Coal Ash Regulation

Coal ash from power plants is often stored in local ponds. Although the polluted water becomes extremely dangerous (you want an ice cold glass of coal sludge?), power companies usually build sturdy walls around the sludge ponds to prevent seepage. In December of 2008, however, a Tennessee Valley Authority containment wall in eastern Tennessee broke, spilling 300 million gallons of sludge and flooding 15 homes. The image above shows one of the homes (photo courtesy of the Freakonomics blog and Dorothy Griffith).

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that it would begin monitoring coal ash disposal sites. It identified 44 high hazard potential sites, places that are most likely to experience a similar spill. Although this is a great first step, EPA needs to clearly outline its plans for regulating coal ash. According to Stephen Smith:

It’s still unclear to me what the E.P.A.’s ultimate goal here is to do. Are they really going to aggressively regulate this material like they need to, or are they taking more of a hands-off approach?

It will be interesting to see how the EPA handles this issue in the coming months.

Clean Air Act - People Live 5 Months Longer!

There was an interesting and important pollution study published in the New England Journal of Medicine a few months ago. According to researchers C. Arden Pope III, Majid Ezzati, and Douglas W. Dockery:

On the basis of the average reduction in the PM2.5 concentration . . . in the metropolitan areas included in this analysis . . . the average increase in life expectancy attributable to the reduced levels of air pollution was approximately 0.4 year. . . . [T]hese results suggest that the individual effect of reductions in air pollution on life expectancy was as much as 15% of the overall increase. (p. 384)

Thanks to the regulations authorized under the Clean Air Act, the average person lives roughly five months longer. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the benefits outweigh the $27 billion costs. But the results are interesting nonetheless.