UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

OFFICE OF RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY

OFFICE OF SOLID WASTE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE

PUBLIC HEARING ON EP A'S PROPOSED RULE ON

Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System;

Identification and Listing of Special Wastes;

Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals from

Electric Utilities

DOCKET ID NO. EPA

- HQ

- RCRA

- 2009

- 0640

Chicago, Illinois

Thursday, September 16, 20102

1 PARTICIPANTS:

2 EPA Hearing Panel:

3 Morning Session:

4 BETSY DEVLIN, Chair

Associate Director of Materials Recovery and Waste

5 Management

Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery

6

LAUREL CELESTE

7

SUSAN MOONEY

8

JIM KOHLER

9

Afternoon Session:

10

FRANK BEHAN, Chair

11 Acting Chief of the Energy Recovery and Waste

Disposal Branch

12 Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery

13 ALEXANDER LIVNAT

14 JERRI GARL

15 JULIE GEVRENOW

16 Evening Session:

17 BETSY DEVLIN, Chair

Associate Director of Materials Recovery and Waste

18 Management

Office of Resource Conservation and R ecovery

19

LAUREL CELESTE

20

SUSAN MOONEY

21

JIM KOHLER

223

1 PARTICIP ANTS (CONT'D):

2 EPA Hearing Panel:

3 Night Session:

4 BETSY DEVLIN, Chair

Associ ate Director of Materials Recovery and Waste

5 Management

Office of Resource C onservation and Recovery

6

LAUREL CELESTE

7

ALEXANDER LIVNAT

8

JESSE MILLER

9

* * * * *

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

224

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (10:00 a.m.)

3 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, good morning, I think

4 we're going to start. Good morning and thank you

5 for atte nding today's public hearing on the

6 Environmental Protection Agency's propos ed rule

7 regarding the regulation of coal combustion

8 residuals that are disposed of in landfills and

9 surface impoundments.

10 Before we begin, again I'd like to thank

11 everyone for taking the time out of your schedules

12 to come and give us your comments on the proposed

13 rule, and we reall y look forward to receiving your

14 comments. I also realize t hat a number of you

15 have traveled a great distance to be here and we

16 really do appreciate your participation in this

17 hearing

.

18 This is the fifth of eight public

19 hearings that we are conducting on this rule. We

20 have conducted four very successful hearings

21 already. These have been in Washington, D. C.;

22 Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; and Cha rlotte,5

1 North Carolina. The remaining hearings are

2 scheduled for Pittsburgh; L ouisville, Kentucky;

3 and there wi ll be a final hearing in Tennessee.

4 My name is Betsy Devlin. I am the

5 Associate Director of the Materials Recovery and

6 Waste Management Divi sion in EPA's Office of

7 R esource Conservation and Recovery and I will be

8 chairing this morning's session of this hearing.

9 With me on the panel are Laurel Celeste, Susan

10 Mooney and Jim Kohler, all of whom are from EPA.

11 Before I begin today I'd like to give

12 you a brief description of the proposed rule as

13 well as a rundown of the logistics on how we're

14 going to conduct today's hearing. Coal combustion

15 residuals or CCRs are residues from the combustion

16 of coal at electric utilities and include fly ash,

17 bottom ash, boiler slag, and flue gas

18 desulfurization mate rials. Coal combustion

19 residuals contain problematic contaminants such as

20 mercury, cadmium and arsenic. In 2008,

21 approximately 136,000,000 tons of CCRs were

22 gene rated by elec tric utilities and independent6

1 power producers. Of that total, approximately

2 46,000,000 tons were landfilled, 30,000,000 tons

3 were disposed of in surface impoundments,

4 50,000,000 tons were beneficially used, and

5 11,000,000 tons were used in landfilling

6 operations. EPA estimates that there are

7 approximately 300 landfills and within 600 surface

8 impoundments where CCRs are disposed.

9 We have proposed to regulate these CCRs

10 to ensure their safe management when they are

11 disposed in landfills and surface impoundments.

12 Without proper protections, the contaminants in

13 these residuals can leach into groundwater and

14 migrate to drinking water sources po sing public

15 health concerns. In addition, the structural

16 failure of the surface impoundment of the

17 Tennessee Valley Authority's plant in Kingston,

18 Tennessee in December 2008 r eleased more than

19 5,000,000 cubic yards of coal ash over

20 approximately 300 acres of land and contaminated

21 portions of the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

22 With this proposal, EPA has opened a7

1 national dialogue by calling for public comment on

2 two different regulatory approaches available

3 under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

4 (RCRA) for addressing risks from the disposal of

5 CCRs. One option presented in the proposed rule

6 draws from the authorities available under

7 Subtitle C of RCRA. This would create a

8 comprehensive program of federally enforceable

9 requirements for waste management and disposal.

10 The other option is based on the authoritie s under

11 Subtitle D of RCRA which gives EPA the authority

12 to set minimum national federal criteria for waste

13 management facilities that must be met on schedule

14 established in th at regulation. The regulation

15 would be enforceable through citizen suits, but

16 under this scenario states do qualify as citizens.

17 EPA decided to propose the two options

18 in order to encourage a robust dialogue on how to

19 addres s the human health concerns and the

20 structural integrity issues associated with the

21 disposal of CCRs. And EPA wants to ensure that

22 our ultimate decision is based on the best8

1 available data and is made with the substantial

2 input of all stakeholders. Therefore, we ask that

3 you provide us your comments, not only at today's

4 hearing but any other comments and supporting

5 information that you want to provide later in

6 writing.

7 I'd also like to say a few words about

8 beneficial use o f coal combustion residuals. This

9 proposed rule maintains the bevel exemption for

10 CCRs that are beneficially u sed and, therefore,

11 will not alter the regulatory status of materials

12 use d in that manner. EPA continues to strongly

13 support the safe and protective beneficial use of

14 CCRs. H owever, the proposal also indicates that

15 concerns have been raised with certain uses of

16 coal combustion residuals particularly when used

17 in an unencapsulated form. Therefore, we have

18 requested comments, information and data on

19 specific aspects of beneficial use, particularly

20 those dealing with unencapsulated applications.

21 We also make it clear in our proposal that coal

22 combustion residuals placed in sand and gravel9

1 pits, quarries, and other large

- scale fuel

2 operations are not ex amples of beneficial use.

3 EPA views this placement as akin to disposal and

4 would regulate those sites as d isposal sites under

5 either of today's options.

6 Now, let me c over some logistics for how

7 this hearing is going to work today. Speakers, if

8 you pre

- registered, you were given a 15

- minute

9 time slot when you were scheduled to give your

10 th ree minutes of testimony. And to guarantee that

11 slot, we have asked that you sign in 10 minutes

12 before your 15

- minute slo t at the registration

13 desk.

14 All speakers, th ose that pre

- registered

15 and walk

- ins, were given a number when you signed

16 in today and that is the order in which you will

17 speak. I will call speakers to the front of the

18 roo m, four or five at a time, and ask that you

19 come up and sit on the chairs to my right. And

20 when your number is called, please move to the

21 microphone, state your name and affiliation, and

22 please state it clearly for our court reporter.10

1 We may ask you to spell y our name for our court

2 reporter who is transcri bing the comments for the

3 official record.

4 Because there are many, many people who

5 signed up to provide testimony today, and to be

6 fair to everyone, testimony is limi ted to three

7 minutes, we will be using an electronic time

8 keeping system but we will also hold up cards to

9 let you know when your time is getting low. We'll

10 hold up the first card, that means you have two

11 minutes left. When we hold up the second card,

12 you'll have one minute left. When the third card

13 is held up, you'll have 3 0 seconds left. And when

14 the red card is held up, you are out of time and

15 we ask that you complete your remarks.

16 And remember, any written material, you

17 can provide any writ ten material to our court

18 reporter. The material will be entered into the

19 rule

- making record and it will be considered just

20 the same as if you had presented your testimony

21 orally.

22 We will not be answering questions today11

1 on the proposal; however, from time to time some

2 of us on the panel may ask the speaker a q uestion

3 to clarify something in your testimony. As I just

4 mentioned, if you have brought a copy of your

5 written testimony, you can leave it in the box by

6 our court rep orter wh ich is sitting, the box is

7 right in front of his desk. If you are only

8 submitting written comments today, we ask that you

9 put them in the box by the registration desk. And

10 if you have any comments after today, please

11 follow the instructions on the yellow handout

12 sheet for submitting official comments to the

13 docket, and those must be in by November 19th.

1 4 Although it's to ensure that everyone

15 who came today to present testimony is given the

16 opportunity to speak, and to the extent allowable

17 by time constraints, we will do our best to

18 accommodate those who have not pre

- registered and

19 those who have asked us to speak orally. We will

20 try to do that. Today's hearing was technically

21 scheduled to end at 9:00 p.m. However, we are

22 planning to stay later to allow as many people as12

1 possible to provide their testimony. If, however,

2 for some reason you ar e not able to present your

3 comments orally, we have prepared a table in the

4 lobby where you can provide your statement in lieu

5 of oral testimony. Again, your stat ements will be

6 collec ted and entered into the docket for the

7 proposed rule and will be considered just the same

8 as if you had presented your testimony orally.

9 If you would like to testify or to speak

10 and have not done so, please sign up at our

11 registration desk. Also, during the hearing, if

12 you have any concerns or questions, please see our

13 folks at the registration desk; they can answer

14 any questions that you have or can notify us if

15 you have a concern. We are likely to take

16 occasional brief breaks, but we will shorten or

17 eliminate them, again to allow as many people as

18 possible to testify.

19 Finally, if you have a cell phone, we

20 would ask that you turn it off or turn it to

21 vibrate. And if you do need to use your phone at

22 any time, we'd ask that you move into the lobby.13

1 And again, ask for your patience, as we proceed we

2 may need to make some minor adjustments as w e go

3 forward, but hopefully everything will go very

4 smoothly. And thanks again for participating and

5 I'd like to get started.

6 And so, will Speakers 1, 2, 3 and 4

7 please come to the front of the room? And number

8 1, please go to the microphone. Thank you.

9 MR. WELCH: G ood morning. My name is

10 Lyman Welch. I'm the water quality program

11 manager for the Alliance for the Great Lakes. I

12 want to thank you for holding this public hearing

13 today an d allowing the hundreds of people here in

14 Chicago and thousands across the country the

15 opportunity to speak on this important issue.

16 Thank you also for holding the hearing here in

17 Chicago where we are close to the Great Lakes.

18 The Alliance for the Great Lakes is a

19 non

- profit organization as advocate on behalf of

20 the Great Lakes and the people who enjoy it on f or

21 decades. The Alliance's mission is to conserve

22 and restore the world's largest fresh water14

1 resource using po licy, education, and local

2 efforts to ensure a healthy Great Lakes and clean

3 water for genera tions of people and wildlife. I'm

4 here today to urge you to regulate coal ash waste

5 under Subtitle C of the Federal Resource

6 Conservation and Recovery Act.

7 The Great Lakes p rovide drinking water

8 and recreation to over 40,000,000 people in the

9 regio n. With more than 136,000,000 tons of coal

10 combustion waste being produced each year which

11 can send hazardou s materials into waterways from

12 leaking or flooded ash ponds and leaching into

13 groundwater from unlined landfills, it is

14 important that we address this problem. Some of

15 this waste is generated by coal burning plants and

16 disposal sites around the Great Lakes, inc luding

17 the Karn and Weadock landfills in Saginaw,

18 Michigan and the Bailly Plant disposal site near

19 the In diana Dunes National Lakeshore.

20 With the overwhelming science showing

21 that coal ash waste can contain more than a dozen

22 potentially cancer

- causing metals such as15

1 arsenic, l ead and mercury, we need strong federal

2 regulations to safeguard the health of the Great

3 Lakes and all of us who depend on them.

4 Regulation Subtitle C is important to ensure

5 consistent federal regulation across the country.

6 We do not want to have a patchwork of differing

7 state regulations that have greater or lesser

8 protection against these dangerous materials.

9 As an example, we know that in Erie,

10 Michigan there is a JR Whiting plant that a US

11 Fish and Wildlife study in 1983 and 1984 showed

12 some impacts on fish and wildlife. There is a

13 Wisconsin Energy Oak Creek Plant in Oak Creek,

14 Wisconsin near Lake Michigan that has had leaching

15 into the groundwater. I want to thank

16 Environmental Integrity Project an d Earthjustice

17 for their important work on this issue.

18 Other industries argue against

19 regulations citing increased costs. It's

20 important that the Great Lakes do not become a

21 dumping ground. While that would be the cheapest

22 way to address this problem, industry should bear16

1 the cost for disposing of the materials that they

2 create. Thank you.

3 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 2

4 please.

5 MR. JENSEN: My name is La rry Jensen. I

6 represent a group called People in Need of

7 Environmental Safety (PINES) in Pines, Indiana

8 which is about an hour and a half southeast of

9 this place. The two has been co ntaminated by

10 leachate from a coal ash disposal site that led to

11 groundwater and drinking water contamination.

12 It's now a CERCLA site.

13 My testimony here, however, involves th e

14 radioactive aspects of the coal ash. By way of

15 substantiation, well, coal contains radioactive

16 materials, natural radioactive materials. These

17 are not degraded or destroyed by t he burning

18 process, and so they are in the fly ash itself.

19 By way of substantiation of my credentials, I've

20 worked for the EPA Region 5 for 21 years. I was a

21 radiation health physicist, and most of that time

22 I was either the regional radiation expert or the17

1 superfund radiation export and I did risk

2 assessmen ts for EPA. I received five bronze

3 medals and a gold medal for the work I did, three

4 of which were in the cleanup of a small town much

5 like Pines.

6 Last year on October, I di d a radiation

7 survey in Pines to determine that there was

8 radioactive materials along their streets; there

9 was. It was statistically separate from

10 background so it was real, material. There is a

11 limited amount of data on the concentration of

12 radioactive materials from a landfill but when I

13 worked for EPA we cleaned up based on the uranium

14 mill tailing standards in 40 CFR 192. The level

15 for Pines would have been 5.6 picocuries per gram.

16 That's the radium plus the background levels. The

17 measured numbers that ar e present in the fly ash

18 in Pines is more like 24 picocuries per gram. So,

19 substantially above the levels we would have

20 cleaned up, too, when I was at EPA.

21 Also, I d id a risk assessment trying to

22 determine h ow high that might be. Under the18

1 Superfund Law and the National Contingency Plan,

2 the upper limit on acceptable risk is 1 x 10

- 4.

3 The risk that I computed for only one pathway for

4 Pines was 13 x 10

- 4. That involves the gamma

5 exposure. It doesn't include inhalatio n, doesn't

6 include ingestion, and does not include any othe r

7 radon aspects of it.

8 So, I think just from the radioactive

9 standpoint, you can see that coal ash is a

10 material that ought not to be going unregulated.

11 And I think the disposal of it, as in Pines, for

12 landfill along roadways is pretty ubiquitous. I

13 don't think Pines is at all uniq ue. So, I think

14 you looked around the country, you'd find a lot

15 more problems like Pines and are indicative of a

16 much larger problem. And I think RCRA then needs

17 to be adjust ed so that these coal ash materials

18 are controlled. Thank you.

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 3

20 please.

21 MR. WARD: My name is John Ward and I am

22 Chairman of Citizens for Recycling First, an19

1 organization of more than 1,500 individuals who

2 believe that the best soluti on for coal ash

3 disposal problems is to quit throwing coal ash

4 away.

5 Today, I would like to make four key

6 points that address common misconceptions that

7 have been frequently stated at these series of

8 public hearings.

9 Number one: Coal ash does not qualify

10 as a hazardous waste based on its toxicity. This

11 is not an option. It is a fact that standardized

12 tests show that the levels of metals in coal ash

13 are below the amounts established for listing it

14 as a hazardous waste. In recycling settings, the

15 toxicity of coal ash is similar to the toxicity of

16 the materials it commonly replaces.

17 Number two: EPA's proposed Subtitle D

18 and Subtitle C regulatory approaches are bot h

19 protective of human health and the environment.

20 The landfill construction standards proposed are

21 essentially the same in both, and so EPA's

22 Subtitle C proposal is not "strong er." The key20

1 differences between the proposals boil down to who

2 gets to enforce the new regulations that EPA

3 est ablishes, new regulations that are far from

4 "business as usual" in either option.

5 Number three: Stigma is real. Labeling

6 coal ash as hazardous waste when it is disposed

7 creates enormous barriers to recycling.

8 Producers, marketers and users of coal ash have

9 been unanimous in expressing this fact during the

10 public hearings. The only people claiming the

11 stigma is not real are people with no direct

12 involvement in the recycling effort.

13 And number four: Stigma is already

14 taking a toll on recycling just as a result of

15 this debate. Specifiers and users of coal ash are

16 already beginning to remove the material from

17 projects because of regulatory uncertainty and

18 fear of future liabilities. Manufactur ers of

19 products that compete with coal ash are actively

20 using this forum to make false claims about

21 dangers of using coal ash. And we have seen

22 numerous witnesses at these ver y hearings express21

1 fear regarding long established beneficial uses of

2 coal ash, proving the po int that the drumbeat of

3 the terms "toxic" and "hazardous" dramatically

4 affects consumer behavior.

5 The people who work everyday to recycle

6 coal ash are extremely disheartened by this

7 d ebate. Many of them have devoted entire careers

8 to do something good for the environment. They

9 now feel betrayed by the Environmental Protection

10 Agency and by environmental groups who appear

11 resolved to ignore and sacrifice the benefits of

12 recycling in their single

- minded push for federal

13 enforcement authority.

14 New coal ash disposal regulations under

15 Subtitle D will make meaningful improvements to

16 disposal practices and do it faster than Subtitle

17 C can. Subtitle D will protect human health and

18 the environment, and will avoi d the creation of an

19 unnecessary and harmful hazardous waste stigma

20 that will wreck efforts to safely and responsibly

21 recycle millions of tons of material that

22 otherwise will find it s way to landfills.22

1 Subtitle D is the right choice for the

2 environment. Thank you very much.

3 MS. DEVL IN: Thank yo u. Number 4

4 please.

5 MS. OWEN: Good morning. My name is

6 Verena Owen. I'm the Chair of Sierra Club's

7 Beyond Coal Campaign. The Sierra Club is the

8 biggest and oldest environmental organization in

9 the United States. And the Beyond Coal Campaign

10 aims to move our economy towards a clean energy

11 future by stopping nuclear

- fired p ower plants,

12 phasing out existing plants, and keeping coal in

13 the ground and on top of mountains.

14 My role as one of the lead volunteers in

15 the Sierra Club is to enabl e and empower our

16 g rassroots and our members and our allies to work

17 on those issues that affect them, their lives,

18 their families, their communities and the

19 environment. I hav e also served for two and a

20 half years at an EPA task force and was part of a

21 hearing panel and we traveled all over the United

22 States and I'm a little bit familiar with what it23

1 feels like on your side of the table.

2 It's a tough job. But even those

3 experiences in my years working on grassroots

4 issues and with grassroots people did not rea lly

5 prepare me for the experience of having so many

6 people learning and working together and engaging

7 in this coal ash issue so quick ly and so deeply.

8 You will hear from a good number of them today.

9 Many of them have traveled long distances to tell

10 their stories today, and thank you for giving that

11 opportuni ty.

12 Coal ash is the second largest waste

13 treatment in the country. Much of this is

14 discarded in dumps and wet ponds that lack even

15 basic safeguards. Coal ash toxins can leach out

16 and into the groundwater. You will hear

17 compelling testimony about places like Pines where

18 this has happened and what the health effects of

19 these toxins are.

20 Effective coal ash regulations must

21 require basi c protection for communities. Coal

22 ash disposal sites should have construction and24

1 operating permits; consistent standards for

2 transportation, storage and disposal; and require

3 owners to undertake corrective actions when

4 problems a rise. EPA has to have the ability and

5 authority to enforce against polluters.

6 There are two options on the table. It

7 is clear that only the coal industry would benefit

8 from the basically status quo regulations under

9 Option D they are championing.

10 That option requires none of the

11 abovementioned safeguards. Industry will claim

12 th at ensuring such proper safeguards under the

13 protective Subtitle C option of the proposed rule

14 is a costly proposal. But, folks, that cost is

15 already being paid

-- except it is being paid by the

16 wrong party. It is paid by the party, the people

17 affected by coal ash in our neighborhoods.

18 Coal is a dirty business through its

19 entire life cycle, from mining to burn ing to

20 disposal. The coal has been shielded for years,

21 for decades actually from the true cost of coal.

22 It is time that they are being held accountable,25

1 and that means that there is an accounts payable

2 column in their coal and for coal ash disposal in

3 their books.

4 The rule off ers two options

-- can I

5 finish? Thanks. EPA has two options for the coal

6 ash rule, and in this case D is not a passing

7 grade and C is the top of the class. Thank you

8 for yo ur time.

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay. Numbers

10 5, 6, 8, unless, is number 7 in the room? I don't

11 hav e you, so 5, 6, 8, 62 and 208.

12 Are you number 5? Num ber 5, please go

13 ahead. Go ahead please.

14 MS. BARKLEY: Good morning. My name is

15 Traci Barkley. I work with t he Prairie Rivers

16 Network as a water resources scientis t. Our

17 organization works with and on behalf of Illinois

18 citizens to protect clean water for people and

19 wildlife.

20 I have two points to make: 1) Illinois

21 officials have known that coal ash handling and

22 disposal practices have been negligent and26

1 threatening clean water and pub lic health. We

2 have data from nearly 20 years ago showing as

3 much. What EPA needs to hear is that it wasn't

4 until the December 2008 impoundment fa ilure in

5 Kingston, Tennessee that a state

- wide review of

6 these ash impoundments was initiated. The

7 findings have been startling: I. Most coal ash

8 impoundments do not have liners or other

9 protective me asures to contain waste and prevent

10 pollution of groundwater. Ii. Groundwater

11 monitoring was not required at most coal ash

12 impoundments. Iii. Groundwater is c ontaminated

13 at ten power plants, those that have been

14 investigated thus far; and iv. Dams creating the

15 impoundments at most sites are unpermitted and

16 have not been inspected for safe ty or stability.

