EPA plans to weaken toxic coal plant pollution rules draw strong WV advocate reaction

The EPA on June 30 announced it was proposing to extend compliance deadlines for many requirements in its 2024 rule targeting wastewater pollution from over 900 fossil fuel-fired power plants nationwide.

Then, last week, the EPA announced it was issuing a rule and companion proposal that would extend compliance deadlines for requirements for what had been some lands not regulated for their byproducts left behind after coal was burned to generate electricity.

The EPA’s wastewater and coal ash rules have targeted coal-fired pollution of contaminants like arsenic and mercury that can contaminate waterways, groundwater, drinking water and the air.

The EPA’s moves advance the Trump administration’s agenda of propping up what has been an increasingly struggling coal industry while hobbling the more economical solar and wind industries — despite projections of record energy demand growth expected to require more renewable energy development, not less.

“These regulatory rollbacks will help line the pockets of the fossil fuel and power industries by compromising the health of our communities and environment," said Dani Parent, codirector of West Virginia Citizens Action Group, a progressive advocacy group. “West Virginians deserve clean water, transparency and robust environmental safeguards, not agencies that prioritize polluters over public health and safety.�

EPA had projected $3.2B in wastewater rule health benefits

In April 2024, the EPA under then-President Joe Biden announced a final rule to lower the discharge of toxic metals and other pollutants from coal-fired plants into waterbodies. The rule focused on plants that burn coal to create steam, setting a zero-discharge standard for limiting pollution of certain types of wastewater generated at coal-fired plants.

The regulation also established discharge limits for mercury and arsenic for leachate from surface impoundments discharged through groundwater and for other wastewater.

The EPA estimated last year the rule would slash pollutants discharged through wastewater from coal-fired power plants by over 660 million pounds per year. The agency projected the rule would provide $3.2 billion in public health benefits every year, with benefits accruing especially to low-income communities disproportionately affected by pollution from coal-fired power plants, like those throughout West Virginia.

But last month, the EPA announced it was not only proposing to extend compliance deadlines for many zero-discharge requirements in the rule but planned to “explore other flexibilities to promote reliable and affordable power generation.�

Steam electric plants use fossil fuels like coal to heat water boilers, which generates steam used to drive turbines linked to electric generators. The plants create wastewater in the form of chemical pollutants and heated water from their water treatment and ash-handling, as well as from coal piles and yard drainage.

“Politicians and corporate executives have already stripped mountaintops to increase profits, now they want our water,� said Jim Kotcon, chair of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The EPA has said the discharges targeted by last year’s wastewater rule include toxic and bioaccumulating pollutants like arsenic, mercury, nickel and selenium, halogen compounds like bromide, chloride and iodide, and total dissolved solids which can cause health and environmental harm through surface water and fish tissue contamination.

The pollutants discharged by industry can trigger human cancer risks, lowered IQ among children and reproductive harm and deformities in fish and wildlife, with pollutants lingering in the environment for years.

“So why would we want to repeal those rules?� Kotcon said.

EPA head claims 'much needed regulatory relief' on the way

But West Virginia Coal Association President Chris Hamilton questioned calling the EPA’s wastewater rule move a rollback, framing it instead as a “revision to support electric reliable energy and unleash� U.S. energy.

“After the carbon rule, the [wastewater rule] was the biggest threat to coal power plants in the U.S., with hundreds of units threatened with early shutdown," Hamilton said, referring to a rule governing carbon dioxide emissions strengthened last year but targeted for weakening by Trump's EPA.

Hamilton asserted the wastewater pollution rule limits were “simply unrealistic and unachievable,� and “technically feeble.�

But while the wastewater rule limit was based on performance of specific technologies, its regulations didn’t require use of a specific control technology.

The EPA on July 17 announced it was issuing a rule and companion proposal that will extend the compliance deadlines for some lands not regulated for their byproducts left behind after coal was burned to generate electricity, allowing facilities until Feb. 8, 2027, to submit a full facility evaluation report per the rule.

The EPA also said it was extending groundwater monitoring requirements for owners or operators of such land areas until Aug. 8, 2029.

“Today’s actions provide much needed regulatory relief for the power sector,� EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release, predicting agency commitments would “unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission.�

EPA had estimated health boosts from rule  

Last year’s rule update tightened regulations at inactive coal ash surface impoundments at inactive facilities, known as legacy surface impoundments.

The EPA set safeguards through the rule in line with those that were in place for inactive impoundments at active facilities, including mandating proper closure of impoundments and remediating groundwater contaminated by coal combustion residuals.

