-reviewed medical journals have shown source of PM2.5, improvements in analytical similar results—higher particulate concentra- techniques have made it possible to point the tions are associated with higher mortality rates. finger at coal with increasing confidence. Initially These studies link coal-derived particulates, it was only possible to measure and identify the including those from fly ash, to the four lead- source of relatively large particulates. Subsequent ing causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, improvements then made it possible to segregate cancer, respiratory diseases and stroke. In particles in terms of size. Recently, investiga- addition, preliminary data may lead to adding tors have applied statistical techniques coupled Alzheimer’s disease and Type II diabetes mel- with advances in analytical chemistry to clearly litus to this list. One study from the Women’s identify the source of particles.
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