17 In Illinois, we are missing what we so

18 desperately need to protect our people and

19 wildlife from coal ash contamination: liners,

20 monitoring, effective cleanup plans, dam safe ty

21 requirements, enforceable standards, which brings

22 me to my second point.27

1 2) Now that we are o penly aware of the

2 problem, people are urgently wondering what we

3 will do about it. Because they are threatened or

4 already impacted. Because they are afraid.

5 Because they might ha ve made the phone calls,

6 tried to get people to listen, and have been

7 silenced through pressure, ridicule, or maybe

8 co

- opted through the promise of free water. These

9 people wa nt to be he re and I'm proud that so many

10 people are here, but there are many more at home

11 and we need to hear and feel these stories so that

12 we'll make sure the EPA stays true to their

13 mission wh ich is to "protect human health and to

14 safeguard the natural environment, air, water, and

15 land, upon which life depends."

16 There are four stories, and I'll be

17 brief. An elder ly woman living near the Ameren

18 Hutsonville facility signed away her groundwater

19 rights for herself and anyone wanting to purchase

20 her home and farm in future years for ONE DOLLAR

21 beca use she didn't know she had an option. And

22 the folks drinking water from the nearby Wabash28

1 River need to know that EPA will support closure

2 of these contamination sites past what our

3 Illinois EPA thinks is necessary for

4 cleanup

-- pumping the contaminated groundwater and

5 du mping it in the nearby river.

6 A woman living next to the Coffeen Power

7 Plant and whose husband has worked there for over

8 30 years fears that the levee might break and

9 smother her home just a quarter mile from the coal

10 ash. She is also concerned that the constant fly

11 ash "sparkle" on her home, car, and yard is also

12 in her lungs.

13 A gentleman I met last week in Douglas

14 County near a site where fly ash is being used to

15 "reclaim" an abandoned mine impoundment has

16 reported on coal ash contamination of air and

17 water to the Illinois EPA several times with no

18 response . He has witnessed coal ash clouds so

19 thick that cars have to stop on the road. And

20 when I was on site, there was a recent mussel kill

21 in the stream a half mile downstream where there's

22 fly ashes. All the fingernail clams were open and29

1 dead. Fly ash coated the surface and banks.

2 Please, we ask you to stay true to your

3 mission, listen to your constituents and do the

4 right thing. Regulate coal ash with Subtitle C

5 and take the first step towards turning this bad

6 idea gone worse around. Thank you.

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 6

8 please.

9 MS. PARKS: Hello. My na me is Mary

10 Parks and I'm a registered nurse and I'm currently

11 working on my Master's degree to become a nurse

12 practitioner. And I experienced this first

- hand,

13 the coal ash com ing down like snow on my home. I

14 have a sample of it here. When I contacted the

15 Illinois EPA, I got a runaround, I got lied to, I

16 was told it couldn't possibly happen because there

17 was an outage. When I told them I had a sample,

18 that changed their tune and, oh, it was an

19 emergency but no big deal.

20 If this happened as a result of another

21 country, this would be chemical terrorism. This

22 would be an act of war. And yet, when people do30

1 it here in the United States, it's just a matter

2 of business. And yet the people that live there,

3 that experience this, that are poisoned d ay in and

4 day out, they are the victims of an act of war.

5 And I think we need to understand that this isn't

6 just business as usual. People are dying. People

7 are getting sick.

8 When this coal ash came down to my yard,

9 it was between rai nshowers. It was just a scary,

10 scary thing. My husband is a captain on the local

11 fire department. He identified it imme diately as

12 coal ash. We checked the weather patterns. We

13 live about a mile and a half from a coal burning

14 facility, and I mean it was very obvious where it

15 was coming from. And I ju st, I think it's time

16 that people understand that this isn't just a

17 small, small situation. This is going on and the

18 people in this area that are affected by this are

19 dying. And noth ing is being done.

20 They need to clean it up. It lands on

21 our ground. My organic garden is gone. I was in

22 a snowstorm of toxic chemicals. I breathed it, I31

1 to uched it. Everyone around us did the same

2 thing. A lot of people didn't see it, it rained

3 shortly thereafter but it was there. It was in

4 our ground, it was in our water, it was in our

5 pools, it was in our food. It was there.

6 And it is chemical terrorism that's

7 ongoing every single day. It needs to stop

8 im mediately. These people are dying. I see it as

9 a nurse. I've treated many people with very

10 strange cancers, COPD, many, many different

11 ailments and illnesses. And as a nurse, it's just

1 2 appalling to know that it could be sto pped. It

13 doesn't have to keep going on. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 8

16 please.

17 MS. PAISLEY: M y name is Lorna Paisley.

18 I'm with CARE, Citizens Against Ruining the

19 Environment, out of Lockport and Joliet. I am

20 here approaching you as a citizen though because I

21 am worrie d about the nation's water supply and the

22 health of its people. I do not want our water32

1 supply to rank below that of a Third World

2 country. We already have dead zones at the mouth

3 of the Mississippi River and water that can't be

4 drank or fished in or played in.

5 The amount of toxins dum ped into o ur

6 water is overwhelming, herbicides and pesticides

7 from lawns and farms; mercury from oil refineries;

8 chlorine plants; coal power plants; tritium from

9 nuclear plants; chemic al s from industrial plants

10 along the river that think the solution to

11 pollution is dilution; contaminants pushed into

12 rivers and streams by mountaintop removal; and

13 toxins includ ing or ganics from fracting for

14 natural gas. Do you wonder why allergies, asthma,

15 autism, autoimmune diseases and cancer, et cetera,

16 are on the rise? The human body can only repair

1 7 so much damage, but we are overwhelming it with

18 toxins.

19 We know that the aforementioned issues

20 cause problems and we know that heavy metals and

21 coal ash are dan gerous, can cause canc er, nervous

22 system damage, lung disease, respiratory disease,33

1 kidney disease, reproductive problems and more.

2 This info co mes from the Physicians for Social

3 Responsibility.

4 Some of the information on Joliet 9 and

5 its Lincoln quarrying make me shake my head and

6 wonder whose side is the IEPA on. It is known

7 that the Des Plaines River is a major area of

8 discharge for the Silurian dolomite aquifer and

9 Midwest Generation found elevated concentrations

10 of contamination in their mon itoring wells along

11 the river. How could they possibly deny that

12 these toxins are not going into the river?

13 Tests from 2007 showed cadmiu m to be 52

14 times higher than the Ill inois Class 1 groundwater

15 standard and molybdenum was 34 times higher than

16 the Federal Lifetime Health Advisory value. Tests

17 from 2009 foun d arsenic at levels 83 times the

18 groundwater standards. According to MSDS sheets

19 and the PSR, these are toxic in high

20 concentrations, and some even in low

21 concentrations.

22 And then to help out Midwest Generation,34

1 the IEPA eliminated ten parameters from the J2

2 list of the annual test. These included, the ones

3 they eliminated, antimony, chr omium, cobalt,

4 cyanide, lead, mercury and nickel. Isn't that

5 convenient for Midwest Generation? Only boron was

6 tested in 2006 and the IEPA identifies the quarry

7 as having a GMV desig nation which allows for

8 offsite contamination. Does the IEPA call this

9 protecting its citizens?

10 Lately, when I read about what we're

11 doing to our land, air and water, I thin k the

12 terrorists ought to just sit back and relax for a

13 few more years. By then, we can sicken and

14 destroy ourselves. There is a body out there that

15 can help us prevent our destructi on, it is you,

16 the EPA. Step up and save us. Pass and enforce

17 Subtitle C and coal ash should be regulated a s

18 hazardous waste. And thank you for hearing me

19 out.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 62

22 please.35

1 MR. CURTIS: Thank you for your time.

2 My name is Ken Curtis. I'm a third

- generation

3 farmer from Western Illinois. Plus, I'm president

4 of JLM, Incorporated which do consulting with

5 farmers to improve their soils.

6 I'm here to speak specifically about FGD

7 gypsum which is getting put in with all products.

8 This product is completely safe. I bring a

9 perspective, we've used it for 13 years and I have

10 marketed it, and it's very safe for the

11 environment.

1 2 I consider myself very green. I am a

13 no

- till farmer for over 25 years. We do not

14 disturb our soi ls and we raise some of the top

15 yields in the State of Illinois.

16 I'm here to speak about the benefits

17 when you look at FGD gypsum as green, totally

18 renewable, win

- win operati on. When you look at

19 the product, when you put it on a field, we got

20 USDA research with Dr. Darren Norton that's funded

21 by the Government on Soil Erosion, anytime we stop

22 soil erosion , you're allowing less nutrients to36

1 get into the streams, to the river and that the

2 epoxy that somebody was just talking about down in

3 the Gulf of Mexico. This product allows, is

4 basically calcium and sulfur, and it is sulfate

5 sulfur which is available to the plant. When we

6 put this on the soil, it allows us to use less

7 boughten fertilizer to bring on to the field which

8 is less opportunity to have to be washed off to

9 the stream.

10 So, we've seen real good benefits.

11 We've used it on all types of crops. I'm in a

12 cor n

- soybean operation myself. We're trying to be

13 sustainable. It's totally safe. Like I said, I'm

14 a third generation farmer and I've got another son

15 that's going to be taking over our operation a nd

16 we want to keep this farm sustainable. And most

17 agriculturists are very environmentally concerned

18 about how we're all applying these things. And

19 with this type of product, it's got some real

20 benefit and this is why we need to really consider

21 leaving FGD gypsum as a class D classification.

22 Thank you very much.37

1 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 208?

2 MR. KARNAUSKAS: Good morning and thank

3 you. My name is Robert Karnauskas, I'm the

4 co

- foun der of Natural Resource Technology, an

5 environmental consulting firm based in Peewaukee,

6 Wisconsin.

7 I'm present at this hearing to urge EPA

8 to regulat e coal combustio n residues including

9 coal ash as non

- hazardous waste under Subtitle D

10 of RCRA. Members of our environmental firm have

11 over 25 years experience with CCR related

12 projec ts. And our experience in this field, as

13 well as continuing education, provide a

14 substantial knowledge base on the properties of

15 CCRs and basic engineering principles that support

16 the ir proper management and beneficial use.

17 We support the Subtitle D approach

18 because, first, Subtitle D has been demonstrated

19 to be protective of human health and the

20 environm ent for managing various waste such as

21 municipal refuse, petroleum contaminants in soils

22 and

-- Based on our experience, we believe38

1 Subtitle D is also appropriate and protective for

2 CCRs. Our opinion is also supported by USEPA's

3 earlier findings in 2000 based on scientific

4 evaluations at that time that non

- hazardous waste

5 regulation of CCRs is fully protective of human

6 health and the environment.

7 We are concerned that the proposed

8 Subtitle C designation, if imp lemented, would

9 adversely affect beneficial reuse of CCRs,

10 particularly encapsulated applications, if the

11 materials are perceived as having long

- term

12 liability risk. A simila r concern was recently

13 echoed in another editorial published in the

14 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which is referenced in

15 our written comments. We're here to tell USEPA to

16 continu e to rely on sound science in making their

17 decisions on this issue. Our experience as well

18 as USEPA's previous evaluations should lead to a

19 conclusion that designating CCRs as a hazardous

20 special waste will not achieve an economical ly

21 practicable regulatory result that is more

22 protective in the environment and the health of39

1 energy consuming public. Tha nk you.

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Could I have

3 numbers 9, 10, 11 and 12 please? Number 9 please?

4 MS. MARSHAL L: Good morning. My name is

5 Marcia Marshall. I suppor t Subtitle C which would

6 provide for a strong regulation of toxic coal.

7 I come to you today as a citizen. I'm a

8 volunteer for Citizens Against Ruining the

9 Environment which we have an Earth Day event to

10 educate people in the public about reducing,

11 reusing and recycling, and to create more

12 awareness around Earth Day. I'm also a member of

13 Helpers of Mother Earth where we go to various

14 parks picking up trash and along roadsides. And

15 I'm a member of Sierra Club.

16 Despite everything that I do, I feel

17 that my efforts to reduce, re use and recycle are

18 useless unless we work together with large

19 corporations to keep our environment clean. This

20 hearing kind of reminds me of the movie "The

21 Distinguished Gentleman" f rom 1992 with Eddie

22 Murphy. However, that movie was produced 18 years40

1 ago and yet we're still dealing with pollution

2 from coal ash. Granted, that movie was about

3 nuclear power plants and we're dealing with coal

4 ash, th e concept remains the same.

5 Our waters are being polluted. Our air

6 is being polluted. Our land is being polluted.

7 And yet nobody seems to care. People are getting

8 sick.

9 As a citizen of Illinois, I don't need a

10 court order to tell me what to do, to recycle,

11 reuse. And I don't feel that it's, well, I guess

12 it is important that t he Government has to step in

13 now because corporations have failed to protect

14 the citizens. If I purcha se products that

15 contaminate our environment, it's too late because

16 the d amage has already been done. I feel that

17 IEPA has failed to protect the people they serve.

18 Personall y, I think that IEPA is a waste

19 of taxpayers' money because the Corporate America

20 should do the right thing without being told. But

21 that is why we're here today. Unfortunately, it

22 ha d to come down to this where we have to fight in41

1 order to protect ourselves and our future

2 generations. Thank you.

3 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 10?

4 MS. RENDULICH: M y name is Ellen

5 Rendulich. I'm a director with Citizens Against

6 Ruining the Environment. And I'll try and keep

7 this as brief as possible. We have several people

8 from our com munity coming up to speak.

9 Citizens Against Ruining the Environment

10 (CARE) says it's time that the coal industry take

11 responsibility and start protecting our

12 groundwa ters from arsenic and toxic metals from

13 coal waste. Coal waste must be designated as

14 hazardous waste.

15 We have two polluting coal

- fired power

16 plants in Will County ow ned by Midwest Gen,

17 Generation 1 in Romeoville and one in Joliet.

18 They were both grandfathered from the Clean Air

19 Act, and since 1996 the Joli et facility has been

20 exempt from t he Illinois Class 1 groundwater

21 standards. Midwest Generation insists that they

22 are not contaminating our groundwater or air, and42

1 yet these facilities are ranked in the top 40 for

2 contaminated sites in the US for groundwater and

3 the top 10 for air pollution.

4 The report, "In Harm's Way," is

5 documents from the IEPA that Midwest Generation's

6 online quarry in Joliet has polluted our

7 groundwater. Let us not forget, for 15 years,

8 CARE has requeste d the same company abide by the

9 same Clear Air Act regulations as other industries

10 by adding pollution controls. We have also

11 provided enough evidence that we are breathing

12 poisonous toxins such as lead and arsenic from

13 fugitive dust that the USEPA is in litigation.

14 I live a mile and a half from the

15 Romeoville facility. I have coal dust in my yard

16 and in my drivewa y. My neighbors that live closer

17 to the facility call me on a regular basis to

18 complain about the coal in their driveways and on

19 their rooftops. And in the past I've submitted

20 photos. This is the same company that insists

21 they are not contaminating.

22 Human and animal lives are affected43

1 through the food chain via air and groundwater.

2 In '96, CARE protested an experimental coal tire

3 burn in Romeoville. Midwest Generation had their

4 toxic coal burn; it failed. What did the EPA do

5 to protect us from the residual air toxins that

6 contaminated our groundwater and air? Nothing.

7 They did not even test our vegetable garden soil

8 or our drinking wate r.

9 In '04, CARE learned that fish

10 contaminated with mercury from coal was the

11 leading cause of neurological damage in children

12 and fetuses. We fought for pollution c ontrols.

13 As coal ash hearings have concluded in the US, we

14 are hearing constantly that everyone is dealing

15 with the same situation.

16 We request that there is Subtitle C and

17 this is design ated as hazardous waste.

18 (Applause)

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 11

20 please?

21 MS. THOMPSON: Hi, my name is Tammy

22 Thompson. I hav e to say I'm really said to be44

1 here today, that it's come down to us trying to

2 tes tify to get federal rules to protect our

3 children.

4 I'm one of the neighbors that used to

5 live next to Midwest Generation. We moved because

6 our family was getting so sick, we couldn't

7 survive anymore. We had doctor s and professionals

8 drive out to our neighborhood to tell us get our

9 daughter out now, that all these kids need to be

10 tested ro utinely. In fact, my neighbors are

11 testing positive for mercury, arsenic, thallium

12 and lead. Babies are dying in our neighborhoods

13 everyday. Young mothers are becoming victims and

14 dying before they can even spend any time with

15 their child ren.

16 Whether I'm a neighbor down the street,

17 a neighbor in another neighborhood, or in another

18 state, this toxic coal ash is making it into our

19 water supplies. I would love to see the hands of

20 anybody that works for this industry and find out

21 exactly where they live and if this is going into

22 their water supply. This is absolutely insane to45

1 think that this is acceptable to do this in our

2 communities.

3 My neighbor called me last night crying

4 because she wants to come and testify. Her

5 daughter is so sick, and the local town and the

6 local government, IEPA included, are a ll telling

7 her to get used to it and get over it. They are

8 this close to callin g her, well, basically they

9 are, they are saying that she is stupid for moving

10 there in the firs t place when her and her family

11 was the one there to begin with. They promised

12 tax reli ef, these guys don't pay any taxes. They

13 get subsidized with millions and billions of

14 d ollars, poison us and stand with our politicians

15 who vote on their side giving them our money in

16 front of cancer treatment centers. If that's not

17 adding insult to injury, I don't know what is.

18 The fact is we can survive without these

19 companies. They can't survive without us. We can

20 thrive without these companies. They cannot

21 survive without us. And if the y're going to

22 continue to put this crap and ca

- ca in our water46

1 and in our air, then they need to have this pumped

2 on their families.

3 Let them bathe in the water and see the

4 sores that my daughter has all over her body. Le t

5 them stand outside and walk in the house coughing

6 and gagging. Let them sit in their homes and from

7 Friday night to Monday morning be coughing and

8 gagging and see the nose

- stained p illowcases

9 because you can't breathe because the EPA will not

10 take your calls on weekends. They are telling us

11 to stop bothering them.

12 What is wrong with the Illinois EPA an d

13 who the heck do they work for? They've got some

14 nerve to allow our kids to have this continue to

15 happen. Blagojevich was having meetings in the

16 park by my house and it's getting wo rse. And

17 they're telling us, WEMA and AEMA is telli ng us to

18 get used to it and get over it? Where is their

19 water coming from? It's going into all our water

20 supply. It can be in pub lic water.

21 The fish are floating d ead. The river

22 is green and bubbling and the folks on Patterson47

1 and Brandon Ro ad, I went to the lab that the EPA

2 instructed me to go to, well, guess what? I spent

3 several hundred dollars on tests that was nothing

4 but garbage. I might as well have thrown it at

5 the casino for all that it is worth.

6 I urge everybody to take action. I

7 think all the moms should cut off all the fathers

8 from any kind of extracurricular evening activity

9 u ntil they do the right thing by our k ids.

10 MS. DEVLIN: Excuse me, ma'am. Your

11 time is up, thank you very much.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Number 12. N umber 12

14 please?

15 MR. OLSTA: Ladies and gentlemen, my

16 name is Jim Olsta of CETCO. We're an

17 environmental product company based in Illinois.

18 Today I am also representing the G eosynthetic

19 Materials Association. It's a trade group of 80

20 companies that manufacture, distribute and install

21 geosynthetic materials including liner systems.

22 The i ndustry emp loys 12,000 people throughout the48

1 US.

2 Our comment to the EPA is simple. We

3 request that the EPA manda te the geosynthetic

4 lining of coal ash storage facilities using

5 composite lining systems, specifically

6 geomembranes and geosynthetic clay liners. Why?

7 Because "These liners wo rk." Co ncerns of risk

8 regarding CCRs are mitigated if the landfill

9 storage sites are lined with a composite liner

10 system of a geomembrane and a geosynthetic clay

11 liner.

12 The American Society of Civil Engineers

13 does a regular report card on America's

14 infrastructure. For the last three report cards

15 representing over the last decade, coal ash waste

16 industry has gotten the highest grade of any

17 category. Since the enactment of Subtitle D, the

18 solid waste industry has done an excellent job of

19 taking America's waste a nd properly storing it

20 protect the environment. The materials, standards

21 and people exist, experienced engineers,

22 contractors and installers who can design and49

1 build the proper facilities, and the regulators

2 and inspectors to assure the work is done

3 correctly. We urge EPA to "use what exists and is

4 working today."

5 Further, our industry has continually

6 improved over time and EPA has been a part of that

7 effort. Over the years, EPA has commissioned

8 n early 80 studies of the design and performance of

9 lining systems. These studies contain a great

10 deal of pertinent information on how to construct

11 containment systems. We specifically call to you r

12 attention the 2002 study titled "Assessment a nd

13 Recommendations for Optimal Performance of Waste

14 Containment Systems" (EPA 600/R

- 02/099). Most

15 illustrative for today is a gr aph charting the

16 leakage rate of different designs over the life

17 cycle of nearly 200 facilities. The composite

18 liner system of a geomembrane and a geosynthetic

19 clay liner was demonstrated to have the lowest

20 leakage rate over all life cycl es including a near

21 zero leakage rate for facilities closed.

22 Additionally, CETCO and the University50

1 of Wisconsin will be submitting technical

2 information that indicates that CCR leachate is

3 compatible with geosynthetic clay liners, and thus

4 should exhibit similar performance in CCR

5 composite line r systems to that noted in the

6 previous EPA study.

7 We note that in the proposed rule that

8 EPA solicits comments on whether alternative

9 liners should be allowed. Geosynthetic clay

10 liners would only be used if they're allowed as an

11 alternative to the prescriptive compacted clay

12 component of the composite liner in the rule.

13 Since GCLs are expected to contri bute the lowest

14 leakage, lower than compacted clay, and can help

15 achieve EPA's mission to protect h uman health and

16 the environment, we recommend that geosynthetic

17 clay liners be allowe d as an alternative liner

18 component.

19 Thank you.

20 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, thank you. Okay, I

21 have numbers 14, 15, 16 and 18 please. And did

22 number 7, i s number 7 in the room? Okay. So,51

1 number 14, will you please go to the podium?

2 MS. WALZ: Hello, I'm Kimberly Walz,

3 Deputy Chief of Staff for Congressman Mike Quigley

4 who apologizes he couldn't be here today. He's

5 still in Washington voting.

