* The State Journal-Register…

City Water, Light & Power’s Dallman power plant is among 16 plants in Illinois with coal-ash dumps that are contaminating groundwater at dangerous levels, according to a new report.

Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice, two environmental nonprofits, released, “Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps,” which evaluated sites across the country. An analysis of groundwater monitors found Dallman responsible for arsenic in the groundwater at 14 times safe levels and boron at 10 times safe levels.

The worst site in Illinois is the Southern Illinois Power Cooperative Marion Power Plant in Marion, where groundwater monitors found cobalt in the groundwater at 63 times safe levels, thallium at 46 times safe levels and arsenic at five times safe levels.

Kincaid Power Plant in Christian County had two times the safe level of boron, the report concluded.

* The Energy News Network…

The 2015 rules clearly state that coal ash cannot be permanently stored in contact with groundwater. Nonetheless, companies are planning to close about 200 such facilities with the ash left in place in unlined pits where it is known to be in contact with groundwater, according to the Earthjustice-Environmental Integrity Project analysis. Environmental groups argue that the law clearly indicates ash in such pits must be removed.

This is of particular concern since private drinking water wells draw from groundwater and are rarely tested for health and safety unless residents take such expensive testing upon themselves.( An interactive map produced by Northwestern University for the Energy News Network shows coal ash repositories and density of drinking water wells.) For example, Joliet, Illinois residents worry about contamination from coal ash stored in nearby Lincoln Stone Quarry and wonder whether to believe owner NRG’s promises that past problems have been remedied by pumps that change the groundwater flow.

“The problem is the pollution is largely invisible — if coal ash contaminants like arsenic and thallium are in your drinking water, you won’t see them, you won’t taste them,” Evans said. “It’s often undetected until it’s too late.”

Coal ash has been shown to be contaminating drinking water wells at at least 15 sites nationwide, including Town of Pines, Indiana, and Lansing, Michigan. In some cases, companies have provided residents with bottled water or paid to connect them to municipal water systems. North Carolina’s state coal ash law mandates that wells near coal ash repositories be tested and that almost all coal ash be removed to lined landfills.

* Indy Star…

There are compliance failures at 16 leaking ash disposal sites across Indiana, according to the report. It is tied with Illinois for having the most problem pits, the report shows. […]

The federal coal ash rule was established in 2015 to reduce groundwater pollution from coal-fired power plants across the country. It came after two coal ash disasters in the previous decade in North Carolina and Tennessee that spilled millions of tons of coal ash.

The Obama administration passed the Coal Combustions Residual, or CCR rule, the first to regulate the storage and disposal of coal ash.

The Trump administration then weakened that rule in 2020, allowing utilities to take longer to comply with pollution reduction guidelines and making said guidelines less stringent. The Biden administration is strengthening that rule again.

* Circle of Blue reported on how mine cleanup is weakened by the decline of coal in October…

In August of 1977, when the nation’s coal mine cleanup law went into effect, it reflected the market’s optimism. The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act allowed the states to hold a bond to pay for cleanups if the mining company couldn’t. Lawmakers figured that bankruptcies would be few and far between. To enforce cleanup, the law allowed states to revoke mining permits, a prized commodity.

Forty-five years later, coal is in free fall. Here in the Illinois basin — which straddles the Ohio River in parts of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky — one-third of the region’s coal is sold to power plants set to retire in the next decade. Every few weeks, another mine is idled or shut down. The threat of revoking permits no longer holds the force it once did.

The mine cleanup law, however, no longer reflects current conditions. It is still built for the industry’s roaring ‘70s. The issue boils down to the fact that the government is not collecting enough money to pay for cleanup.

At the moment, some of those costs are falling indirectly onto taxpayers, as environmental obligations are unloaded during bankruptcy restructuring. Between 2012 and 2017, four major companies — including Peabody energy, the world’s largest coal company, which produces 20 percent of the coal in Illinois — shed more than $5 billion owed for environmental cleanup, and health care for retired workers.