The rule looms particularly large in West Virginia given the state’s high concentration of shuttered coal-fired plants that have legacy surface impoundments targeted by last year’s rule. Such surface impoundments are more likely to be unlined and unmonitored, making them more vulnerable to leaks and structural issues, the EPA said upon announcing the rule last year.

Coal ash residuals from burning at coal plants include fly ash, a powdery material made chiefly of toxic silica dust. Some power plants dispose of coal ash in surface impoundments.

The EPA published a list of nearly two dozen legacy coal ash surface impoundments in West Virginia out of nearly 200 nationwide upon releasing its rule targeting such impoundments last year.

The rule also covers inactive coal ash landfills and other areas where coal ash is managed directly on land at active facilities.

Last year, the EPA estimated annual monetized costs of $214 million and $240 million as well as benefits of $53 million to $80 million a year, plus nonmonetized benefits that include:

• Boosts to human health from reducing lead exposure linked to increased cancer risk and cardiovascular mortality
• Healthier ecosystems from avoided exposure to heavy metals in coal-ash effluent
• Increased property values near closed and remediated coal ash units and option values for remediated land

AEP and FirstEnergy had fought rule 

Sites with legacy surface impoundments in West Virginia on the EPA list included:

• Albright, Willow Island and Rivesville power stations in Preston, Pleasants and Marion counties, respectively (retired by FirstEnergy in 2012)
• Kammer, Kanawha River and Philip Sporn power stations in Marshall, Kanawha and Mason counties, respectively (retired by American Electric Power in 2015)

AEP and FirstEnergy criticized the proposed rule in formal comments they submitted to the EPA in 2023.

AEP, parent company of Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power, contended environmental benefits of the rule “are not commensurate with the extraordinary costs of compliance.� The company said it “already expended significant financial resources� to comply with the 2015 coal ash rule, including opting to close at least 16 coal ash units by removal rather than close them in place.

FirstEnergy criticized a draft risk assessment it said the EPA misused by relying on overly conservative assumptions.

Appalachian Power spokesperson Karen Wissing said last week the proposed rules wouldn’t impact the company’s monitoring and reporting process.

Hamilton said the West Virginia Coal Association concurs with the EPA’s coal ash compliance deadline extensions, saying the agency’s move recognizes what he called the importance of coal-fired power to U.S. “energy and manufacturing dominance� by enabling a “streamlined and efficient� coal combustion residual management plan.

What Zeldin called regulatory relief, Parent called “letting billion-dollar utility companies off the hook for cleaning up their toxic mess.�

“These delays will come at the expense of communities who have long been suffering from toxic coal ash exposure at the hands of the utility industry,� Bri Knisley, public power campaigns director at Appalachian Voices, a regional environmental nonprofit, said in an emailed statement.

'This isn't oversight' 

On July 17, the same day as the EPA’s coal ash rule rollback announcement, the Department of the Interior announced all department-related decisions and actions regarding solar and wind energy facilities would “undergo elevated review� by the Interior secretary’s office, including leases, rights-of-way, construction and operation plans, grants, consultations and biological opinions.

The move amounts to the Department of the Interior singling out wind and solar projects on public lands for greater, potentially prohibitive scrutiny.

“This isn’t oversight. It’s obstruction that will needlessly harm the fastest growing sources of electric power,� Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, a clean energy industry group, said in a statement.

The Department of the Interior move follows the curtailment of a wide range of renewable energy tax incentives in a Republican budget reconciliation package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected in February 2025 solar and battery storage would account for 81% of expected total capacity additions to the U.S. power grid in 2025, with solar comprising over 50% of the increase.

But the renewable energy industry has taken a hit this year amid the attacks on it from the Trump administration and Congress.

Businesses canceled, closed and scaled back more than $22 billion worth of new factories and clean energy projects in the first half of 2025 after cancelling another $6.7 billion last month alone, according to E2’s latest monthly analysis of clean energy projects tracked nationwide.

E2 is a national, nonpartisan group of business leaders, investors and professionals that says it supports “policies that protect the environment while building economic prosperity.�

The EIA projected in May electricity consumption would grow at an average rate of 1.7% per year from 2020 through the end of its short-term forecast in 2026.

'Freedom to poison' 

Quickly deployable and low-cost energy resources like wind, solar and battery energy storage are needed to meet growing power demand, Rob Gramlich, president of power market-focused consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC, testified to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at an electricity demand-focused hearing Wednesday.

But Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., a coal magnate and committee member, praised fossil fuels during the hearing, calling for “a regulatory climate that we can function [in].�

The EPA appears to have aligned with Justice and those who back coal — not those who fear environmental health threats from it loosening its oversight in doing so.

“[N]othing says relief," Parent said, "like the freedom to poison communities a little longer."