6 Thank you for taking the time to hold

7 this important public hearing on the proposed coal

8 ash regulations.

9 Colstrip, Montana is home to the second

10 largest coal plant west of the Mississippi. One

11 boxcar

- full of coal i s burned every five minutes.

12 The burning of coal creates sodium, thallium,

13 mercury, boron, aluminum and arsenic which is

14 pumped out of the factory and into the air. The

15 chemicals that aren't pumped into the air are

16 caught in the factory's scrubbers and then dumped

17 with the coal ash into giant settling ponds.

18 These ponds are shallow artificial lakes

19 of con centrated toxicity which leach this poison

20 into wells and aquifers. This sludge flows into

21 the surrounding towns and countryside, bubbling up

22 against foundations and floorings, cracking the52

1 floor in Colstrip's local grocery store.

2 Ranchers in Eastern Montana are now

3 suing the plant for damages. Noxious water, th ey

4 cite, is the only liquid that fills th eir wells

5 and stock ponds. James Hansen, a renowned climate

6 scientist, says Colstrip will cause the extinction

7 of 400 species.

8 But still, Colstrip burns on. We are

9 poisoning our ecosystem and our animals.

10 But we are also poisoning our families,

11 our communities, our nation and our entire world.

12 Why? Because there are currently n o federally

13 enforceable regulations specific to coal ash.

14 This lack of federally enforceable standards is

15 exactly what led to the disaster in Tennessee

16 where a dam holding more than one billion gallons

17 of toxic coal ash failed, destroying 300 acres,

18 dozens of homes, killed fish and other wildlife,

19 and poisoned the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

20 F rom Tennessee to Colstrip, the story is

21 the same. Living near an unlined coal ash waste

22 pond and drinking water contaminated with arsenic53

1 can be more dangerous than smoking a pack of

2 cigarettes a day, according to a risk assessment

3 done by the EPA. People living near unlined coal

4 ash ponds wher e water is contaminated by arsenic

5 and ash is mixed with coal refuse, whether they're

6 in Tennessee or in Colstrip, have an extremely

7 high risk of cancer up to 1 in 50. This is 2,000

8 t ime s greater than EPA's acceptable cancer risk.

9 As Al Gore wrote in 2005, "it is now

10 clear that we face a deepening global climate

11 crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly and

12 wisely." Coal ash is a piece of the larger

13 climate crisis, a crisis that has a hefty

14 cost

-- the cost of carbon.

15 So, as we burn coal, creating sodium,

16 tha llium, mercur y, boron, aluminum and arsenic

17 which is pumped out of the factor and into the

18 air, we can continue to do that. We can blow the

19 tops off mountains, allowing streams of toxicity

20 to leac h coal slurry poison into wells and

21 aquifers. We can send tar sands 1,700 miles

22 across our soil.54

1 Or we can stop stripping our land,

2 polluting our air and water and do what's right.

3 The first step is to establish comprehensive,

4 federally enforceable standards that protect huma n

5 health, wildlife a nd the environment. Coal ash

6 must be regulated under Subtitle C of the Resource

7 Conservation and Recovery Act as special waste

8 with all the safeguards that apply. Thank you so

9 much.

10 (Applause)

11 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 15

12 please? Number 15? Thank you.

13 MS. COSTELLO: Hello, I'm Helen

14 Costello, this is my daughter Mia. I'm a

15 concerned citizen affiliated with the Sierra Club.

16 And I've read a little bit about this issue and

17 learned that coal ash contains chemicals that

18 cause cancer and n erve damage so its presence and

19 landfills and ash ponds is a public safety risk.

20 I thank EPA for proposing this rule to

21 protect our health and environment. I believe the

22 app ropriate regulation for safe ash disposal55

1 includes not guidelines but enforcea ble consistent

2 standards.

3 As for th e opposition to this kind of

4 regulation, from what I have read, the economic

5 cost to power plants and landfills will neither

6 disrupt their operations nor cause any significant

7 rise in the cost they pass on to their customers.

8 Therefore, the extra cost does not constitute a

9 valid objection to a needed impro vement in public

10 safety. Furthermore, the regulation will protect

1 1 those industries themselves from the expensive

12 lawsuits that follow a spill that is not detected

13 early.

14 I believe this is the right regulation

15 for all. I would like to also add that I

16 completely agree with the previous speaker's

17 comments about mining coal in general as bein g

18 disastrous for the environment. But this is an

19 excellent first step and I strongly support it.

20 Thank you.

21 (Applause)

22 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 1656

1 pl ease?

2 MR. SPOERRI: Good morning. I'm Robert

3 Spoerri, I'm president of Bene ficial Reuse

4 Management. My company specializes in

5 implementing projects utilizing materials such as

6 bottom ash and fly ash as geotechnical material in

7 construction projects i n the Midwest. We've also

8 been a pioneer in implementing beneficial use

9 programs utilizing FGD gypsum fro m power plant

10 emission scrubbers in agriculture. We employ 18

11 people directly and more than 50 subcontract

12 employees.

13 Over the last 12 years, my company has

14 implemented hundreds of beneficial use projects

15 and programs involving million s of tons of

16 materials including byproduct from coal combustion

17 and emission scrubbing systems. We've

18 s uccessfully implemented every one of these

19 programs under strict standar ds and controls

20 without risk or damage to human health and then

21 environment. We're a green company dedicated to

22 serving our customers while improving the57

1 environment. That's the reason why our employees

2 chose to work here and the reason why we all fee l

3 so strongly that any actions by the EPA that will

4 discourage beneficial use is a mistake.

5 Beneficial use conserves the natural

6 resources, preserves scarce landfill space,

7 reduces CO2 emissions, strengthens local

8 economies. In the case of FGD gypsum, the use in

9 agriculture has been demonstrated to be an

10 important tool to reduce nutrient runoff into

11 sensitive watersheds making its beneficial u se a

12 homerun for the environment.

13 We initially built our business in

14 Wisconsin where strong effective regulations help

15 define standards and procedures for safe

16 beneficial use of byproduct materials. We follow

17 these high standards in all the states where we

18 now do business and believe such standards should

19 be in place everywhere. We believ e this can be

20 done without labeling byproducts from coal

21 combustion and emission scrubbing as hazardous or

22 special waste under RCRA Subtitle C.58

1 From our contact with all of the

2 participants in the beneficial use process, we

3 know for a fact that if EPA determines that these

4 mate rials are hazardous or special waste under

5 Subtitle C, it will spell the end of beneficial

6 use and of our company. Under a Subtitle C

7 outcome, utilities will not provide the mater ials

8 to us for beneficial use programs; state and local

9 regulators will not permit us to use them; and it

10 will be impossible to find project partners or

11 customers willing to accept the materia ls

12 regardless of how much EPA stresses their support

13 for beneficial use. As a result, millions of tons

14 of byproduct materials will unnecessarily end up

15 in landfills, and the m ultiple benefits to the

16 environment and the economy will be lost.

17 In this debate, we have engaged

18 repeatedly with environmental groups and others

19 concerned about the risks of coal ash. We have

20 conducted two educational workshops for

21 environmental groups on beneficial use and gained

22 an appreciation for their perspective. From this59

1 dialogue, we believe there can be a successful

2 outcome from this rulemaking process, gaining

3 strict new controls over coal ash disposal whil e

4 prese rving and encouraging beneficial use. This

5 can be done under RCRA Subtitle D with federal

6 enforcement powers or under some other auspices.

7 We strongly encoura ge you to consider

8 these alternatives to Subtitle C hazardous

9 designation for the sake of our company, of our

10 employees and of the environment. Thank you.

11 (Appl ause)

12 MS. DEV LIN: Thank you. Number 18

13 please.

14 MR. COVI: Good morning. My name is Art

15 Covi. I want to thank you for the opportunity to

16 address the issue of coal ash regulation here o n

17 behalf of We Energies. I'm a professional

18 engineer with 30 years of experience in utility

19 operations and environmental programs. My group

20 has responsibility for managing more than 800,000

21 tons of CCPs per year. We use the term products

22 rather than residuals because we offer up these60

1 materials for bene ficial use in very high quality

2 construction materials and in enhancing

3 agricultural production.

4 We Energies is a Wi sconsin utility

5 company with a long history of researching and

6 developing beneficial uses for CCPs in an

7 environmentally responsible manner. We have

8 collaborated with universi ties, consultants and

9 industry in developing beneficial uses of CC Ps and

10 have worked closely with federal and state

11 agencies to ensure that our programs are

12 consistent with env ironmental prudency and good

13 engineering practice.

14 We have attempted to illustrate to EPA

15 the many environmental and economic advantages of

16 our own beneficial use pro gram, and we share a

17 deep concern for maintaining the positive

18 i ntegrity of our programs in Michigan and

19 Wisconsin under the very successful Department of

20 Natural Resources NR 538 program. The program is

21 a clear example of how state agencies can control

22 CCPs and has been recognized by EPA as an61

1 excellent template for developing strong

2 regulations which provide environmental

3 protection. These regulations were developed in

4 Wisconsin with the participation of industry,

5 government and environmental groups over ten years

6 ago with the goal of minimizing waste and reducin g

7 landfilling. It has been enormously successful,

8 and our own We Energies documented u tilization

9 rate was 99 percent in 2009.

10 We strongly favor the implementation of

11 a Subtitle D non

- hazardous approach to fill the

12 need for consistent national regulatio n for CCPs.

13 We are concerned that a Subtitle C hazardous

14 approach will introduce a regulatory barrier and

15 place a stigma on CCPs with our customers. In

16 fact, the stigma of a h azardous waste label on

17 CCPs would not encourage beneficial use.

18 Unfortunately, this issue has already had a

19 negative effect on some valuable beneficial uses.

20 Subtitl e C rulemaking provisions are

21 over

- reaching and a serious concern for We

22 Energies, especially in light of our long

- term62

1 commitment to develop a wide range of beneficial

2 uses. The Subtitle D approach will establish

3 national standards similar to those employed for

4 municipal waste. The EPA has the authority to

5 step in and manage noncompliant state programs and

6 take action under the endangerment provisions of

7 RCRA.

8 We emphasize the fact that CCPs have

9 been repeatedly reviewed for the purpose of

10 determining the proper way of regulating them and

11 have not been found to be a hazardous waste. We

12 believe that Subtitle C would be a mistake and

13 would compromise other environmental priorities

14 such as greenhouse gas reduction and resource

15 conservation. Thank you.

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Numbers 19, 20,

17 21 and 22 please? Thank you. Go ahead, number

18 19.

19 MR. DARLING: Good morning. My name is

20 Scott Darling. I'm the environment al engineering

21 manager for ALC OA Power Generating, Inc. water

22 power plant. Alcoa believes the use of the63

1 Subtitle C approa ch for regulating CCRs is

2 unwarranted. The use of a modified TCLP to model

3 and then justify the designations of CCR is not

4 indicative of actual releases and certainly not

5 from the rel eases of the ashes generated by ALCOA.

6 Test data of our surface impoundments, both closed

7 and opened, do indicate that it is not a hazardous

8 material. This data was generated as part of a

9 comprehensive RCRA RFI and that RFI clearly shows

10 there is no detection of any contaminants of

11 concerns in the groundwater.

12 The use of CCRs in beneficial reuse will

13 be h armed by this d esignation. As we've heard,

14 there are a number of groups already calling for

15 post end

- of

- life use assessments of encapsulated

16 and unencapsulated materials. The potential for

17 litigation will harm the reuse of these materials.

18 ALCOA does agree with the Agency that

19 mine placement activities should continue to be

20 regulated under the Department of Interior.

21 ALCOA, however, believes that the inclusion of

22 historic mining that can be structurally enhanced64

1 to ensure public saf ety should also continue to be

2 regulated under the Department of Interior.

3 As stated in the proposed rule, the

4 electric utilities are covered by this rule.

5 ALCOA requ ests that EPA clar ify the distinction

6 between industrial and utility, perhaps looking at

7 definitions contained within the acid rain section

8 of the Clean Air Act.

9 ALCO A does agree that there is a need to

10 ensure that surface impoundments are safe in

11 catastrophic failure and we recommend that

12 inspections of surface impoundments by certified

13 pr ofessional engineers knowledgeable with dams and

14 ash ponds be conducted annually. Thank you.

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 20

16 please?

17 MR. STANISLAWCZYK: Thanks. My name is

18 Ste ve Stanislawczyk, I'm an environmental manager

19 for Harsco Minerals, a division of the Harsco

20 Corporation. I've been an environmental engineer

21 working i n the manufacturing/processing industry

22 for about 15 years. Harsco Corporation,65

1 headquartered in Pennsylvania, is an international

2 industrial services company employing 22 ,000

3 employees.

4 Harsco Minerals operates 15 boiler slag

5 processing facilities in the United States, 10 are

6 within 500 miles of Chicago.

7 Boiler sla g is beneficially used into

8 abrasives and roofing granules and it has been

9 since the 1930's. Over one million tons of boiler

10 slag is processed each year by Harsco alone.

11 I a m in support of regulating boiler

12 slag under RCRA Subtitle D. *Boiler slag is one

13 of the four Coal Combustion Byproducts (CCB)

14 listed in the proposed rule. *Boiler slag only

15 makes up 2 percent of the total volume and is

16 commonly overlooked, and the vast majority (over

17 90 percent) of boiler slag is beneficially used

18 and recycled. *Boiler slag is only processed with

19 special types of combustion boilers where the

20 molten material is quenched with water creating a

21 vitrified amorphous nonp orous solid mass where any

22 metals are made into inert metal silicates.66

1 Breaking the material into smaller sizes does not

2 alter the properties of the materials in any way,

3 and this is a large example of i t. It is a solid

4 rock, a boiler slag.

5 Some other facts that demonstrate why

6 boiler slag should be regulated under D would be:

7 *Historically, boiler slag has always passed th e

8 TCLP testing and has never exhibited any hazardous

9 waste characteristics. *Harsco also contrac ted an

10 accredited lab to subject boiler slag to the NEW

11 leaching test method referenced in the proposed

12 rule based on research conducted at Vanderbilt

13 University; the resultant boiler slag leachate

14 passed all leaching scenarios, digested at a high

15 pH of 12, low pH of 2, introduction of strong

16 chelating agents, and extended digestion times of

17 over eig ht days. It just fairly reinforces that

18 as a solid mass. *Harsco is not aware of any

19 referenced damag e cases in the proposed rule that

20 was the result of mismanagement of boiler slag.

21 *Boiler slag is not stored in surface impoundments

22 and Harsco does not store any of our products (raw67

1 or processed) in any surface impoundments.

2 *Regulating boiler slag destined for disposal as a

3 special waste under Subtitle C would unfairly

4 stigmatize beneficially used products such as

5 boiler slag

.

6 And then, in summary, placing an

7 unneeded stigma on an inert product beneficially

8 used since the 1 930's will add millions of EXTRA

9 tons of non

- hazardous waste into our hazardous

10 waste landfills and significantly increase the

11 demand for virgin mined material to replace boiler

12 slag w hich has a far greater carbon footprint to

13 replace the rec ycled boiler slag. Thanks.

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 21

15 please?

16 MR. BOONE: Good morning. My name is

17 Nathan Boone. I'm vice president of Business

18 Development for Charah, Incorporated and I have 13

19 years of experience in the coal combustion

20 products management industry, the first t hree

21 years of which were as a laborer on a n ash

22 landfill site where I came into daily contact with68

1 these materials. My exp erience with these

2 materials on a daily basis over a long period of

3 time is not consistent with what you may have

4 heard from others this morning.

5 I am testifying today on beh alf of

6 Charah. Charah is a 23

- year

- old company that

7 specializes in the management of coal combustion

8 residuals. Charah employs over 225 employees in

9 11 states along with multiple hun dreds or so

10 con tract employees. We are all dedicated to the

11 responsible management of CCRs. Our approach for

12 responsible management of CCRs has provided for

13 consistent company growth along with opportunities

14 for job creation within our organization

15 throughout our company's history. Our growth can

16 be attributed to a dedication to the responsible

17 management of CCRs which has culminat ed in our

18 pursuit of beneficial use opportunities that we

19 feel represent the best management practices for

20 CCR utilization. Our company is very active in

21 the recycl ing of coal combustion products that are

22 derived from coal ash and we are proud to be69

1 associated with one of the most successful

2 recycling industries in the United States.

3 Charah supports EPA's effort to

4 implement regulations on the disposal of CCRs

5 under Subtitle D which would be consistent with

6 two previous decisions made by EPA concluding that

7 CCRs do not warrant classification as hazardous

8 materials. EPA's assumption that Subtitle C

9 regulation will result in an increase in

10 beneficial use is contrary to our experience as a

11 daily participant in the beneficial use

12 marketplace.

13 As a company, we see a significant

14 number of issues and exposures to unwarranted risk

15 that we feel will present themselves through the

16 handling of materials that are viewed as hazardous

17 in some applications yet exempt in others even

18 when they originate d from a common process and

19 location. These concerns are relative not only to

20 the marketability and associated stigma but to the

21 general handling and operations req uired for

22 permitted disposal as well. Can you please advise70

1 us how we will have to handle the concerns of two

2 t ruck drivers who are handling CCRs from a common

3 storage silo where the first drive is hauling raw

4 material to a concrete ready mix plant yet his

5 coworker sitting one truck

- length away is equipped

6 to haul hazardous waste to an onsit e disposal even

7 though the material they are handling comes from a

8 common source?

9 We do not feel that the approach for

10 regulating CCRs under Subtitle C while maintaining

11 their Bevill exemption status will be successful

12 in the beneficial use marketplace. The common

13 theme that is often heard from those in favor of

14 Subtitle C is that C is the only approach t hat

15 will protect our water resources. I believe that

16 we all support protection of our natural

17 resources. However, Subtitle D regulations will

18 provide the same engineering controls as Subtitle

19 C for accomplishing this goal. Thank you.

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 22

21 please?

22 MR. MEIERS: Good morning. My name is71

1 Richard Meiers and I'm an environmental scientist

2 for Duke Energy.

3 Duke Energy supports the development of

4 federal regulatio ns for CCR under RCRA Subtitle D

5 non

- hazardous waste program. The question for

6 Duke is not whether to regulate but how to

7 regulate. Duke has evaluated the alternatives and

8 determined the Subtitle D Prime option with

9 appropriate adjustments is the best path forward.

10 Unlike Subtitle C appro ach, Subtitle D Prime will

11 enable EPA to establish an environmentally

12 protect ive program without crippling CCR

13 beneficial use and imposing unnecessary costs on

14 power plants, th reatening jobs, and increasing

15 electricity costs.

16 Certain activist groups a re alleging

17 dozens of new damage cases, including Duke Energy

18 facilities. In the final May 2000 Regulatory

19 Determination concluding the CCRs do not warrant

20 Subtitle C regulations, EPA was aware of 14 proven

21 damage cases and 36 potential damage cases. EPA

22 has since listed an additional 13 proven damage72

1 ca ses and only 4 four more potential damage cases,

2 bringing the total to 27 proven damages and 40

3 potential damage cases, respectively.

4 A close examination of the facts reveals

5 many flaws in recent allegations made by activist

6 groups regarding additional damag e cases. Many of

7 the assertions are based on extremely flimsy

8 evidence with unfounded conclusions. EPA cannot

9 rely on those assertions in any final rulemaking

10 without conduct ing its own factual, independent

11 review of the sites and allowing for public

12 comment on their findings.

13 An EPRI analysis, the Electric Power

14 Research Institute, of EP A damage case report in

15 the 2008 Notice of Data Availability (NODA) shows

16 only a handful of these cases actually involve

17 circumstances where there was an offsite

18 contamination of a primary drinking water standard

19 MCL occurred. Of the 54 proven or potential

20 damage cases cited by EPA in the NODA involving

2 1 groundwater contamination, only three of those

22 involved offsite contamination exceeding the73

1 primary drinking water standards. The same is

2 likely true with the alleged new damage cases. In

3 fact, during their press conference, the activists

4 acknowledged that some of these damage cases do

5 not involve offsite contaminat ion, but speculate

6 merely that dama ge may migrate offsite at some

7 point in the future.

8 If Duke determines an impact to

9 groundwater has occurred at one of its facilities,

10 the appropriate federal and sta te regulatory

11 agencies are notified. We work with these

12 regulators in determining the appropriate steps to

13 be taken to remediate the impact to groundwater.

14 Further

--

15 MS. DEVLIN: I'm sorry, we have to stop

16 you.

17 MR. BOONE: Thank you.

18 MS. DEVLIN: Everything goes into the

19 r ecord though. Thank you ve ry much.

20 All right. Let me call numbers 23, 24,

21 25, 27. And I am told number 17 is now here, so

22 17 if you'd like to come through as well? 17 can74

1 go first if that's fine. If 17 is here, 17 can

2 go. Thank you.

3 MS. WOOLUMS: Good morning. My name is

4 Cathy Wo olums, I am the senior vice president of

5 Environmental Services for MidAmerican Energy

6 Holdings Company which is a global energy services

7 provider serving among 6.9 million customers

8 w orldwide. I am here today on behalf of

9 MidAmerican Energy Company, one of MidAmerican's

10 business platforms, which serves electricity

11 customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota,

12 supp lied by wind, hydro, natural gas, nuclear and

13 coal

- fueled resources.

14 On a personal note, my family and I live

15 within two miles of a coal

- fired plant and I drink

16 the water fro m the river adjacent to an ash pond.

17 MidAmerican Energy supports the

18 development of federal regulations for coal

19 combustion residuals under RCRA Subtitle D

2 0 non

- hazardous wast e rules. The development of

21 rules under this approach will establish a federal

22 floor for all CCR facilities to meet. MidAmerican75

1 strongly opposes the regulation of CRRs under RCRA

2 Subtitle C.

3 I urge EPA to consider the facts and

4 rely upon sound science when determining

5 appropriate regulatory s cheme for coal combustion

6 residuals, not fear and rhetoric.

7 One of MidAmerican's facilities was

8 recently highlighted as a so

- called new document ed

9 damage site in a report ent itled "In Harm's Way."

10 I think you all know the report. The report and

11 commentary provided during a press conference

12 suggested that MidAmerican's ash disposal

13 facilities are contamina ting groundwater with

14 arsenic, and that we are "poisoning the workers at

15 the plant" with the drinking water supply.

