John Wathen Speaks on Perry County Crisis

Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen speaks about TVA’s growing toxic coal ash mountain in Alabama’s Black Belt and the environmental injustice going on for the people there at the Alabama Rivers Alliance conference in Montgomery this past weekend.

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by Glynn Wilson

The Environmental Protection Agency is being asked once again to rescind the Perry County landfill’s certification to continue accepting toxic TVA coal ash in Alabama’s Black Belt and to order the shipments to cease, due to ongoing legal violations with the liquid waste being disposed of in a Demopolis wastewater treatment plant.

Glynn Wilson / Southwings

An aerial view of the growing toxic coal ash mountain in Alabama’s Black Belt

Florida attorney David Ludder, who specializes in environmental law, filed a petition with the EPA on Wednesday asking the federal agency to take action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, a law designed to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites, also known as Superfund sites.

The law provides broad federal authority to clean up releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment, and authorizes the EPA to identify parties responsible for contamination of sites and compel the parties to clean them up.

Superfund was enacted by Congress in response to the Love Canal disaster in New York, the dioxin exposure of people in Times Beach, Missouri, and the environmental contamination at the Valley of the Drums in Kentucky in the 1970s.

While the coal ash coming to Alabama is not classified as a “hazardous waste” under the Solid Waste Disposal Act, it is classified as a “hazardous substance” under the Superfund law, Ludder said in an e-mail interview.

“EPA is required by CERCLA to make a determination that the landfill where hazardous substances will be disposed is ‘acceptable,’” Ludder said, including whether the landfill is in compliance with state requirements. “Wastes which qualify as hazardous substances like the TVA coal ash may ONLY be disposed at a landfill that has been determined by EPA to be ‘acceptable’.”

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