WASHINGTON (CN) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned its duty to regulate discharge of toxic metals from coal-fired power plants, allowing mercury discharges of 900 times a safe level, and selenium discharges of 4,000
WASHINGTON (CN) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned its duty to regulate discharge of toxic metals from coal-fired power plants, allowing mercury discharges of 900 times a safe level, and selenium discharges of 4,000 times the safe limit for water, two environmental groups claim in Federal Court.
“Despite the gravity and scope of this pollution problem, EPA never has set national standards to limit toxic metals discharges from power plants,” the Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club say. They say the EPA has not revises its effluent limitations for 28 years, despite an “exponential” increase in toxic pollution caused by increasing use of “scrubber” systems, and the resulting coal ash and sludge from them.
The environmental groups want the agency to adopt the “long overdue regulations governing wastewater discharges from power plants.”
“Over the past 20 years, growing use of FGD [flue gas desulfurization] ‘