16 Nothing coul d be farther from the truth.

17 Our sampling of s urface water and drinking water

18 wells in the vicinity of the plant and the ash

19 disposal facilities demonstrate that levels of

20 arse nic were either not detectable or were well

21 below the federal drinking water standards.

22 Further, none of the plant drinking water sampling76

1 results exceeded the drinking water standards for

2 arsenic, and the levels in fact were not

3 detectable.

4 MidAmerican has concerns about the

5 t horoughness of the information being utilized to

6 generate interest and co ncern in the regulatory

7 docket and cautions EPA to reject a

8 one

- size

- fits

- all approach to what they believe

9 would be an overly restrictive regulatory scheme

10 without consideration of si te

- specific risks.

11 Forcing companies to make a difficult choice of

12 limiting their liability by disposing of materia ls

13 offsite creates additional concerns. Existing

14 permitted hazardous waste landfill capacity is

15 extremely limited, particularly in the Midwest.

16 There is only one known Subtitl e C permitted

17 facility in any state adjacent to Iowa. Based on

18 information f rom the operator of that landfill,

19 capacity at the facility, if it accepted coal

20 combustion waste, would be consumed within six

21 months to a year, an untenable situation as far as

22 we're concerned. Thank you.77

1 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 23

2 please.

3 MR. PIKE: Good morning. My name is

4 Paul Pike and I'm an environmental science

5 executive for the Ameren Corporation

.

6 Ameren will be directly impacted by the

7 final Coal Combustion Residuals rule and very much

8 appreciates the opportunity to speak today on the

9 proposal. Ameren is an investor

- owned utility

10 based in St. Louis, Missouri that operates 11

11 coal

- fired power plants in Missouri and Il linois

12 and generates over 2,000,000 tons of coal

13 combustion resi duals each year.

14 Ameren favors the development of federal

15 regulations for CCRs under the Subtitle D

16 non

- hazardous waste program and believes that

17 actually the Subtitle D Prime is the best path

18 forward. Regulating CCRs under this option will

19 also allow for the sound science which the Agency

20 states is one of its principles in its ultimate

21 decision for coal ash disposal units. The other

22 proposed regulatory options assume that all78

1 existing surface impoundments and landfills are

2 causing damage; yet in the preamble, the Agency

3 observes "that nearly all new CCR landfills and

4 surface impoundments are constructed with liners."

5 We agree that disposal units that are not fully

6 protective must either be upgraded or closed;

7 however, there are many CCR surface impoundments

8 which are perf ectly safe. There is no reason why

9 these units should automatically be continued to

10 be closed and shouldn't be allowed to remain

11 operating provided they are still protecting the

12 envir onment and the populace at large.

13 Under the Subtitle D Prime option, EPA

14 would issue federal regulations specifically

15 designed for CCR disposal units. These

16 regulations woul d be directly enforceable by the

17 states and the public under RCRA's citizen suit

18 provision and violators would be subject to

19 significant civil penalties. EPA would also

20 retain its imm inent and substantial endangerment

21 authority to take action against any CCR units

22 that posed a risk to human health or the79

1 environment. However, there is currently no

2 mechanism for the states to step in and directly

3 administer these regulations.

4 We also believe that the Agency needs a

5 "State Fir st" aspect so that where state

6 regulatory programs meet or exceed the proposed

7 standards, that these qualified state programs

8 would be allowed to administer them within the

9 existing re quirements. Illinois and Missouri both

10 have regulatory programs that meet or exceed many

11 of the proposed requirements and should be allowed

12 to continue to administer their program without

13 the dual regulation of a federal program. Failure

14 in establishing a single source for requirements

15 would mean that the regulated community could have

16 conflicting requirements imposed on it leading to

17 potential noncompliance issues.

18 Finally, I want to state our strong

19 opposition to the Subtitle C option. Reviewing

20 the eight Bevill study factors, there is simply no

21 reason to pursue this approach when the Subtitle D

22 Prime option offers the same degree of protection80

1 without the fear that res ults from regulating it

2 under Subtitle C. Regulating CCRs under Subtitle

3 D Prime is protective of human health and the

4 environment, and surface impoundments status would

5 be based on f act rather than a presumption. Thank

6 you very much.

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 24

8 please?

9 MR. NICHOLSON: Good morning. My name

10 is Michael Nicholson, Senior Vice President of

11 WeCare Technology Group out of Jordan, New York.

12 WeCare Organics is a privately held solid waste

13 management corporation. WeCare provides services

14 t o the solid waste and wastewater industries in

15 the Northeast marketplace. WeCare specializes in

16 the beneficial use of wastewater treatment plant

17 biosolids, incorporating bioconversion

18 technologies including composting, alkaline

19 stabilization, drying and thermal gasification for

20 the conversion of biosolids into Class A

21 recognized as "exceptional quality" products under

22 40 CFR Part 503.81

1 For over 20 years, I have been

2 associated with the commercialization of alkaline

3 pasteurizat ion technology and the implementation

4 of over 60 biosolids management programs which

5 utilize coal ash in the

6 stabilization/pasteurization and beneficial use of

7 biosolids.

8 Our comments today are in support of

9 EPA's consideration to retain the Bevill Amendment

10 for the beneficial use of coal ash in agronomic

11 applications or reclamation applications where the

12 resulting combinations of coal ash and biosolids

13 are converted to products which meet or exceed the

14 40 CFR Part 503 requirements for land application

15 of residuals. WeCare would place emphasis on the

16 practice of following strict managerial practices

17 commensurate with 40 CFR Part 503 and appropriate

18 agronomic rate.

19 Based upon the discussion presented to

20 date by EPA, WeCare believes that EPA remains in

21 support of the agronomic and economic benefits

22 derived from the proper use of coal ash as an82

1 agronomic commodity and believes that significant

2 documentation from land grant universities as well

3 as USDA confirms EPA's position.

4 WeCare is an end user of coal ash

5 material. WeCare typically is not a manager of

6 coal ash directly from utilities. We typically

7 purchase coal ash from coal ash managers or

8 brokers, so to that end WeCare's c oncerns are

9 focused upon the availability and ability to

10 beneficially utilize coal ash in agronomic use

11 applications.

12 WeCare is concerned about the final

13 ou tcome of the proposed rules as pertains to the

14 perception of "safety and liability" on the use of

15 coal ash materials in agriculture if they are

16 deemed or managed as hazardous materials (Subtitle

17 C) in applications. WeCare is not opposed to the

18 requirements similar to biosolids in management

19 practices required under 40 CFR Part 503.

20 WeCare offers this thought for

21 consideration. Public health, safety, and,

22 perhaps most importantly, liability, are obviously83

1 the key concerns of EPA and the indust ry. WeCare,

2 under the current regulatory environment

3 (including 40 CFR Part 503), has been able to

4 secure products liability insurance for the

5 combined coal and biosolids products man ufactured

6 and sold to the farming community. The ability to

7 secure such product liability has been a strong

8 indicator to our consumers that in fact WeCare has

9 taken the proactive step to insure the safety and

10 ultimate liability in utilizing these combined

11 materials.

12 In making its final determinations

13 regarding coal ash management, we ask that EPA

14 consider the impacts of its actions as it relates

15 to the insurance community and how the insurance

16 community would evaluate the practice in providing

17 products liability insurance. Thank you.

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 25

19 please?

20 MR. SAUDER: My name is Brian Sauder,

21 I'm the Central Illinois coordinator for Faith in

22 Place. I want to begin by thanking you for84

1 holding this public hearing on the proposed EPA

2 rule for regulating coal ash. I've traveled three

3 hours by bus from Central Illinois this morning to

4 tell you that we in Central Illinois need to

5 regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste under

6 Subtitle C.

7 I work for Faith in Place, the Illinois

8 affiliate for Interfaith Power and Light as the

9 Central Illinois outreach coordinator. We work

10 with religious congregations in Illinois and

11 across the nation t o help them better steward the

12 earth. As a part of my outreach, I have talked

13 with four pastors at churches in Oakwood,

14 Illinois, home of three coal ash impoundment sites

15 next to the Dynergy Coal Burning Power Plant, and

16 the Bunge North American, Incorporation coal ash

17 dump site located in the town of Oakwood. Oakwood

18 residents and the four coal ash sites are also

19 located next to the Middle Fork of the Vermillion

20 River, a designated National Wild and Scenic

21 River.

22 Illinois EPA testing around one of the85

1 dump sites in Oakwood have found lead levels 3.5

2 to 4 times the Illinois standard for groundwater

3 as well as high level of boron, iron and

4 manganese, all t ested above the state groundwater

5 standards.

6 The pastors, congregants and community

7 members in Oakwood all buy bottled water when they

8 can but rely on private wells for the m ajority of

9 their water use. Despite warnings from the

10 Illinois EPA, many homes continue to use their

11 water for no alternative source is given.

12 I recently talked to four past ors in

13 Oakwood, two of them together and two of them

14 independently. All of them, without me asking,

15 expressed that they had not seen such high levels

16 of cancer in their congregations since they moved

17 to Oakwood to take their pastoral positions. An

18 EPA draft risk assessment released in August 2007

19 shows that the cancer risk to exposure to coal ash

20 is 9 times higher than the cancer risk for smoking

21 a pack of cigarettes a day.

22 Coal ash in Oakwood, Illinois is86

1 currently not hand led in a way that regards the

2 health and safety of all the people of Oakwood.

3 As a person of faith and as one that works with

4 people of faith, we find in common a commandment

5 to love o ur neighbor, to treat one another as we

6 would desire to be treated. Often throughout our

7 faith histories, our traditions have failed in

8 loving our neighbors. By grace, we have worked to

9 denounce these unfortunate actions and we have

10 taken steps to repent and to reconcile.

11 The proposed Subtitle C by the EPA is a

12 move in the right direction for coal companies to

13 repent and to begin to reconcile for the cancer

14 and harmful health results of mishandled coal ash

15 on communities. Subtitle C is the option that

16 will begin this process in Oakwood and for the

17 communities around the country like Oakwood. As a

18 person of faith, I believe there is grace

19 available in categorizing coal ash as a hazardous

20 waste under Subtitle C as a necessary first step

21 for communities like Oakwood to recover from this

22 injustice. Thank you again for this hearing.87

1 (Applau se)

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 27

3 please?

4 MR. KYSEL: Good morning. My name is

5 Paul Kysel, I am a vice president of the PINES

6 Group which ha s served for the last five and a

7 half years as the TAP Grant recipient at a USEPA

8 Alternative Superfund Site known as Yard 520 in

9 the Town of Pines, Indiana.

10 I'm here today t o voice strong support

11 for the classification of coal combustion waste as

12 hazardous under RCRA Subtitle C.

13 The historic ineffectiveness of RCRA

14 Subtitle D has been clearly il lustrated in the

15 Town of Pines. The drinking water wells of the

16 entire Town of Pines, an EPA "proven damage case",

17 were poisoned by ash generated by the Michigan

18 City coal

- fired power plant owned and operated by

19 Northern Indiana Public Service Company known as

20 NIPSCO. Levels of boron, molybdenum, arsenic as

21 well as a whole host of other heavy metals as well

22 as con taminants including radiation well above88

1 health

- based standards migrated from a nearby,

2 inadequately lined landfill owned and operated by

3 another entity, Brown, Incorporated, just south of

4 Indiana Highway 520 and US Highway 20 in the Town

5 of Pines, and from its use as "structural fill"

6 over much of the town as a so

- called "beneficial

7 use" of this ash material.

8 Only after a federal lawsuit was filed

9 against NIPSCO, the only recourse available to

10 citizens under Subtitle D of RCRA, did the compan y

11 provide safe drinking water to some of the town

12 (there still are a significant number of residents

13 who are still dependent upon bottled drinking

14 water) through the EPA's involvement.

15 In April 2000, residents of the town

16 began noticing that their well

- sourced drinking

17 water tasted unusual. So, they reported it to the

18 state, Indiana Department of Environm ental

19 Management. Incredibly, IDEM knew for nearly 30

20 years that Yard 520 was leaking arsenic and other

21 contaminants to a nearby creek. In addition to

22 contaminating the groundwater o f the Town of89

1 Pines, the landfill also threatens protected

2 streams in the Indiana National Dunes Lakeshore

3 area. Contamina ted groundwater from Yard 520

4 flows into Brown Ditch, a creek that flows along

5 the edge of the landfill and eventually into the

6 National Park before discharging into Lake

7 Michigan, two miles from the municipal water

8 source that brings the water back to the town of

9 the people where they lost their ability to drink

10 safely from their wells.

11 Downstream from th e landfill, the creek

12 carries high levels of boron and molybdenum.

13 Indiana National Lakeshore is an especially

14 important feeding and resting area for migrating

15 land and water fowl. Fi sh, birds, mammals, all

16 harmed.

17 Our town's experience has clearly

18 demonstrated a need for strict regulation of coal

19 combustion waste as hazardous. We live in a time

20 when large corporations often view environmental

21 regulations as obstacles to greater profits and

22 regulatory fines as the cost of doing business.90

1 Few can be trusted. We need federal action on

2 this now. Thank you.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay. Can I

5 have numb ers 26, 28, 29 and 31 please? Number 26,

6 please come to the mic. Thank you.

7 MS. FLEET: Good morning. My name is

8 Marge Fleet. I am a school board member of my

9 local grade school. And my concern is that

10 because we have a quarry next to our school and

11 that has changed the water pattern from the

12 Lincoln stone quarry, I'm concerned that it might

13 contamina te our school wells. I strongly urge

14 that the EPA adopt Subtitle C. Thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 28

17 please?

18 MS. MURRAY: Good morning. My name is

19 Cathi Murray. I live in the Town of Pines,

20 Indiana which is located about 60 miles southeast

21 of here. Currently, I serve as the Town Council

22 Board President. My family and I have lived there91

1 for a little over 20 years. When we moved there,

2 we thought it was a great place to mak e as a home.

3 Little did we know our community was being

4 poisoned.

5 More than one and a half million tons of

6 coal combustion waste has been dumped in a

7 landfi ll that is partially unlined. More than

8 half of the waste dumped in the landfill lies on

9 top of an aquifer that residents in our town and

10 the surrounding community draw their drinking

11 water from. There is a stream that flows around

12 the dump, through the Town of Pines, into the

13 National Lakeshore, and eventually empties into

14 Lake Michigan, contaminating everything it

15 touches.

16 The Town of Pines has been devastated by

17 coal combustion waste contaminants. Our ground,

18 our water and air are so polluted with this waste

19 it remains to be seen if it will ever be

20 completely cleaned up.

21 Our lives have been contaminated with

22 the constant worry and the constant vigilance92

1 required to protect ourselves and our community.

2 We have bullied our way through the entire

3 superfund process in an effort to avoid being

4 under

- protected and under

- represe nted. This has

5 taken time away from our families and jobs. It

6 has caused stress and anxiety. What effect

7 drinking, living and breathing in an air

8 contaminated with coal combustion w aste will have

9 on people in our community is something we will

10 always wonder about, if the rare health issues my

11 children suffer are as a result of drinking

12 contaminated water or walki ng everyday I was

13 pregnant on a road constructed of coal combustion

14 waste. What ill effects will result from letting

15 my daughters pick up shiny black rocks on that

16 road?

17 A decade later, only two

- thirds of our

18 contaminated community has safe water while a

19 third of our community is left to wonder if their

20 next drink of water or the next shower they take

21 will damage their health. Just two years after

22 the installation of municipal water, boron levels93

1 skyrocketed. Molybdenum lev els increased

2 dramatically. Yet our community is still not

3 protected. Nothing has been cleaned up.

4 Contaminants flowing and seeping from the landfill

5 have not stopped and coal combus tion waste has not

6 yet been classified as a hazardous waste. So, the

7 fact that only two

- thirds of our polluted

8 community has safe water is a very small bandage

9 on an open, enormous, s eeping wound.

10 Take a look at our area in Northwest

11 Indiana: Grand Calumet River, contaminated; East

12 Chicago, two superfund sites; Gary, two superfund

13 sites; Westville, a sup erfund site; Michigan City,

14 a superfund site; Pines, Indiana, a superfund

15 site! One contaminated river, seven superfund

16 sites all in a range of 30 miles. IDEM has been

17 inept at prote cting us.

18 Indiana is one of the top three

19 producers of coal combustion waste. I urge EPA to

20 adopt Subtitle C to regulate the management and

21 disposal of coal combustion waste . My family

22 needs protection, my community needs protection.94

1 Northwest Indiana needs protection, the State of

2 Indiana need s the protection, and the good

3 citizens of our great nation need protection.

4 MS. DEVLIN: Excuse me. Excuse me,

5 ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you

6 very much.

7 (Applause)

8 MS. DEVLIN: Number 29 please?

9 MS. KOEBEL: My name is Beth Koebel. I

10 thank you for allowing us, the public, to comment

11 on this important subject. I would like to talk

12 to you about the health effects of one of the

13 toxic substances that is concentrated in coal ash.

14 This is arsenic.

15 There is appr oximately 4,601 tons of

16 arsenic in the coal ash that is produced here in

17 the United States annually. You may have heard of

18 arsenic that's in the seafood, but studies have

19 shown this t ype of arsenic which is organic

20 arsenic to have very low toxicity. It is the

21 inorganic arsenic that causes the problems.

22 Please allow me to sidetrack just a95

1 little bit into human physiology. The main "power

2 currency" in the human body is ATP. The TP stands

3 for triple phosphate. And these triple phosphate

4 bonds are the very high energy sources that we

5 require, when they break they produce a high

6 energy amount, and that's what gives us our

7 energy, okay. Well, if the arsenic that replaces

8 those phosphate bonds with arsenic because they're

9 phosphate and thus you lose your high energy bonds

10 so you lose energy that way.

11 The classic gastrointestinal effect of

12 the arsenic poisoning is the increased probability

13 of small blood vessels. This leads to

14 hypotension, low blood pressure, and fluid loss.

15 There can also be an inflammation and necrosis of

16 the stomach wall which can lead to the perforation

17 of the gut wall or hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.

18 Arsenic can cause cardiogenic shock,

19 arrhythmias, hypertension and peripheral vascular

20 disease. It also causes gangrene, secondary to

21 the atherosclerotic processes it produces. There

22 are vasal spastic changes and thickening of the96

1 small and medium size arteries.

2 Arsenic also has several neurological

3 effects. It causes peripheral neuropathy, typical

4 of a symmetrical sto cking and glove distribution,

5 and other neurological problems that may arise, or

6 alterations in the vibrational and positional

7 sense along with encephalopathy.

8 The EPA has li sted arsenic as a known

9 carcinogen, and arsenic is known to cause bladder,

10 kidney, lung, liver, prostate and skin cancers.

11 There was somebody up here earlier that said that

12 he has work ed with this and he is fine, he's not

13 sick. Well, the latency period for these cancers

14 can be up to 30 to 40 years after the

15 contamination.

16 I thank you for letting us come u p here

17 and talk to you.

18 (Applause)

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 31

20 please.

21 MR. MELLON: Good morning. My name is

22 Paul Mellon, President of Novetas Solutions.97

1 We're a small company based in Philadelphia. We

2 manufacture recycled glass for blasting abr asives.

3 I'm here today to talk to the EPA

4 actually for the third time on this issue. What I

5 want to focus on today is the law of unintended

6 consequences when it comes to the beneficial use

7 program in using coal slag abrasives.

8 First of all, let me just start by

9 handing a couple of samples over. This is coal

10 slag abrasives. This is what it look s like when

11 you buy it. I think earlier there was a gentleman

12 from Harsco that brought up a boulder size rock

13 and was hitting it on the podium here. That's not

14 coal slag abrasives. This is what it looks like

15 in its virgin state. And when you use the product

16 as intended, you're blasting it against metal

17 substrates at about 150 psi creating tons of

18 airborne dust. In 1997, the EPA declared that

19 this dust in black beauty coal slag abrasives

20 manufactured by Harsco is a hazardous airborne

21 pollutant.

22 One of the things that I want to talk98

1 about in regards to coal slag abrasives is that

2 when this product is used after it's blasted, it

3 falls on the ground, falls on wherever you're

4 blasting but then it also winds up in the

5 landfill. The landfill test, to allow it to get

6 there, is called the TCLP, we've heard it talked

7 about today a few times, the Toxicity

8 Characteristic Leaching Procedure. It's a test

9 that mimics what happens when you put products

10 like that into a landfill and whether they leach

11 into the groundwater. How ever, as I said, most

12 times a lot of this product never makes it to a

13 landfill. It falls on the ground, it falls in the

14 air, falls on people's clothes.

15 The EPA has recognize d this as an issue.

16 Page 35150 of your federal proposed rule, "EPA

17 also notes in this regard that recent research

18 indicates that traditional leach procedures (e.g.,

19 TCLP and SPLP) may underestimate the actual leach

20 rates of toxic constituents from CCRs under

21 different field conditions." That's what I want

22 to talk about today, a different field condition.99

1 Last night when I got into Chicago, I stayed about

2 25 miles south of here in Elmwood, Illinois. I

3 had a chance to do a little shopping. I went to

4 the local Menards and had an opportunity to buy a

5 50

- pound bag of coal slag abrasives for $8 a bag.

6 So, what we have is a situation here,

7 thanks to the Beneficial Use Program of 2000 which

8 thankfully looks like that's going to change

9 because I notice that abrasives are not in your

10 current rule, but we have a situation where

11 Menards, one of the largest retail chains in the

12 United States with over 1,000 stores are selling

13 coal slag abrasives to the general public, the

14 people of Chicago who are buying this everyday. I

15 would submit to you tha t the TCLP is not an

16 appropriate test when children are playing in

17 their backyard after Dad's gone blasting maybe the

18 fence or his, you know, antique car. This is the

19 effect that, you know, it's got to be stopped.

20 So, again, I would applaud the EPA for

21 removing coal slag abrasives from the proposed

22 rule. I would ask that you also seriously look at100

1 lowering the TCLP limits. Thank you very much for

2 your time.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. We are running

5 a bit ahead of schedule and so I'm going to try to

6 accommodate a couple of speakers who have asked to

7 speak early. So, is number 104, number 235 and

8 numbers 99 and 100 in the room? If you would,

9 please come to the podium? Okay, number 104, if

10 you would come up?

