Friday, January 9, 2009

Arizona 19th in amount of coal ash in ponds

Arizona is 19th out of 32 states that disposed of power plant coal ash in surface ponds in 2005 according to an Associate Press analysis of DOE data. Arizona plants put 291,000 tons of ash in 2 pods, although AP did not identify which power plants. [left, Cholla Bottom Fly Ash Pond, APS, near St. Joseph. Credit, scenicplaces.com]

They say 156 power plants disposed of 19 million tons of ash in pounds out of 95.8 million tons generated.

There was no claim that any of the ponds were leaking or presented an imminent threat.

My reading of the backlash over the failure of the TVA dam in Tennessee is that there is growing pressure to force EPA to regulate such dams.