11 MR. PURDUE: Good morning. My name is

12 Jeff Purdue. I'm from Madison County, Indian a and

13 I am a farmer. I have been farming our

14 multi

- generational farm for 35 years. I don't

15 know if anybody on the panel is familiar with

16 farming, but farming is a way of life. It's not a

17 business, it's not a job, it's a way of life.

18 That's how come I'm so passionate for our family

19 farm.

20 And I'm here today to talk to you about

21 the produ ct gypsum. Gypsum has become an

22 extremely important product for our farm. In the101

1 last 35 years, our farm has progressed

2 t remendously on water quality, water runoff, water

3 infiltration. We're using a lot less of

4 commercial fertilizers because of the use of

5 gypsum. It has allowed our soil structure to

6 in crease back to the type of soil that you can

7 grab in your hands and smell in your nose and

8 really know that you've got yourself a farm. And

9 that's what's really important on the family farm.

10 We have increased the ability of our

11 farm to hold back any type of chemical runoffs.

12 We have diked all our fertilize tanks. We have

13 diked all our fuel tanks. So, the farm of today

14 is so much different than the farm of 35 years

15 ago.

16 So, I'm here to ask you to take gypsum

17 into consideration as being an extremely important

18 part of our farm ing institution. We are using

19 that product to increase our soil structure and

20 also to try to improve in so many ways a lot of

21 the benefits that the EPA is trying to improve;

22 less comm ercial fertilizer, less runoff to go down102

1 the Mississippi. We're all very familiar with

2 that product or that problem.

3 Our farm lays right in the watershed

4 that feeds Indianapolis water company, water for

5 the Indianapolis area. We are checked quite

6 regularly on water coming out of our open ditches

7 and out of our tiles. And we have gone to a total

8 no

- till program. We have much, much less wind

9 erosion, much less water runoff. We've got grass

10 waterways along all our open ditches. We plant

11 trees along the open ditches. So, we are trying

12 to improve things in a lot of different ways.

13 The gypsum is an extremely important

14 product for us. Thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 235

17 please?

18 MR. SCHAFER: Good morning. My name is

19 Guy Schafer and I thank you for the opportunity to

20 be here.

21 I'm in a unique situation because I

22 manage an organic recycling facility for a farm.103

1 At this facility, we have been producing compost

2 for over 15 years. I have been involved with this

3 from the beginning, and for the last five years

4 have led our expansion into supplying agricultural

5 gypsum.

6 In this program, we recycle drywall from

7 new construction waste. This program allows

8 builders the opportunity to gain more credits

9 toward achieving a hig her level with LEED

10 projects, which are very important in growing.

11 I understand that FGD gypsum now

12 supplies a third of the material for the

13 production of new drywall. Becau se my operation

14 cannot produce enough gypsum through the recycling

15 program for the demand, I must rely on FGD gypsum

16 that comes straight from the source. And I have

17 personally handled over 15,000 tons since the

18 beginning five years ago. This is not a hazardous

19 material.

20 Not only does FGD gypsum benefit our

21 renewable resources but it also improves the

22 production of compost by stabilizing and retaining104

1 the essential nutrients that are needed for a

2 sustainable future.

3 It comes down to this, we can divert

4 millions of tons annually of what would be waste

5 to be beneficially reused for a better tomorrow.

6 Again, I appreciate your time and than k

7 you.

8 (Applause)

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 100?

10 MR. MALONEY: Hi, my name is Jack

11 Maloney. I'm from Brownsburg, Indiana jus t west

12 of Indianapolis. My farm name is Little Ireland

13 Farm, Incorporated. This particular area was

14 settled by the Irish after all other land was

15 settled because it was wet. We have been in this

16 location since 1861 and will be celebrating our

17 150th anniversary next year. I am the fourth

18 generation steward of our family farm.

19 Our watershed feeds into Ea gle Creek

20 reservoir that Indianapolis uses for their

21 drinking water. We have a continuing study that

22 is being done by the Center for Earth and105

1 Environmental Science out of Indiana University

2 Purdue University at Indianapolis.

3 Preliminary studies of this subsurface

4 water system on our farm show r educed nitrates,

5 phosphates and potassium. Basically, the water

6 downstream is cleaner than upstream. So, that

7 tells me all the water running off my place is a

8 whole lot cleaner comin g down from the topside.

9 I attribute this to the use of FGD

10 gypsum over a period of nine years now. We're

11 having better water infiltration, less ponding of

12 water, improved r ooting of growing crops because

13 of better soil structure. Oxygen is found deeper

14 in the soil profile, thus better rooting and

15 energized soil biologies attained.

16 FGD gypsum i s a great soil amendment

17 with far more attributes to explain about it in

18 these short minutes.

19 I would very much appreciate the

20 continued use of FGD gypsum on my farm. I woul d

21 like to avoid the labeling of flue gas

22 desulfurization gypsum as a hazardous waste and106

1 not be regulated under Subtitle C of the Resource

2 Conservation Recovery Act. Thank you for your

3 time.

4 (Applause)

5 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 99

6 please?

7 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Good afternoon. Good

8 morning actually I guess. Thank you for the

9 opportunity to hear my testimony.

10 My name is Ron Chamberlain and I would

11 like t o address FGD gypsum. I've been working

12 with crops and soils now for 39 years and I have

13 been working for the past nine years with FGD

14 gypsum from power plants across the Midwest that

15 produce the material to exacting specifications

16 for use in agriculture.

17 I am a Certified Crop Advisor and

18 currently hold the position of Director of

19 Agronomy for Gypsoil, a small Midwestern business

20 with the goal of providing sustainable solutions

21 to American agriculture.

22 Gypsoil provides FGD gypsum to the107

1 agriculture industry in order to improve the

2 quality of American farmland. FGD gypsum improves

3 soil structure and balance by providing valuable

4 calcium and sulfu r which are both becoming

5 deficient in many of our soils.

6 Much of our agricultural land is

7 compacted, resulting in: *erosion of our soils

8 and nutrients, and *lower crop prod uction

9 efficiency.

10 To solve the compaction problem, I have

11 been applying gypsum to thousands of acres of

12 Midwest farmland for the past nine years, and

13 durin g that time I have observed an array of

14 benefits for our farmers, their businesses and the

15 environment. For example: 1. Our compacted

16 soils have become garden mellow, rich and balanced

17 as the natural biology flourishes and provides

18 everything their crops need to grow and produce

19 high quality, safe food. 2. As a result, we have

20 reduced applications of chemical or petroleum

21 based fertilizers by up to 90 percent. 3. Water

22 from heavy rainfall no longer ponds or erods off108

1 the fields; rather it is absor bed into the

2 sponge

- like subsoil and then gently released into

3 our waterways without inflicting water damage to

4 our neighbors downstream. 4. Our watersheds are

5 cleaner as evidenced b y a recent study conducted

6 by the Center for Earth and Environmental Science,

7 a joint project of Purdue and Indiana Universities

8 and others, where long

- term use of FGD gypsum has

9 influ enced a significant reduction in phosphorus

10 and nitrate loading into the Eagle Creek watershed

11 which supplies the water for the City of

12 Indianapolis. Adoption of FGD gypsum as a best

13 management practice in sensitive watersheds across

14 the country could clean up our waterways suffering

15 from runoff pollution, provide us with clean water

16 and make this a better world.

17 State level regulations require me to

18 analyze FGD gypsums regularly, and years of

19 results prove to me that it contains no ash or

20 other coal byproducts and is one of the cleanest

21 and safest of all materials applied to our soils.

22 Responsibly applied to agricultural109

1 soils, FGD gypsum contributes significantl y to: *

2 Improved, sustainable agriculture, and an improved

3 environment.

4 The hazardous designation of gypsum

5 would stop this beneficial use in American

6 agri culture, and thereby take away the opportunity

7 to help the environment in so many ways.

8 I ask you, please, avoid labeling FGD

9 gypsum as hazardous waste and avoid regulating it

10 under Subtitle C of RCRA. Thank you for your time

11 and consideration.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay, numbers

14 32, 33, 34, and 36 please. Number 32 , please

15 come. Please come.

16 MS. MOLINARO: Hi, I'm Helen Molinaro

17 and I've been with the PINES Group through its

18 inception. I am here because I care about what

1 9 happens in our town. I would like to see other

20 families who don't have city water to get it.

21 Yard 520 still has all the coal ash. And when we

22 were told that an EPA meeting by a rep, he said it110

1 was capped. I ask did he do the capping or see it

2 capped, his reply was no, I took their word for

3 it, which I guess he was referring to IDEM. That

4 was not good enough for me because I think if you

5 have to see something, you should follow through

6 with it.

7 Another thing I would say is the lacks

8 in following through regarding the payment of our

9 geologist who still is owed for his services. The

10 rep from EPA admitted he did not follow through or

11 explain to us, the PINES Group, or guide us on

12 what the next steps would be to take. I am a bit

13 perturbed because we look to him for guidance. By

14 the way, we are a superfund site and the EPA rep

15 never had experience at handling a superfund site,

16 which explains why he did not follow through.

17 Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 33

20 please?

21 MR. DAVIS: Good morning. If you would

22 allow me, I'm here on concerns and I come to speak111

1 as a voice for the peo ple from Joliet, Illinois

2 and the community in which they live in. And if

3 you allow me, those who have come to show their

4 concerns and their support on behalf of that

5 community, I'd l ike for them to stand now so you

6 can see those who have come to support their

7 concerns on what's happening in our community.

8 (Applause)

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

10 MR. DAVIS: These people have been

11 living in that community for quite some years,

12 where the dumping of Midwest Generation has been

13 going on. Here recently we just find out the

14 contamination that has been going on for the years

15 in close proximity in which they live which is a

16 mile or less that we live, our children play, and

17 that we all grow up in this co mmunity. We also

18 have a church in which we worship in the same

19 community that is being contaminated.

20 Here recently we just find out that

21 there's high levels of contaminants contaminating

22 the ground, contaminating the water in which we112

1 drink in. There is a high level of sicknesses

2 including canc er diseases of all types that has

3 been going on that nobody has been aware of. But

4 we have had conversations around that as to why so

5 many sicknesses has been coming up. Now we know

6 why. We find out that Midwest Generation has been

7 illegally dumping their waste, this coal ash that

8 has been seeping into the ground and into the

9 water that we drink.

10 And so , I'm here on behalf and in

11 support of Subtitle C regulation, that you would

12 do your job, that we depend on you to do to watch

13 for us, and then we find out you're not watching

14 for us a nd regulating Midwest Generation. So, we

15 are here today to ask you that you would get up on

16 top of this job, this must be taken care of in

17 short order. And we are here to voice our

18 c oncerns that this can't be allowed to go on.

19 Somebody has been looking the other way for far

20 too long and we ask that you would adopt Subtitle

21 C to regulate them to dump in a more safer way

2 2 that will protect our community from all the113

1 hazards that it presents to us. Thank you.

2 (Applause)

3 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Sir? Excuse

4 me, number 33, could you state your name for the

5 court reporter?

6 MR. DAVIS: Oh, I'm sorry.

7 MS. DEVLIN: That's okay.

8 MR. DAVIS: My name is Robert Davis.

9 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, thank you so much.

10 MR. DAVIS: You're welcome.

11 MS. DEVLIN: Number 34 please.

12 MR. PRAST: Good afternoon. My name is

13 James Prast. I live in the Town of Pines just

14 east of here. I was also, I am the president of

15 the group that's referred to as the PINES Group.

16 Years ago, I was on the town board. I

17 was the president of the town board when Brown and

18 NIPSCO came to our town and said we would like to

19 allow you people to take this mat erial, this fly

20 ash and use it as a fill for your area. We can

21 use it for our roads. We can fill our property

22 with it, bring up the low areas, fill in any114

1 swamps because back then you could do that type of

2 stuff. Any time you wanted to bring it up, we'll

3 give it to you at no cost.

4 We asked is this safe because as the

5 president of the town board that was my concern.

6 We had the health department come to our town

7 board meeting. We had people from NIPSCO and

8 other places who c ame in and said this is a very

9 safe ingredient, you can use it.

10 We used it. We okayed it. They started

11 bringing it in. And from day one, all we had was

12 complaints from our residents. It was coming in

13 to their houses. Brown said we'll take care of

14 that. We won't have it in the air. Our roads

15 were being filled with it. Our kids were playing

16 with it a nd they were bringing it in to the

17 houses.

18 Luckily, we were smart enough to know it

19 needs to stop. So, we stopped it. We still have

20 Yard 520 which is still being used at th e time.

21 Over that period of time, I got married, I've had

22 kids, and eight years ago we found out that our115

1 water level was c ontaminated, severely. So, we

2 had water brought in to a part of the town. We

3 said, well, what about the rest of the town? And

4 they said there is no possible way the rest of the

5 town could be contaminated.

6 Well, luckily, the PINES Group got

7 together and we tested individual's wells. And at

8 that time, we found out that my well and people

9 around me's well s were contaminated because of the

10 landfill, also because of the fly ash that was

11 used for road basis and to fill people's

12 backyards. Ever since then, my kids have stopped

13 drinking ci ty water or well water. The only thing

14 they drink is bottled water and that is expensive.

15 And I would like everyone to support

16 Subtitle C so that no one else has to go through

17 what the Town of Pines and the PINES Group and the

18 people in our neighborhood have had to go through.

19 Thank you.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 35

22 please?116

1 MR. GEHRMANN: I would like to thank the

2 EPA for holding these hearings and giving me the

3 opportunity to speak today. My name is Bill

4 Gehrmann and I am the President of Headwaters

5 Resources.

6 In the EPA's May 4th, 2010 press

7 release, the Administrator calls for "common sense

8 national protections to ensure the safe disposal

9 of coal ash." In that same press release, the

10 Assistant Administrator states that

11 "environmentally sound beneficial uses of ash

12 conserve resources, reduce greenhouse gas

13 emissions, lessen the need for waste disposal

14 units, and provide significant domestic economic

15 benefits." Our industry agrees wit h both the

16 Administrator and Assistant Administrator.

17 With that being said, let's look at a

18 "common sense" approach to accomplishing these

19 goals.

20 Let's start with existing surface

21 impoundments. The spill at the federally owned

22 TVA's Kingston Plant was an example of an117

1 engineering failure of a surface impoundment.

2 Both proposed regulations require a retrofit with

3 a liner within five years of the effective date.

4 New impoundments placed in service after the

5 effective date require a liner under both

6 proposals.

7 Now let's look at dry landfills.

8 Landfills built before the effective date are not

9 required to have a liner under either proposal.

10 Both proposals do require groundwater monitoring.

11 Landfills built after the effective date have

12 essentially the same engineering standards under

13 both proposals.

14 The effective date. Here is where we

15 start to differentiate between the two proposals.

16 Under Subtitle D, the effective date is six months

17 after the final rule is promulgated for m ost

18 provisions. However, for Subtitle C, the EPA

19 states that timing will vary. Each state must

20 adopt the rule individually which can take one to

21 two years or even more. Common sense tells us

22 that Subtitle D is the quicker path to118

1 implementation of essentially the same engineering

2 standards.

3 Recycling. We need to continue to take

4 advantage of those benefits that the Assistant

5 Administrator mentioned in the May press release.

6 Effective recycling reduces the volumes of coal

7 ash placed in landfills. The stigma from a

8 Subtitle C designation will negatively impact the

9 volume of coal combustion products currently being

10 beneficially used. Common sense tells u s that a

11 hazardous waste designation increases the

12 liability risks to everyone involved in the

13 beneficial use supply chain. All it takes is the

14 fear of these potential liabilities at any link in

15 this chain to jeopardize the benefits derived from

16 recycling. Why would the EPA take such a risk?

17 The EPA and speakers at these hearings

18 have stated that a Subti tle C ruling would

19 actually increase recycling. Common sense would

20 tell you that if that was the case, as the largest

21 marketer of coal combustion products in the

22 country, we would be in favor of Subtitle C. We119

1 are not.

2 Use common sense. If federal

3 jurisdiction is what you are after, find anoth er

4 solution. Don't jeopardize beneficial use and its

5 engineering and environmental benefits by choosing

6 a Subtitle C designation. Thank you.

7 (Applause)

8 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 36

9 please.

10 MR. WEISHAAR: My name is Weishaar, I'm

11 Vice President of Stark Excavating in Bloomington,

12 Illinois. Stark Excavating is a heavy civil

13 contractor that is both a concrete producer and a

14 road and bridge builder. Portland cement concrete

15 is an integral part of our business. It is used

16 in construction of PCC roadways, bridges, curb and

17 gutters, foundations and driveways. We produce

18 approximately 70,000 cubic yards of concrete

19 annually in McLean County. We purchase another

20 70,000 c ubic yards for operations in surrounding

21 counties.

22 Coal ash plays an important part in the120

1 concrete industry. It s benefits are many. Coal

2 ash used as a cement replacement is approximately

3 $49 per ton cheaper than the type 2 Portland

4 cement alternative. A standard concrete mix using

5 20 percent coal ash replacement results in a cost

6 savings of $1.35 a cubic yard. In our business

7 model, that is a cost savings to consumers of

8 $189,000. Keep in mind we are in a small market

9 an d the impact nationwide is astronomical.

10 Other uses of coal ash are the

11 mitigation of ASR, alkali

- silica reactivity. The

12 addition of coal ash in concrete mixes allows the

13 us e of a wider array of coarse and fine aggregate

14 combinations. It allows the utilization of

15 locally produced materials. The end result here

16 is a substantial cost savings to the consumer.

17 The mitigation of ASR is critical to the long

- term

18 durability of concrete pavements. There are many

19 other benefits to the use of coal ash in concrete

20 production.

21 In summ ary, you can see the critical

22 role that coal ash plays in concrete production.121

1 Our firm is concerned about how our business

2 impacts the environment. It is a great concern of

3 ours. I have read articles, both for and against

4 the impact of coal ash in our environment. I

5 personally think that more research needs to be

6 completed including the impact to industries

7 dependent on this byproduct prior to any changes

8 in the disposal regulations. I look at the

9 construction industry as a partial solution to the

10 disposal of this renewable byproduct.

11 For these reasons, we ask the EPA to

12 reconsider any changes in its current regulatory

13 practice or develop an exemption for its use in

14 environmentally friendly ways. Thank you for the

15 opportunity to present my views on this matter.

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay, numbers

17 37, 38, 39 and 40 please? Go ahead.

18 MR. LANCASTER: Good afternoon. My name

19 is Richard Lancaster. I am Vice President,

20 Generation, with Great River Energy (GRE), a

21 not

- for profit, member

- owned rural electric

22 cooperative based in Minnesota which operates two122

1 coal fired power plants.

2 GRE agrees with many other entities that

3 any development of federal regulations for coal

4 combustion residuals should be under RCRA Subtitle

5 D non

- hazardous waste rules. GRE supports the EPA

6 Subtitle D Prime proposal. We str ongly oppose

7 regulation of CCRs under the RCRA hazardous waste

8 program even if CCRs could be labeled "special

9 wastes."

10 GRE believes the beneficial use market

11 would be virtually eliminated even under the

12 "special waste" characterization. For us, that

13 would mean the loss of $40 million in revenue over

14 the next ten years which offsets our generation

15 cost to our members, and over $40 million in

16 stranded infrastructure cost for already installed

17 composite liners, beneficial use facilities, and

18 other equipment. This would leave us with no

19 option other than to drastically increase

20 electricity rates to our members.

21 Such rate increases will

22 disproportionately affect areas of the nation more123

1 dependent on coal for power generation such as the

2 Midwest. They will also be more pronounced for

3 those consumers in rural areas typically suppli ed

4 electricity by rural cooperatives which rely more

5 on coal generation than do other utilities.

6 Increases in electrical rates will mean higher

7 cost for agriculture, manufacturing and small

8 businesses in rural areas, more so than in more

9 urban settings. This will place these rural

10 businesses at an even greater competitive

11 disadvantage.

12 I n addition to the economic impacts, GRE

13 feels those calling for regulation under a

14 Subtitle C designation underestimate the

15 environmental impacts of regulating a non

-

16 hazardous, large volume waste as thought it were

17 hazardous. If CCRs were regulated as hazardous,

18 greater energy use would be required by power

19 plants to operate CCR control and disposal

20 systems, and e ven more energy would be consumed in

21 the extraction and processing of native materials

22 CCRs currently replace. Not only would we lose124

1 the greenhouse gas benefits of utilizing CCRs, but

2 we would actually increase CO2 emissions to supply

3 the greater amount of energy demanded by hazardous

4 waste control and disposal systems.

5 GRE operates in states with well

6 developed waste regulations and standards that

7 parallel, or are more stringent than, Subtitle D.

8 These states have beneficial use regulations or

9 standards that would not allow beneficial use if

10 CCRs were determined to be hazardous. We also

11 feel that those states with well developed

12 programs should be allowed to continue to

13 implement their Subtitle D compliant programs.

14 In conclusion, CCRs should be regulated

15 under Subtitle D. Thank you very much for the

16 opportunity to testify.

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 38

18 please?

19 MR. SHEPHERD: Greetings, my name is

20 Mark Shepherd. I'm the Environmental Health &

21 Safety Director for Prairie State G enerating

22 Company. Prairie State Generating Company is125

1 constructing two 1,600 megawatt, coal

- fired,

2 supercritical steam e lectric generating facility

3 in Washington County, Illinois, approximately 60

4 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. It is a

5 technologically advanced electric generation

6 facility, 95 percent owned by eight non

- profit

7 utilities that are committed to providing clean,

8 reliable, and affordable baseload power to 2.5

9 million families in hundreds of local communities

10 in t he Midwest and Mid

- Atlantic regions covering

11 nine states (Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,

12 Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia,

13 Pennsylvania and Virginia) The construction of

14 the Prai rie State Energy Campus has been an

15 important economic catalyst to the region,

16 creating thousands of high

- paying constructions

17 jobs, and during operations it will create

18 hundreds of h igh

- paying jobs for several decades.

19 Because of the advanced design

20 efficiency of the power plant, Prairie State

21 Energy Campus and similarly operated plants will

22 significantl y improve our industry's environmental126

1 profile by displacing existing, less efficient

2 power plants and reducing carbon dioxide by

3 millions of tons each year. A state of the art

4 air pollution control technology installed at the

5 plant includes wet and dry scrubbers that will

6 clean the plant's emissions to very low level,

7 while producing low

- cost, reliable electricity for

8 our customers. The result of all of these

9 emission control processes is the production of

10 coal combustion residuals, consisting mainly of

11 fly ash and gypsum, along with much smaller

12 proportions of bottom ash. Managing these

13 residual products in an environmentally

14 responsible manner is part of Prairie State

15 Generating Company's commitment and mission.

16 Let me say at the outset that Prairie

17 State supports the development of federal

18 regulations for coal combustion residuals under

19 RCRA's Subtitle D non

- hazardous waste program.

20 Proposed regulations to manage coal combustion

21 residuals as hazardous waste do not properly

22 address the risks posed by these CCRs, by127

1 disposing of them, or the impact that proposed

2 regulations will have on coal combustion residuals

3 beneficial reuse. Environmental protec tions

4 achievable under Subtitle C are no stronger than

5 those under Subtitle D option and come at a much

6 higher cost to the consumer and taxpayer. Let me

7 go further to point out that t he State of Illinois

8 design standards for construction and operation of

9 landfills for CCRs are more protective than either

10 option posed under the proposed Subtitle D

11 regulations and th e Subtitle C regulations. The

12 proposed regulations thus offer no increased

13 benefit to justify the large impact of the cost.

14 We believe the state has an important

15 role to pla y in regulations of coal combustion

16 residuals and should take the lead on regulating

17 these materials. The belief that federal

18 enforceability under Subtitle D regulations is

19 inadequate is erroneous. As published, the

20 proposed rules also have numerous defects and

21 problems, even under the Subtitle D option.

22 We urge the EPA to withdraw the current128

1 proposal and to work to propose regulations under

2 Subtitle D that recognize that CCRs can be managed

3 responsibly and safely.

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 39

5 please?

6 MR. LIU: Good afternoon. Thank you for

7 letting me come and speak. My name is Jerry Liu

8 and I am the President and CEO of Ecolo gic Tech.

9 My company is a small business that is trying to

10 take fly ash and reuse it as building materials,

11 for example, bricks and roofing tiles. We are

12 based in Missouri with a sale s office here in

13 Chicago.

14 Ecologic Tech strongly believes that if

15 the EPA reclassifies fly ash under Subtitle C, it

16 will place a significant stigma on the substance

17 that will retard any growth in industries that

18 seek to utilize this waste material. I've been

19 told that the EPA models assume that there would

20 be little if any negative economic impact from an y

21 proposed action. I can only speak for myself, but

22 in our case this is completely untrue.129

1 As an environmental t echnology firm that

2 is dedicated to finding new ways to recycle fly

3 ash, Ecologic Tech is exactly the kind of clean

4 tech company you would think the EPA would want to

5 succeed. However, our company has already felt a

6 direct negative impact simply with EPA's decision

7 to consider this matter. One potential client in

8 Georgia backed out of a licensing discussion last

9 mo nth due to his concern that he would have to

10 spend an unknown amount of additional capital to

11 educate the public on why his fly ash bricks would

12 be safe. We have another interested party in

13 North Carolina who cannot get local distributors

14 to support him because they fear that these bricks

15 will be unsellable.

16 These kinds of contracts are the

17 lifeblood of m y company. A standard licensing

18 agreement has the potential of yielding millions

19 of dollars in revenue for our company. As a

20 result of these lost opportunities, I've had to

21 reduce st aff and now must seek outside funding to

22 remain viable. I cannot believe that these are130

1 kinds of results the EPA would want for businesses

2 it purports to nurture with the Bevill exemption.

3 It is true that under both options the

4 EPA touts and encourages beneficial reuse.

5 However, the negative halo of any Subtitle C

6 designation would make life very difficult for

7 those trying to find new ways to use fly ash. In

8 our case, well

- financed clay brick competitors

9 could easily cripple a fly ash brick m anufacturer

10 by using Subtitle C classification as a club to

11 scare off potential customers. All of our test

12 data showing the safety of fly ash bricks would be

13 useless in countering ima ges of nuclear scenarios

14 where you have something like the Tennessee Valley

15 spill.

16 Look, I'm not here to downplay the

17 importance of diverting fly ash from landfills and

18 impoundment ponds. No one wants another incident

19 like what we had in Tennessee. But we must not

20 forget that fly ash is generally safe to handle

21 and store. Indeed, Ecologic Tech has been

22 researching and working with fly ash since our131

1 inception in 2001 without incident. The move to

2 completely redefine fly ash waste is especially

3 disheartening because we firmly believe that

4 remediation is an issue that can be handled by

5 modifying existing rules and imposing stiffer

6 penalties for accidents.

7 So, if there is anything about what I

8 have said that I would want you to remember, it's

9 this, "Please don't throw the baby out with the

10 bathwater." Over 40 millions of tons of fly ash

11 go unused each year. Fly ash bricks and roofing

12 tiles could be a significant and safe avenue of

13 disposing this waste. But it won't happen if we

14 have to start with a source that the public views

15 on the same level as radioactive waste and

16 biohazardous material.

17 We strongly urge the continued

18 classification of fly ash under Subtitle D. Thank

19 you very much.

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 40

21 please?

22 MR. TURKEWITZ: Hello, my name is Aaron132

1 Turkewitz and I'm speaking as a concerned citizen

2 and as a director of a research laboratory at the

3 University of Chicago. I'd like to begin by

4 saying I applaud the fact man ifested in these

5 hearings that the EPA has come to recognize the

6 serious health and environmental risks posed by

7 coal ash.

8 The scientific findings including

9 studies from the preeminent body of US Science and

10 National Academy make it abundantly clear that the

11 residues concentrated in coal ash are capable of

12 degrading both human and environmental health. My

13 own laboratory has recently become involved in

14 developing new sensors to detect environmental

15 pollutants, particularly heavy metals like those

16 which leach from coal ash. One lesson I have

17 quickly absorbed is that it is vastly more

18 difficult and expensive to deal with pollutants

19 that are dispersed in the environment than it is

20 to take steps to prevent their dispers al in the

21 first place. Here I am not even talking about the

22 difficulty and cost of remediating environmental133

1 damage but ju st the cost of detecting it to begin

2 with.

3 Given this reality, it is clear to me

4 that the EPA should and must adopt the strongest

5 possible regulations to contain the toxins i n coal

6 ash. To begin with, coal ash should be regulated

7 from cradle to grave. Many of the conditions in

8 Subtitle D are inappropriate for dealing with

9 hazardous waste. Both logic and history argue

10 that it is unrealistic to expect an industry to

11 police itself.

12 Similarly, private citizen driven

13 lawsuits, to expect private citizen driven

14 l awsuits to be an effective counterbalance to

15 industry power is unrealistic. While David and

16 Goliath may be an appealing story, it's not a good

17 model for ensuring the changes that are required

18 to safeguard human and environmental health. For

19 this reason, the regulations and the enforcement

20 must come from the federal level.

21 The current patchwork of state

22 r egulations are weak. Many states fail to require134

1 even basic safeguards such as adequate monitoring.

2 State

- based regulations and enforcement are also

3 inappropriate because unless rules are changed,

4 coal ash and coal ash polluted groundwater don't

5 actually respect state boundaries.

6 I want the environment in which I and my

7 neighbors live to be cleaner and healthier. I

8 want the environment that children inherit to be

9 cleaner still. The EPA is the right agency to

10 take the lead and I hope it will adopt provisions

11 at least as strong and binding as those in

12 Subtitle D with regard to coal ash. Thank you.

13 (Applause)

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. May I have

15 numbers 42, 43, 44 and number 226 and 241? So,

16 number 42 please?

17 MR. FERBER: Thank you. My name is Don

18 Ferber, I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I volunteer

19 a l ot of time with the Sierra Club on energy

20 issues.

21 When I was a boy of ten growing up in

22 Central Illinois, I had a great idea that I could135

1 just commandeer candy from the grocery store

2 without paying for it. After the third time that

3 happened, I got caught and my mother took me back

4 to the grocery store to pay for it. That taught

5 me an important lesson. I was accountable for

6 what I did. I had to take responsibility for my

7 actions, and most of all I have to live with

8 integrit y and honesty. And I look at what's

9 happening with the coal and the utility industry

10 and others who are not being held accountable and

11 not being asked to be honest about their actions

12 on the impacts of coal.

13 The government is here to protect the

14 public health, safety and welfare, whereas

15 business is primarily about money, not about the

16 equity that we need in our democracy of looking

17 out for our citizens. When did we allow our

18 government and regulatory agencies to be

19 promulgated by greed rather than the public

20 welfare? If I went out a nd just threw organic

21 waste on the block where I live, I'd probably get

22 a fine. Yet what we're talking about here is136

1 highl y toxic waste that is very hazardous to

2 health, it causes cancer and many other problems

3 and is very, very destructive. And we let this go

4 on.

5 For instance, in Appalachia wi th the

6 mountaintop removal, we know what happened to the

7 miners there, and yet I don't see anybody being

8 held personally accountable despite a company that

9 was violating rules consiste ntly. They put the

10 coal slag in the valleys and it causes problems

11 where people can't even drink the water there. In

12 Wisconsin, we like to pride ourselves on our

13 environment and recr eation opportunities, yet we

14 can't eat the fish from our waters that are laden

15 with mercury and are very unsafe and cause

16 numerous other problems. We have a coal plant in

17 Cheboygan, W isconsin on Lake Michigan with a coal

18 pile sitting there where in winter I've seen

19 pictures of the snow that is black. There are

20 also sludge ponds that are by Lake Michigan that

21 are u nlined. We know where that waste is going to

22 go.137

1 The industry has told us lots of things

2 about that it's safe to use in a golf course in

3 Virginia. After the Tennessee spill, it was safe

4 there, too, initially. We heard, you know, all

5 sorts of problems and lies from the industry

6 including the Gu lf oil fiasco we all know about.

7 I have to be held accountable, why

8 aren't they? The EPA's mission is to protect the

9 public, protect human health and to safeguard the

10 natura l environment, air, water and land upon

11 which life depends. I want to know when the

12 industry will be held accountable for the toxic

13 materials they use and disperse. We prize

14 liberty; freedom without responsibility damages

15 other people's liberties. When will the industry

16 be asked to act responsibly towards environment

17 and health of our citizens? It's time for honesty

18 here and now.

19 I ask the EPA to promulgate the

20 strongest possible rules that I see under Section

21 C and to protect the environment of our planet and

22 the people who live up on it. Thank you.138

1 (Applause)

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 43

3 please?

4 MR. ADEY: Hello, my name is George

5 Adey. I'm a town councilman in the Town of the

6 Pines, Northwest Indiana. And I appreciate the

7 opportunity to speak before you today.

8 I would like for you to do the right

9 thing for the people of the country here. While

10 coal combustion produces smoke, the industry

11 produces a smokescreen and we have all seen it

12 here. The industry reps that have stood up here

13 at this very podium have showed you exactly why

14 they need to be regulated. They put profit before

15 public safety, and we can't have that. The

16 company that our town is dealing with, NIPSCO,

17 they would rather spend $7 million to fight us at

18 every turn trying to clean up our town than spend

19 the million dollars to do the right thing.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. ADEY: And they're not going to do

22 the right thing unless you regulate it and make139

1 them do the right thing.

2 Now, we have all seen the clean coal

3 lobbyist commercial where our duly elected

4 President, a likeness of him was shown with face

5 paint. You want to see the face of clean coal?

6 Come visit our community. We have a dump right

7 outside our town limits. Our water is polluted.

8 We've got residents that are bathing, showering,

9 an d using polluted water, and the utility does not

10 want to do anything about it.

11 So, I urge, for our town, for our

12 country, for public safety, please adopt Subtitle

13 C. Thank y ou.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 44

16 please?

17 MS. BERZENSKI: Well, I guess it's

18 afternoon. My name is Sandy, good aft ernoon, my

19 name is Sandy Berzenski. I'm with the Citizens

20 Against Ruining the Environment (CARE) in Will

21 County.

22 I had many prepared statements coming up140

1 here. A lot of things have been covered already

2 so I don't want to go over the same old thing.

3 And CARE will be submitting comments.

4 The one thing I did want to address is

5 the Illinois EPA. For 16 years, CARE has worked

6 on the situation with Midwest Gen amongst other

7 different projects. But one thing we have com e

8 across, and the reason that you have to have some

9 type of oversight or some type of the Unites

10 States EPA involved is because as far as the

11 Illinois EPA from my experience, I don't k now who

12 they're protecting but they are not protecting the

13 communities. Regulations, enforcement and

14 oversight, regulations, it's obvious from "In

15 Harm's Way" and from any EPA monitor ing well data

16 that they've known of a problem but yet nobody is

17 doing anything. These people are on private

18 wells. You have a school within two miles with

19 300 children that is on a p rivate well. Who is

20 making sure that these children, that everything

21 is fine?

22 The other thing is I say oversight.14 1

1 Oversight, I call this the fox and the henhouse.

2 The majority of laws within the Illinois EPA are

3 basically left up to different entities,

4 industries. I know my time is running out but I

5 did also want to say, to ask you please, based on

6 all these big companies coming up here and using

7 the word beneficial, that should put you in the

8 right direction as far as adopt ing some type of

9 regulation because I don't know who this is

10 beneficial to because it's sure not beneficial to

11 the people, it's only beneficial to the companies

12 involved that are makin g money.

13 And I would also strongly recommend, at

14 the very least Subtitle C, but I would ask from me

15 being a director of CARE, that you adopt the coal

16 ash as hazardous waste. I thank you.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 226?

19 Number 241?

20 MR. RILEY: My name is Randell Riley.

21 I'm a licensed prof essional engineer in Illinois

22 and Iowa and engineer for the Illinois Chapter of142

1 the American Concrete Pavement Association. I

2 also serve as a consultant to Illinois Ready Mixed

3 Concrete Association.

4 To the residents of Illinois and the

5 City of Chicago, concrete is taken largely for

6 granted, but without it the skyline of Chicago

7 would be significantly different. Imagine the

8 skyline without the Sears Tower, the Hancock

9 Building or the Trump Hotel & Tower. And to

10 hopeful Bears fans, there would be no Soldier

11 Field. Indeed, life would be different in the

12 city without concrete.

13 To put into perspective the sheer size

14 of the industry, most of you in the Chicago area

15 have driven the Dan Ryan Expressway, built out of

16 concrete by the way. If you were to take the

17 average annual usage of concrete in Illinois for

18 the last five years an d substitute ready mix

19 concrete trucks for all the traffic on the Dan

20 Ryan, it would equal the total traffic for about

21 ten days each year.

22 The vast majority of those trucks i s a143

1 consumer of fly ash, the lighter component of the

2 coal ash stream. Those trucks on average use

3 about one

- half ton each of ash for a total of

4 about one

- half million tons annually, and that is

5 likely to increase. At least it will increase if

6 EPA leaves the current regulations unchanged.

7 Thoug h perceived as a waste product, fly

8 ash used in concrete makes it stronger, less

9 permeable and more durable. In simple terms, it

10 makes it last longer. Fly ash offers all of these

11 ben efits while also making the concrete less

12 expensive since it replaces the more expensive

13 Portland cement, the "glue" that holds concrete

14 together.

15 Fly ash also makes concrete "greener"

16 and more environmentally friendly. The CO2

17 footprint of the concrete industry in Illinois

18 alone is reduced by roughly 450,000 tons by simple

19 substitution in the concrete fo r Portland cement.

20 EPA is considering unwarranted changes

21 in regulations that would reclassify fly ash as a

22 hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation144

1 Recovery Act Subtitle C approach. We believe this

2 is a knee

- jerk reaction to the unfortunate failure

3 of the impoundment retaining wall in Kingston,

4 Tennessee.

5 Unfortunately, in the litigious society

6 in which we live, any label that would reclassify

7 fly ash as hazardous creates significant issues.

8 Specifiers will refuse to use it and suppliers

9 will refuse to supply it due to the hazardous

10 designation and what would be likely to happen in

11 the courts. The change will have unintended

12 consequences , one of which will be a significant

13 decrease in the use of fly ash in concrete.

14 Fly ash is not a hazardous waste based

15 on its toxicity, and when tied up beneficially in

16 conc rete, it is rendered physically and chemically

17 inert. Classification of fly ash as a hazardous

18 material would be a significant step backward in

19 what is intended in the very name of the Resource

20 Conservation and Recovery Act.

21 For these reasons, we ask that EPA not

22 change from current regulatory practice. Thank145

1 you for this opportunity.

2 (Applause)

3 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Numbers 46, 47,

4 48 and 49 please? Number 46?

5 MS. PIERCE: Good afterno on. My name is

6 Betty Pierce and I am with Restoring Eden, a

7 Christian environmental organization.

8 For some time now, I have had little or

9 no faith in the electoral process, knowing that

10 our elected officials pretty much represent

11 corporations first and the American people second.

12 I'm sure the coal industry and their funded

13 officials are doing their best t o convince you

14 that federally enforceable strict regulations are

15 ridiculous, that coal ash is not responsible for

16 contaminated groundwater, cancer, birth defects,

17 mutilated and dying a nimals and more. In reality,

18 corporate rights versus American citizens' have

19 been impacting legislation for 200 years ever

20 since the Supreme Court granted corporations first

21 amendment rights which include commercial speech

22 as free speech.146

1 But I am encouraged by the EPA's

2 willingness to schedule these meetings across the

3 United States to give a voice to its people and

4 seriously consider our opinions, our concerns

5 about the toxic repercussions of unregulated coal

6 ash disposal. Our constitution is written for the

7 people, by the people, not for the corporation by

8 the corporation or big business. Establishing a

9 first ever federal rule for responsible coal ash

10 disposal is a step in the right direction and is

11 way overdue. It is critical to the health and

12 welfare of the citizens for whom the Constitution

13 was written and to our God

- given responsibility to

14 care for his perfect and beautiful natural

15 creation.

16 I applaud the EPA for proposing new

17 strict regulations, even in the face of some very

18 fierce opposition tha t will curb continued coal

19 ash regulation. Better yet, stop contamination

20 all together.

21 I strongly urge the EPA to continue to

22 do the right thing by adopting Subtitle C prop osal147

1 for coal ash regulation. And I also ask that

2 regulations for a thorough cleanup of all past

3 coal ash contamination wi ll be expedited and that

4 the EPA will increasingly take action toward a

5 clean energy future. Thank you.

6 (Applause)

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 47

8 please?

9 MR. BILBREW: Good afternoon. My name

10 is Ferry Leon Bilbrew. I live in Joliet,

11 Illinois, kitty corner to the Lincoln stone

12 quarry.

13 In the last couple of years, I've been

14 hearing about the fly ash that's being dumped in

15 there with the toxicity that it carries for the

16 well, the ground, the underground well water in

17 that area. My well is approximately about 300 to

18 350 feet from the corner of it, from the northeast

19 corner of that quarry. I don't know if my water

20 is contaminated or not. No one has been out to

21 test it and I couldn't afford to have someone to

22 come give it a test.148

1 So, I'm hearing all kinds of

2 information, getting all kinds of data from tests

3 that have been done in that area, but I've never

4 seen the results of any tests. So, I urge the EPA

5 to adopt the Subtitle C, for that to be regulat ed,

6 and for the regular testing and for the

7 information to be released to the residents in

8 that area that is affected. We really need that

9 because I've never seen no kind of documenta tion

10 of the situation of the water in our area, the

11 wells in our area. Is it contaminated or not?

12 And I drink it and cook with it. And had it not

13 been for the Sierra Club and others and the

14 environmental network people, I would not have

15 known. I'd have been steadily going business as

16 usual. Thank you very much for your time.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 48

19 please?

20 MS. SINGER: Hello, my name is Abigail

21 Singer. And this year, I have had the privilege

22 of working with the Little Village Environmental149

1 Justice Organization on water issues here in

2 Chicago. As you may be aware, Chicago's Little

3 Village neighborhood is home to Midwest

4 Generation's Crawford coal

- fired power plant, one

5 of two plants in the city that are located in

6 low

- income communities of color. More people live

7 near these plants than any other coal plant in the

8 US.

9 When we talk about how to classify and

10 regulate coal waste, it is really crucial to

11 remember that these rules have a direct impact on

12 many people's lives, not to mention on the land

13 and the drinking water sources that all of us

14 depend on.

15 According to a health study that was

16 con ducted by the Harvard School of Public Health,

17 the estimated impacts of Chicago's two coal

- fired

18 power plants are about 500 emergency room visits

19 every year, 2,800 asthma attacks, and more than 40

20 premature deaths every year.

21 These are a result of airborne

22 pollution. They do not even take into account the150

1 impacts of coal ash. Because coal ash is not well

2 regulated, we don't even know where this waste is

3 ending up or who is being impacted.

4 We do know that coal ash is toxic and

5 poses a real threat to public health and safe

6 drinking water. Coal ash contains unsafe levels

7 of contaminants like arsenic, mercury, selenium,

8 chromium and cadmium. These contaminants are

9 shown to cause cancer, neurological damage, and

10 damage to the kidneys, liver and nervous system.

11 Yet most coal ash surface impoundments in the US

12 are still unlined and thus pose a very real risk

13 of water contamination. Many states require no

14 groundwater monitoring at all at coal ash ponds.

15 This is unacceptable.

16 One of the more dramatic examples of the

17 dangers posed by unregulated coal ash is the TVA

18 spill in Kingston.

19 This was the largest industrial waste

20 spill in US history, dumping more than a billion

21 gall ons of toxic coal ash into the surrounding

22 community and the Clinch and Emory Rivers.151

1 According to the EPA, there are two coal

2 ash ponds in Illinois that are "high hazard" and

3 could result in a similar disaster. Again, these

4 are unacceptable risks.

5 People have a right to know what they're

6 being exposed to in their drinking water, in their

7 homes and at their workplaces. Coal ash is toxic

8 and carcinogenic and it should be treated as such.

9 I am particularly concerned with the

10 environmental racism that continues to play a part

11 in the siting of coal facilities and the storage

12 of coal waste. It is a problem that coal ash

13 being dredged from the TVA spill site was sent to

14 a high

- poverty and largely African

- American

15 community in Alabama. It is similarly

16 unacceptable that Chicago's Mexican

- American

17 communities bear the brunt of the pollution from

18 Midwest Gen's Fisk and Crawford coal plants, and

19 that poor white communities in rural Appalachia

20 are having their health, homes, mountains and

21 livelihoods decimated by mountainto p removal.

22 Throughout the entire coal life cycle,152

1 from mining to transportation to burning to waste

2 storage, low

- income communities and communities of

3 color are exposed to disproportionate levels of

4 this toxic pollution.

5 As long as coal ash continues to pile up

6 at coal plants around the country, disposal will

7 be an issue. The real solution to the waste

8 problem is to move away from coal completely. It

9 is an outdated technology that we know is the

10 single biggest culp rit for climate change and a

11 host of other health problems. Please adopt

12 Subtitle C.

13 MS. DEVLIN: Excuse me, ma'am, your time

14 is up. Thank you.

15 MS. SINGER: Thank you.

16 (Applause)

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 49?

18 Thank you.

19 MR. NILLES: Good afternoon. My name is

20 Bruce Ni lles and I have the great pleasure of

21 working with Sierra Club, overseeing all of our

22 coal and clean energy work.153

1 When President Obama and Lisa Jackson

2 took office, they promised that the day is now due

3 that science will guide regulation and we will end

4 the long

- standing practice of letting the industry

5 regulate itself. This cannot come soon enough.

6 How many more TVA disasters do we need to have?

7 How many more BP oil spills do we need to have to

8 destroy the Gulf? How many more threats on the

9 Great Lakes from the likes of the Kalamazoo oil

10 spill must we have before EPA takes action?

11 For more than two decades, the industry

12 has been very successful at saying to stud y it a

13 little more. And indeed, for two decades EPA and

14 a whole host of other agencies have studied the

15 problem of coal ash. And every time the

16 conclusion comes the problem is actual ly worse

17 than we realized before. What are we waiting for?

18 The more we wait, the bigger the problem gets

19 because every year we are generating millions and

20 millions of tons of this was te, and it is today

21 being disposed of improperly as we know across

22 this country.154

1 All we're saying is that there h as to be

2 a level playing field for anybody who produces

3 hazardous waste. The industry, the coal industry

4 has carved out its exemption and for two decades

5 has been enjoying rules that nobody else gets to

6 comply with. Anybody else who generates hazardous

7 waste has to deal with it responsibly, and the sky

8 did not fall once you put in place the designation

9 of hazardou s waste.

10 We're not asking for anything radical.

11 We're saying simply that you have to have a liner,

12 you have to have a collection system so that the

13 liquid that is collected i s being safely disposed

14 of. You need to monitor so you actually know the

15 extent of the problem. And you need to make sure

16 that indeed there is financial insurance in place

17 so that at the end of the day if the company walks

18 away that in fact it will get cleaned up.

19 This Agency knows better than anyone the

20 legacy of hazardous waste. You have spent decades

21 cleaning up the mess of industrial problems under

22 superfund for many, many years and you spend a155

1 very large amount of your resources cleanin g up

2 past messes. At this point, you are allowing more

3 messes to be created by not putting in place

4 Subtitle C regulations as fast as humanly

5 possible. So, it is our next generation that is

6 going to spend all this time and effort cleaning

7 up the mess that we were not smart enough and

8 quick enough and powerful enough to actually

9 quickly get these regulations in pla ce.

10 How much more study do we need? We have

11 137 sites in 34 states where we know there are

12 serious problems. And the more we look the more

13 we find. So, we have a very simp le message.

14 You've been studying this problem for 25 years,

15 every year the problem gets worse. It's time to

16 say no. This industry will have to play by the

17 same rules that everyone el se plays by. And all

18 we're saying is if you're going to burn coal in

19 the United States, then you need to make sure that

20 you're paying the full price of generating

21 electricity from coa l and stop pawning off these

22 huge costs on the communities who are being156

1 threatened with poisoned water today. Thank you

2 v ery much.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay. I want

5 to do a quick check. Does anyone have a number

6 before 49 who has not had an opportunity to speak?

7 Who came in late? Okay.

8 And I'm going to do a couple of, we're a

9 little bit ahead, I'm going to do a couple of

10 fit

- ins for folks who asked to speak earlier.

11 Numbers 308 and 311, are you in the room? If you

12 would come up please? As well as number 102, 108

13 and 98. And I do apologize for being out of order

14 but we're trying to fit in folks as we can.

15 So, you're number 308?

16 MS. BASKERVILLE: Yes.

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

18 MS. BASKERVILLE: Thank you very much.

19 My name is Mary Basker ville and I'm president of

20 the Will County Environmental Network, a

21 grassroots organization in Will County. We speak

22 today in strong support of federal regulation of157

1 coal ash and point to the need for the regional

2 impact to become part of the EPA review of coal

3 ash projects.

4 We speak from experi ence. Several of

5 our members have had wells impacted because water

6 draw

- down in the region was responsible for

7 drawing boron offsite along Brandon Road and

8 Joliet. We worked hard to prevent a clean

9 construction debris disposal proposal from being

10 granted because the dewatering of a spring

- fed

11 quarry at the proposed CCDD site would have

12 created additional draw

- down of water. Water

13 modeling showed it would have resulted in

14 additional draw

- down and an additional pool of ash

15 contaminants offsite leading to many residential

16 well contaminations.

17 The network worked hard with the

18 Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to have

19 them take a forward position in looking outside

20 the boundary of the CCDD application to take a

21 look at what would happen if they allowed that

22 quarry to be dewatered and the resulting pool of158

1 contamination from a separa te quarry. That change

2 prevented additional groundwater contamination and

3 points to the importance of the regional review of

4 projects. Network members urge that the regional

5 impact o f each and every project coming before you

6 not only for ash fill but for additional purposes

7 and permitting become part of the review process.

8 We urge that EPA change past practices

9 at looking just within the boundaries of a project

10 and when deciding whether to permit it or not, and

11 take a look and see if it would have any regional

12 impacts, particularly in terms of groundwa ter

13 draw

- down. Groundwater in our region in Will

14 County is being lowered and it's an important

15 piece of this puzzle in reviewing fly ash

16 regulations. Thank you very much.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 311

19 please? Okay, 311 is not here. Number 102?

20 MR. TRUAX: Good afternoon. My name is

21 Hal Truax and thank you for allowing me to speak.

22 I'm a farmer from West Central Indiana. I've been159

1 farming sustainable agriculture in this farm for

2 50 years. My farmer started with minimum tillage

3 and then I did total no

- till almost 30 years ago

4 using cover crops as well in the system and

5 integrated pest management.

6 This over the years has allowed us to

7 use less chemicals and less fertilizers on our

8 farm. It has also increased yields. Which brings

9 me to FGD gypsum. I've incorporated that into my

10 farm, too.

11 It is a very good product. It's very

12 safe. It has allowed the soil to absorb water and

13 also increase the water holding capacity of the

14 soil. Alo ng with that, it has also allowed

15 nutrients in the soil to be released so that the

16 crops can use it and so that the soil will be

17 healthier and the crops will be healthier.

18 FG D gypsum is a very safe product. It

19 is very, very healthy for the soil. I highly hope

20 that you will not make it a hazardous waste

21 because it will be detrimental to agriculture, not

22 o nly mine but all agriculture. It will also help160

1 in reducing these runoffs and waste and water

2 infiltration and water holding capacity of soi l so

3 that we have healthier crops which will also help

4 as a byproduct to reduce CO2 emissions. Thank you

5 very much.

6 (Applause)

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 98? I'm

8 sorry please? Go ahead then, 311. I called 311,

9 it doesn't matter. You can do, 311 is okay. It

10 doesn't matter. I was calling numbers.

11 MR. SPA RKS: Good afternoon. Thank you

12 for the opportunity to hear my testimony. My name

13 is Jason Sparks and I live here in Chicago. I'm a

14 licensed professional engineer in the State of

15 Il linois and currently hold the position of

16 Director of Operations at Beneficial Reuse

17 Management. The company is a small business with

18 18 employees with over 50 subcontractors, offices

19 in Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago.

20 The reason I was so eager to join

21 Beneficial Reuse Management and one of the reasons

22 why I'm so enthusiastic to be here today was161

1 because of the company's goal, which is simply

2 sustainable solutions. One of these solutions

3 that Beneficial Reuse Management provides is

4 utilizing coal ash as a structural or geotechnical

5 fill in construction projects. By providing the

6 technical expertise to supply this service, we are

7 in fact benefiting the environment in a number of

8 different ways. 1. We're utilizing coal ash in

9 preserving precious landfill space. 2. We're

10 reusing coal ash which reduces the demand for

11 virgin materials and preserves natural resources.

12 We reduce the need for additional quarries and

13 barrow pits that increasingly blight our nation's

14 landscape. 3. By reusing coal ash, we are able

15 to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas

16 emissions by decreasing the need to manufacture

17 new products or extract new materials to fulfill

18 the same end uses. Reusing coal ash oftentimes

19 results in t he reduction of energy consumed in

20 greenhouse gases emitted by reducing long distance

21 transportation of newly manufactured or extracted

22 materials.162

1 Local economies are benefited as a

2 result of the availability of lower cost

3 construction materials that frequently make an

4 otherwise unaffordable proj ect feasible. These

5 benefits are extremely significant, but many

6 people ask, what is the downside to utilizing coal

7 ash for structural fill? Well, the downside is

8 simple. Structural or geotechnical fill projects

9 need to be designed and constructed according to

10 proper standards and regulated to ensure they are

11 completed correctly. Without proper standards in

12 plac e and regulations to ensure these standards

13 are followed, the concern for this type of use is

14 valid.

15 That is why I endorse a national

16 standard on the beneficial reuse of coal ash for

17 structural fill uses. The ASTM, American Society

18 of Testing Materials, has written a standard

19 called E2277

- 03. This standard provides the rules

20 to be followed to perform the se types of projects

21 and ensures the protection of public health and

22 the environment. I am a member of ASTM and I work163

1 on the committee responsible for this standard.

2 We believe the standard is the tool that is

3 required to utilize coal ash in construction

4 projects that will benefit this country and at the

5 same time significantly reduce the number of

6 landfills we'll need to construct in the future.

7 In closing, I ask that you please

8 consider small businesses such as Beneficial Reuse

9 Management that are helping to make our country a

10 more sustainable place to live by using sound

11 technical engineering standards. Labeling coal

12 ash as hazardous would be an unfortunate and

13 irreversible decision that will negatively impact

14 my business as well as businesses for generations

15 to come. Thanks.

16 (Applause)

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 311?

18 MS. BILBREW: Thank you. And thank you

19 to EPA for holding so many hearings. This is the

20 fifth of eight and we really appreciate it. And

21 as you can see, t here are so many people who have

22 so much to say.164

1 This particular hearing is a homecoming

2 for me. Almost ten year s ago I went to the Town

3 of Pines, about an hour away, to help the

4 community in their fight for clean water when

5 their wells were poisoned by coal ash. As you

6 have heard, Pines is now a superfund site. It has

7 been ten years, but sadly the full extent of the

8 contamination in Pines is still not known, nor do

9 all residents have safe water. This is truly a

10 tragedy. One home had arsenic in their water 120

11 times the safe limit and a resident of that home

12 has died of cancer.

13 EPA, with all due respect, you need to

14 fix this problem. This ha s gone on too long.

15 Children I met in Pines have grown up and left for

16 college. But across the nation, other children in

17 other towns are still growing up, drinking

18 poisoned water as m ore and more communities are

19 plagued with coal ash contamination. Towns like

20 Joliet and Oak Brook, Illinois, Caledonia and

21 Genoa, Wisconsin, and East Mount Carmel.

22 The evide nce just keeps building. This165

1 morning, Physicians for Social Responsibility and

2 Earthjustice issued a report on the health impacts

3 of coal ash. There is nothing, absolutely nothing

4 more critical to this debate than physicians

5 describing the harm posed to our health by this

6 toxic waste. The lesson of the report is simple.

7 Doctor's orders to EPA, stop the contamination.

8 The public needs federal protection from

9 the hundreds of unlined, unstable and unmonitored

10 coal ash dumps. They are not prot ected because

11 the laws in many states are woefully inadequate.

12 For decades, states have failed to require the

13 most basic controls.

14 I'd like to see a show of hands of the

15 people who live in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa

-- no,

16 everybody keep their hands up so you can see.

17 Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota. All of these states

18 failed to require truly indispensable safeguar d

19 groundwater monitoring wells on all dangerous coal

20 ash ponds. Without monitoring wells, you'll never

21 know what chemicals are in your water or where

22 these toxins are flowing. These people need166

1 protection. In fact, in Illinois only 28 of the

2 state's 83 ponds are monitored.

3 Industry favors a D Prime option. That

4 option is good for them because they know that in

5 these states, all the states I mentioned, those

6 states will not adopt the Subtitle D standards and

7 there will not be enforcement. That suits them

8 well but it does not suit this audience well and

9 it should not be accepted by EPA. The next time I

10 come to Chicago, I hope to celebrate with my

11 friend s in PINES the fact that the Obama EPA did

12 what it could to protect them, their children and

13 all communities in every corner of this nation

14 from a serious but preventable harm. Thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 108?

17 MR. ULREY: Hello, my name is Jeff

18 Ulrey. And I want to thank you for giving me the

19 opportunity to voice my comments and opinions on

20 the new proposed coal ash regulations.

21 I am the Director of Coal Combustion

22 Products at Beneficial Reuse Management which167

1 specializes in finding alternative homes for

2 industrial byproducts that would otherwise be land

3 filled. We specialize in FGD gypsum, foundry

4 sands and coal ash byproducts.

5 In May of this year, I finished my 20th

6 year in the coal ash business. In those 20 years

7 in the ash business, I have done almost every job

8 there is that deals with CCPs. I was a guy in the

9 trenches. I have been in operations,

10 testing/quality control, research and development,

11 sales, DOT specification committees, management,

12 and have worked with multiple state regulatory

13 agencies. I have run fly ash transfer stations,

14 loaded trucks, rail cars, and barges. I have

15 crushed it, screened it, washed it, spread it

16 agriculturally, built roads, parking lots,

17 embankments, stabilized soils and managed storage

18 pond operations. I have been around coal

19 combustion products literally and figuratively

20 just about all my life.

21 Today, I would like to urge you not to

22 have a long drawn out fight about these168

1 r egulations and rules. Let's get it done properly

2 so that we can move on.

3 Under both proposed alternatives,

4 impoundment ponds will go away, something which

5 can be accomplishe d and begin almost immediately

6 under Subtitle D of RCRA. There is no reason to

7 make a hazardous waste determination to accomplish

8 this same goal. We can get it done in

9 approximately three years rather than the ten

10 years it would take at the minimum with hazardous

11 waste permitting delays. Enforcement seems to be

12 a stumbling block that makes some folks call for a

13 h azardous determination. With legislation, we

14 should grant the power at the state or federal

15 level to enforcement capabilities without a

16 hazardous designation.

17 Shutting down beneficial reuse of coal

18 ash by adopting hazardous disposal regulations is

19 not the way to jumpstart the renewable energy

20 policy in this country and phase out coal power

21 generation. Le t's take the good old American

22 ingenuity and be smarter, more creative, and more169

1 efficient than the rest of the world. Don't

2 weaken this country. A hazardous waste

3 determination will only hurt the rate payer and

4 drive up the cost of goods and services if he has

5 to use virgin materials.

6 By defin ition, CCPs are not hazardous by

7 the criteria that the EPA has used for decades:

8 corrosivity, ignitability, reactivity and

9 toxicity. The definition of those four categories

10 can be fou nd under 40 CFR 261 Subpart C. CCPs do

11 not qualify as a hazardous material by all the

12 same standard scientific practices used for years

13 to determine whether a material is hazardous or

14 not. So, we have to move on from this talk.

15 But whatever happens, don't let FGD

16 gypsum use in agriculture be swept away over the

17 fears about coal ash. Gypsum applications used to

18 improve soil structure and soil porosity could

19 quite possibly be the single greatest contribution

20 for improving water quality in this country. It

21 would be a great legacy for your children's

22 children that your generation had the most impact170

1 on improving the quality of their water resources.

2 And as I end, i magine the positive

3 impact to our water quality and the condition of

4 our water resources if gypsum can be allowed to be

5 used and further research can be expanded. That

6 can't happen if included in a hazardous

7 determination. Don't let it happen!

8 (Applause)

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay, I'm going

10 to try to accommodate a few people who signed up

11 this morning. Can I have numbers 301, 302, 303,

12 304? I can try to get to 306, are you 306? All

13 right. Why don't I have

-- say again please?

14 Number 300? I'm not doing 68 yet. You're

15 scheduled for after lunch. I'm trying to do a

16 couple of walk

- ins and we'll do it this way.

17 So, 300 is there? No. 301? 302?

18 Okay, 300.

19 M R. MYERS: Thank you for the chance to

20 speak here this afternoon. My name is Dave Myers

21 and I live in Central Indiana and I work as a crop

22 consultant. And with that, I work with a system.171

1 And when the system is in place, what you'll get

2 is increased crop yields along with decreased

3 applied fertilizers and also increased f arm

4 efficiencies.

5 We've had a little bit different

6 understanding of soils than most out there. We

7 believe that the soil is a living system, and in

8 that soi l is microorganisms whose sole

9 responsibility is to release nutrients to the

10 crop. And with that, we definitely get increased

11 efficiencies from applied fertilizer and other

12 things.

13 These microorganisms have to have an

14 environment where they can thrive. And just like

15 you and I, if that environment is not there, then

16 they're going to have some problems on doing their

17 job that they're supposed to. And that job is

18 releasing nutrients to the plant.

19 We have seen up to 90 percent decreases

20 in applied fertilizer just from the use o f FGD

21 gypsum and this system. Gypsum helps to change

22 soil structure, helps to change soil chemistry.172

1 We see increased wate r infiltration rates,

2 increased oxygen rates flowing into those soils,

3 giving those biology the oxygen they need in order

4 to survive.

5 As you can see, gypsum is a major part

6 of our nutrient program. And if that is not in

7 place, we do see increased amounts of applied

8 nutrients which then ultimately will mean more

9 filled nutrients running off into our waters heds

10 and into the Gulf of Mexico. As growers of our

11 nation's food supply, we really can't afford to

12 rely on heavy amounts of applied fertilizer, and

13 if we can get better use of our pa rent materials

14 that are in our soil, the better off that we are

15 as a country and we can feed our country as well

16 as the world.

17 So, I ask you today to not consider FGD

18 gypsum as a hazardous substance but as a very

19 usable tool not only for agriculture but also for

20 the environment. Thank you.

21 (Applause)

22 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 301?173

1 Not there. 302?

2 MR. MEIER: Good afternoon. My name is

3 Dana Meier and I'm the manager of Coal Combustion

4 Products at Indianapolis Power & Light. IPL is an

5 electric utility that serves approximately 465,000

6 in and around Indianapolis, Indiana.

7 First and foremo st, I'd like to start by

8 stating that we're strongly opposed to the

9 regulation of CCRs under the RCRA Subtitle C

10 hazardous waste program. Subtitle C imposes

11 additional cost with no co mmensurate environmental

12 benefits. Regulating CCRs as a hazardous waste

13 will subject IPL and its customers to a major

14 expense, potentially several hundreds of millions

15 of dollars.

16 IPL favors the development of federal

17 regulations under RCRA's Subtitle D non

- hazardous

18 waste program and specifically believes that D

19 Prime will establish an environmentally pr otective

20 program for disposal units without crippling

21 beneficial use and imposing unnecessary regulatory

22 cost and on power plants threatening jobs and174

1 increasing cost. And D Prime would include

2 appropriate impoundment design, inspection and

3 maintenance requirements with groundwater

4 monitoring and performa nce standards that would

5 allow the continued use of existing ponds that are

6 environmentally protective while reducing the cost

7 of converting from ponds to landfills. Subtitle C

8 elimin ates or greatly reduces beneficial use

9 options. IPL produces approximately a million and

10 a half tons of CCRs annually and utilizes 40 to 50

11 percent of that in a myriad of environmentally

12 friendly options including fly ash, bottom ash,

13 FGD gypsum as raw materials for producing

14 concrete, cement and wall board and in

15 agricultural applications.

16 There are sign ificant environmental

17 benefits to these uses. First, utilization

18 reduces valuable landfill space that would

19 otherwise be needed for disposal. Also, using

20 CCRs as raw materials to rep lace mined natural

21 resources and manufactured products reduces CCR

22 user cost and conserves valuable resources. IPL175

1 believe s burdening CCRs with a hazardous label,

2 even if they are exempt under Bevill, would

3 drastically reduce the amount of CCRs that can be

4 used, commensurately increasing by double or more

5 the amount of CCRs that IPL would have to dispose

6 and commensurately reducing the attendant

7 environmental benefits.

8 EPA should develop a performance

- based

9 federal program fo r CCRs under RCRA Subtitle D

10 which will ensure that CCRs are safely managed for

11 disposal while continuing to promote and expand

12 their beneficial use. Thank you.

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 303?

14 MR. HARRINGTON: Good afternoon. My

15 name is James Harrington, I'm the Executive

16 Director of the Illinois Environmental Regulatory

17 Group. The Illino is Environmental Regulatory

18 Group consists of 51 member companies in a variety

19 of major industries throughout the State of

20 Illinois including companies operating all of the

21 coal fired power plants within the state. IERG,

22 as it is sometimes called, represents its members176

1 in environmental regulatory development in the

2 State of Illinois with an emphasis on state

3 rulemaking, although from time to time we

4 participate in federal rulemaking such as this

5 which we see impacting directly the industry

6 within the state. IERG is an affiliate with and

7 provides environmental policy guidance to the

8 Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

9 IERG supports appropriate regulation of

10 coa l combustion residuals from coal fired

11 generation to protect public health and safety,

12 and believes that it is best regulated as a

13 non

- hazardous waste under Subtitle D of the

14 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act rather than

15 as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C. Regulation

16 under Subtitle D will allow and encourage

17 continued beneficial use of such materials where

18 appropriate as well as protection of public health

19 and safety without undue cost or burden on

20 industry, the states or the public. IERG is

21 concerned that creating sub

- classification of

22 "special" hazardous waste as is proposed under177

1 Subtitle C will not alleviate the stigma that will

2 be placed on coal combustion byproducts wi ll

3 greatly reduce the environmentally sound

4 beneficial use of such materials.

5 Under Subtitle D, regulations can more

6 easily be tailored to the individual circumstances

7 of each state, taking into account the geography

8 and geology and overall regulatory structure. It

9 can provide for appropriate construction and

10 location standards, monitoring and closure. A s an

11 example, ash ponds located in the relatively flat

12 lands of Illinois may require a very different

13 design than ponds located in the hills and

14 mountains of other states. Similarly, depending

15 on geology, existing facilities may be allowed to

16 continue operation in some states with appropriate

17 monitoring where that would be inappropriate in

18 other locations. Requiri ng the closure of such

19 facilities before the end of their useful life

20 would be wasteful and not provide commensurate

21 benefit to public safety or the environment. In

22 such instances, IE RG believes that the Subtitle D178

1 option described in the USEPA proposal would be

2 appropriate.

3 I'll leave my writte n comments. In

4 conclusion, while IERG supports rules necessary to

5 protect the public health and safety, imposing

6 unnecessary costs and burdens should be avoided.

7 Regulating coal combu stion residuals under

8 Subtitle D will provide all the necessary

9 protection. Thank you.

10 (Applause)

11 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 304.

12 Numbe r 304? Number 305? Number 306 and number

13 307.

14 MR. BYANBSKI:: Hi, I'm Bob Byanbski.

15 The Navy had me in a scientific trade and that's

16 why I'm standing up here today.

17 I have been intimate with the coal

18 industry since I was about nine years old carrying

19 coal into the coal fired furnace in my father's

20 basement. When I went to college, I was given a

21 test tube in the chemical lab and I found out how

22 you skew, s

- k

- e

- w, the scientific results. So, I179

1 think I heard Archer Daniels, Midland and a few

2 other large companies but I didn't hear 3M. 3M

3 knows how to maintain their waste stream.

4 So, I'm asking our Environmental

5 Protection Agency that h as done a pretty good job

6 with all the deck that has been stacked, but I'm

7 asking them to think outside the box of what

8 you're proposing for regulations, they are

9 hoodwinking you. And the way you can find out

10 whether you're being hoodwinked or not, there's

11 two words that I didn't hear today. I didn't hear

12 the Perch in Lake Michigan and I didn't hear Love

13 Canal. S o, I hope the people at Love Canal that

14 weren't here today get a chance to speak to you

15 folks.

16 (Applause)

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 305.

18 Thank you.

19 MR. GARTNER: Good afternoon. And thank

20 you for the opportunity to hear the speakers speak

21 and allowing me to speak, and I think you for your

22 being here today a s representatives of a180

1 government agency which is to protect the

2 environment as it was written in the law when it

3 was estab lished in 1970. And I ask you that you

4 consider your primary motivation to be to follow

5 the mandate of this law which is to protect the

6 environment, to protect the health of the people

7 and not to watch out for special interests.

8 My name is Rudy Gartner, I'm a Chicago

9 citizen. I come as a civilian student of

10 environmental policy. And listening to the

11 arg uments today, I can hear many good points on

12 both sides actually. Of course I come biased, I

13 do come biased for the Rule C. I am always in

14 favor of, if something that can be proven that's

1 5 shown to be toxic and is harming human health,

16 that the primary responsibility is to regulate

17 whatever is causing it. But what I'm hearing is

18 I'm hearing different arguments.

19 Now, there are good sides on people who

20 are supporting D. I mean, these beneficial uses,

21 they sound practical, they sound good. There are

22 some very good, they score some very good points181

1 in terms of conserving carbon, conserving

2 landfill. These are good points, especially for

3 FGD gypsum, what it's doing for Ameri can

4 agriculture. I mean these are very, very good

5 points and these actually come on the plus side of

6 the green score card.

7 Yet some of them point to 40 CFR saying

8 that it was not determined to be toxic by the EPA

9 apparently at some point. But we're hearing from

10 doctors that the ingredients in CCR products are

11 toxic. So, we have a conflict here. And I t hink

12 maybe we can learn something from both sides and

13 maybe both your rules are not sufficient. Maybe

14 we could take the best from both sides, craft a

15 third one perhaps. And I'm not t elling you what

16 to do but I'm hearing contradictions that need to

17 be addressed because, I mean how can you say that

18 something is not toxic but when it leaches into

19 water the ingredient s are toxic? I don't think

20 you can deny that.

21 You cannot deny the people talking from

22 Pines, Indiana or what happened to TVA and the182

1 future health consequences of the people who were

2 exposed. We haven't even heard about that.

3 That's another thing, the media tends to hide

4 things after the first announcement.

5 So, anyhow, in conclusion, I would

6 respectfully submit a suggestion that you analyze

7 both of these very good, positive comments from

8 both sides and see whether you can come to a

9 mutually satisfying conclusion. For me, the main

10 problem is that one needs to contain this stuff

11 properly. I mean, the people who are supporting

12 Prime D, they canno t deny that when this stuff

13 slips out it harms. So, contain this stuff and

14 find a way to address their needs so their

15 businesses are not impacted but health is not

16 impacted and you st ay true to your mandate. And I

17 wish you good luck and confidence in your task at

18 hand.

19 (Applause)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. With that, we

21 are going to take a short break and we will then

22 continue with speakers scheduled at 1:15. So,183

1 again this will be just about a five

- minute brea k.

2 Thank you.

3 (Whereupon, at 1:00 p.m., a

4 luncheon recess was taken.)

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22184

1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N

2 (1:15 p.m.)

3 MR. BEHAN: Good afternoon. Thank you

4 for attending today's public hearing on EPA's

5 propo sed rule regarding the regulation of coal

6 combustion residuals that are disposed of in

7 landfills and surface impoundments.

8 My name is Frank Behan and I'm the

9 Acting Chief of the Energy Recovery and Waste

10 Disposal Branch in OSWER which is the Office of

11 Solid Waste and Emergency Response based out of

12 Washington, DC. I'll be chairing this afternoon's

13 session of the public hearing. And with me on the

14 panel is another individual that's from OSWER in

15 DC and that's the gentleman on the end, his name

16 is Alexander Livnat. I also have two individuals

17 from EPA's Chicago Regional Office. And to my

18 immediate right is Jerri Garl followed by Julie

19 Gevrenow.

20 Before we begin this afternoon session,

21 I would like to go ov er the logistics on how we

22 plan on running this meeting. I think many of who185

1 you have been in the room for the morning have

2 seen how the process works, but in case there are

3 some folks that have showed up recently, we'll

4 just run through it real quick again.

5 Speakers, if you are pre

- registered, you

6 were given a 15

- minute time slot when you were

7 scheduled to give your three minutes of testimony.

8 To guarantee that slot, we have asked that you

9 sign in 10 minutes before your 15

- minute slot at

10 the registration desk which is just outside these

11 doors. All speakers, those that have

12 pre

- registered and walk

- ins, were given a number

13 when you signed in today and this is the order in

14 which you will speak.

15 I will call speakers to the front of the

16 room by number four or five at a time. When your

17 number is called, please take a seat in those

18 chairs behind the speaker's podium over to your

19 left in the front of the room. When your

20 individual number is called, please move to the

21 microphone and state your name and affiliation.

22 We may ask you to spell your name for the court186

1 reporter who is transcribing your comments for the

2 official record.

3 Because there are many people that have

4 signed up to provide testimony today, and to be

5 fair to everyone, testimony is limited to three

6 minutes. We will be using an electronic

7 timekeeping system and we will also hold up cards

8 to let you know when time is getting low. When we

9 hold up the first card which is green, this means

10 you have two minutes left. When we hold up the

11 second card, you will have one minute left. At

12 the third card, you will have 30 seconds left.

13 When the fourth card, which is red, is held up,

14 your time is up and we ask that you wrap up your

15 comments.

16 When you have completed speaking, please

17 return to your seat and remain there until all

18 speakers in your group have completed their

19 testimony . If you have a written copy of your

20 testimony, please place it in the box at the court

21 reporter's table, which is that box right in front

22 of me here. Please remember, if you did not get187

1 to finish your remarks, your written comments will

2 be entered into the record just as if you had

3 provided them orally. If you did not g et to

4 finish and wish to submit written comments today,

5 please see our staff at the registration table and

6 they will provide you forms for submitting written

7 comments. And also please remember that you may

8 submit additional written comments to us up until

9 November 19th, 2010.

10 We will not be answering questions on

11 the proposal; however, from time to time a ny of us

12 on the hearing panel may ask questions of you to

13 clarify your testimony. Our goal is to ensure

14 everyone who has come today to present testimony

15 is given an opportunity to pro vide comment. To

16 the extent allowable by time constraints, we will

17 do our best to accommodate speakers that have not

18 pre

- registered.

19 Today's hearing is scheduled to close at

20 9:00 p.m. But we will stay later if necessary.

21 If, however, time does not allow you to present

22 your comments orally, we have prepared a table in188

1 the lobby where you can provide a written

2 statement in lieu of oral testimony. These

3 written statements will be collected and entered

4 into the docket for the p roposed rule and will be

5 considered the same as if you presented them

6 orally. If you would like to testify but have not

7 yet registered to do so, please sign up at the

8 registration tab le.

9 An agenda can be found in the packet

10 your received when you signed in today. Also

11 included is some material on the proposal as well

12 as instructions for submitting writte n comments.

13 We are likely to take occasional breaks but we are

14 prepared to eliminate or shorten the breaks in

15 order to allow as many people as possible to

16 provide their oral testimony. I think this

17 session is going to go to about at least 5:30 to

18 6:00. We're just going to go straight through

19 which is a little different from what's on the

20 agenda that you were given

.

21 Finally, if you have a cell phone, we

22 would appreciate it if you would turn it off or189

1 turn it to vibrate. If y ou need to use your phone

2 at any time during the hearing, please move to the

3 lobby or somewhere outside the hearing room. We

4 ask for your patience as we proceed. We may need

5 to make some minor adjustments as the day

6 progresses. Thanks again for participating today.

7 And with that, we will go ahead and get

8 started with the afternoon session. Could numbers

9 50, 51 and 53 please come forward and have a seat

10 in the chairs to the right? If 52 or 54 is here,

11 they can come up, too. I think 52 and 54 are not

12 here. I'm going to fit in their place number 95

13 and number 310

-- or 309. We're going to stay on

14 schedule.

15 Okay. Number 50, if you could come to

16 the podium? That would be great. Sir, when

17 you're ready you can start.

18 MR. KUTS: Okay. I'd like to say good

19 afternoon. My name is Ron Kuts, I'm the president

20 of the Village of Caledonia in Racine County.

21 It's about 15 miles sou th of Milwaukee.

22 About six months ago, we ended up having190

1 some information given to us by We Energy

2 indicating th at I have about 50 homes that have

3 high levels of molybdenum that are in the wells

4 which are contaminated. This brought definitely a

5 concern and emergency to our village. What has

6 ha ppened is that at the time that We Energy went

7 out and did some testing, they indicated that they

8 checked some wells, they said yes, you do have a

9 problem. A little bit later on, they indicated to

10 us that, sorry, it's not our problem, it's yours.

11 This affects children, families and

12 homes and is a big safety issue in our community.

13 At this time, people in our community that are

14 affected are using bottled water for drinking and

15 cooking. This causes a lot of problems for our

16 community. As we look forward to try to take care

17 of this problem by ourselves, it looks like the

18 Caledonia has to come up with $6.5 million to put

19 municipal water into these areas. And again, this

20 is a rural setting.

21 As President Obama used to say, let 's

22 live the American dream. I hate to tell you, I'm191

1 living the American nightmare. It's time that the

2 EPA set high standa rds and make sure that well

3 testing is done, things are taken care of, and

4 protect the citizens of our community that are

5 affected with this. I think it's important and I

6 would defini tely urge you to support Subtitle C

7 and let's keep on going. We need all the help we

8 can get. Thank you very much.

9 (Applause)

10 MR. BEHAN: Thank you for your comments.

11 Number 51?

12 MS. BLUMENSHINE: Good afternoon. My

13 name is Joyce Blumenshine. I live in Peoria,

14 Illinois, it's about 150 miles from this room

15 where we all are. And I want to thank each and

16 every member here from EPA and Administrator

17 Jackson. I want to tell you, as a volunteer

18 citizen advocate for the environment, it is hugely

19 significant to me to have this hearing here in

20 Illinois and for me to have the chance to talk to

21 you, because oftentimes in the many hearings I

22 have attended, industry has paid staff, paid192

1 lobbyists, paid commenters. They have expense

2 accounts and they are on paid time, and that

3 hasn't happened for me. And I appreciate yo ur

4 being here because I really think it's high time

5 for the citizens to get the coal ash regulations

6 covered by your Subtitle C regulations, and there

7 are many reasons why.

8 In my community of Peoria, we live by

9 the beautiful Illinois River Valley. And just a

10 few miles south of where I live is Bartonville,

11 and on the edge of the Illinois River is the ED

12 Edwards Ameren Power Plant. This is an old 1960's

13 power plant. There is an unlined ash pond. There

14 are no water monitors. And only a levee separates

15 that from the Illinois River whic h downstream many

16 communities use water from. Peoria myself takes

17 half of its water from the Illinois. If the New

18 Madrid fault has a rupture or there is some other

19 disaster, heaven f orbid, what is going to happen

20 at that plant? It's right along the river.

21 And just a little farther south from

22 that, 40 some minutes from where I live is Havana,193

1 Illinois. Havana is on your first list of most

2 hazardous impoundments in the entire nation. This

3 is a tiny community. There are huge environmental

4 justice issues there because I have an aerial

5 photo which I will turn in with my written

6 comments, and I wish everyone in the room could

7 see this. The ash pond there, total acres is 90

8 acres. That is larger than the ash pond at the

9 Kingston, Tennessee. This ash pond hazard plant,

10 drawn up thanks to you folks, a spill would go

11 five miles and dissipate in five miles. Well,

12 there's homes readily visible just at the edge of

13 this plant, ash pond. There's a church and

14 schools within two miles. That is just another

15 example.

16 Near where I live is also the Duck Creek

17 Ameren Power Plant near Canton. They have already

18 polluted their groundwater with boron. The

19 solution of the Illinois EPA is typical, dilution

20 is the solution. That boron contaminated water is

21 being metered out into the Illinois River. I am

22 worried about our fish, about the mussel beds, the194

1 unique environment that was there that is now

2 further being unjustly impacted by power plants.

3 This has to stop. I urge your strongest

4 regulations. It is hig h time. There is no such

5 thing as a stigma that ever can balance the

6 cancers, the suffering of the public, the expenses

7 for health and the burdens upon society if these

8 regulations ar e not put in place. Thank you so

9 much.

10 (Applause)

11 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 52?

12 MS. FOX: My name is Tracy Fox. I'm

13 also a c ommunity activist from Peoria, Illinois.

14 I work a lot with a group called Peoria Families

15 Against Toxic Waste, and we have dealt with more

16 traditional hazardous landfill issues. And when I

1 7 first got involved with RCRA regulations and

18 looking at them, I was somewhat uncomfortable

19 because they're complex and unwieldy. But then

20 when I learned about the TVA coal ash spill and I

21 learned how protective those regulations were in

22 comparison to coal ash, frankly I was outraged.195

1 When I learned that sitting south of Peoria are

2 more than 600,000 tons of coal ash unlined,

3 unmonitored, on the banks of the Illinois River,

4 it made me want to throw up my hands and say why

5 bother?

6 I was elated when Administrator Jackson

7 came forward with a proposal to coal ash. And

8 although it might not be as stringent in places as

9 I would prefer, there are certainly many things to

10 recommend Option C. As a local activist, I feel

11 the first key for Option C is the permitting. I

12 feel that permitting is essential if communities

13 are to maintain control and determine the

14 character of their surroundings. I don't feel

15 that anything in the industry's voluntary

16 self

- regulated Subtitle D option gives citizens

17 any input into the process as to where these c oal

18 ash impoundments would be sited, how they would be

19 managed, and how they would fit in to the

20 cumulative pollution burden that any community is

21 going to bear.

22 The second reason why I think C is so196

1 important is because it includes enforceable

2 corrective action, and I think that's a key

3 difference. As someone who has looked at the

4 numerous reports showing water quality violations,

5 well incursions and other monitoring problems, and

6 to realize that Subtitle D includes no enfor ceable

7 corrective action, all the self

- imposed monitoring

8 and reporting in the world is worthless without

9 that.

10 Thirdly, I believe that the clearly

11 delineat ed post closure care and financial

12 responsibilities that are only included under

13 Subtitle C are critical. Otherwise, the long

- term

14 maintenance of these sites is left in the hands of

15 t he state which is understaffed and under

- equipped

16 to deal with the existing superfund sites that we

17 have, let alone new ones. Only Subtitle C

18 includes the right tools to manage this deadly

1 9 coal ash waste.

20 Finally, I want to point out that I find

21 it so rich and so ironic that industry which

22 normally is so concerned about the threat of197

1 lawsuits and the abuse of the courts is instead

2 standing up time after time today advocating an

3 option where the only recourse for citizens is to

4 push them into the courts. I find that ironic, I

5 find it sad because I'm someone who is involved in

6 legal action right now and I know what it's like

7 to talk about should we sell engraved casserole

8 pans or hold another bake sale so that we can file

9 with the Supreme Court to get the environmental

10 protections we need. Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 53?

13 MS. HARANT: My name is Joyce Harant and

14 I also am from Peoria, Illinois, part of Peoria

15 Families Against Toxic Waste. And I, too, thank

16 y ou for this opportunity to be here.

17 We do support the regulation by Subtitle

18 C of your options. I have three points that I

19 hope I will have time to make. When I read in

20 you r website the description for Subtitle D option

21 regarding enforcement, Subtitle D enforcement

22 through citizen suits, states can act as citizens.198

1 I had a quite visceral and negative reaction that

2 I will not share with you this afternoon. The

3 thought that my government who is proposing this

4 regulation because it knows that c oal ash is not

5 currently being stored in a manner that protects

6 the public's health and safety, that you would

7 even offer us an option that we should rely on

8 citizen suits to protect u s is ludicrous.

9 I'd like to ask you, have any of you

10 been involved in trying to promote environmental

11 safety as part of a grassroots citizens group? By

12 the way, have you doc umented just where these

13 citizen activists are located? Do we live in

14 every location that needs monitoring? Do these

15 regulations give us any authority to investigate

16 access to funds to monitor sites, any funds to

17 fight these wealthy corporations in court? I did

18 not see that in the regulations.

19 If you ever had to face these wealthy

20 corporations in public hearings and could not

21 afford the professional testimony that you need,

22 you would never suggest citizen enforcement. Have199

1 you ever had to fight a wealthy corporation in

2 court without having government attorneys on your

3 side? Have you ever worked with seven other

4 people for six hours at 90 degrees at a ball game

5 selling hotdogs just to make $300 to pay your

6 attorney?

7 I am currently a plaintiff in a lawsuit

8 in the Third Appellate District in Illinois

9 regarding Electric Arc Fu rnace Test. I can tell

10 you that when our single, poorly paid but

11 dedicated attorney faced the five attorneys

12 supporting the hazardous waste company, you know

13 it's not a fair fight. S o, I repeat, do not rely

14 on citizen suits for enforcement.

15 The idea of citizen enforcement is like

16 "don't ask don't tell." Don't ask don't tell the

17 coal ash producing compan ies because if there

18 doesn't happen to be a well educated, informed and

19 financed citizen activist in the community, we

20 surely know that the wealthy corporations won't

21 tell about their pollution.

22 I would also like to express caution in200

1 how the coal ash is determined to be able to be

2 used in a so

- c alled safe manner. In Peoria, we

3 have one of the highest lead contamination of

4 homes and lead poisoning in children. And we need

5 to make sure that any so

- called safe use has

6 thorough testing and long

- term testing so that

7 this is not coming out in dust into the water

8 after demolition of homes or however it is used.

9 And lastly, I believe we must have

10 unive rsal rules throughout this country to control

11 coal ash waste. If I live in a progressive state,

12 it really doesn't matter because the state next

13 door can be inadequate and I'm still at risk.

14 Thank you very much.

15 (Applause)

16 MR. BEHAN: Thank you for your comments.

17 Is number 54 here? 95?

18 MR. ROEWER: I'm Jim Roewer, the

1 9 Executive Director of the Utility Solid Waste

20 Activities Group (USWAG), an association of

21 electric utilities and utility trade associations.

22 USWAG supports the development of201

1 federal regulations for coal ash under RCRA's

2 Subtitle D non

- hazardous waste program. Of the

3 three options that EPA has presented, t he Subtitle

4 D Prime option with appropriate adjustments is the

5 best path forward. Unlike the Subtitle C

6 approach, D Prime which is directly enforceable by

7 the states and by citizens w ill enable EPA to

8 establish environmentally protective programs

9 across the states without crippling coal ash

10 beneficial use and imposing unnecessary

11 regulations on power plants, threat ening jobs and

12 increasing electricity costs.

13 In fact, even EPA agreed that hazardous

14 waste regulation will result in excessive and

15 unnecessary regulation. In its final regul atory

16 determination in 2000, EPA concluded that

17 hazardous waste regulation was not warranted for

18 coal ash, and the Agency found that the inflexible

19 nature of the federal hazardous wast e program

20 would result in excess costs and unduly burdensome

21 regulations for coal ash. Let me quote EPA on

22 this point: A Subtitle C system would require202

1 coal combustion waste units to obtain a RCRA

2 Subtitle C permit (which would unnecessarily

3 duplicate existing State requirements) and would

4 establish a s eries of waste unit design and

5 operating requirements for those wastes, which

6 would generally be in excess of requirements to

7 protect human health and the environment...Since

8 [coal ash ] sites vary widely in terms of

9 topographical, geological, climatological, and

10 hydrological characteristics (e.g., depth to

11 groundwater, annual rainfall, distance to drinking

12 water sou rces, soil type) and the wastes potential

13 to leach into the groundwater and travel to

14 exposure points is linked to such factors, it is

15 more appropriate for individual States to have the

16 flexibility necessary to tailor specific controls

17 to the site or region specific risks posed by

18 these waters.

19 Frankly, we couldn't have said it better

20 and nothing has chang ed since issuance of that

21 determination to alter this conclusion.

22 We agree that steps must be taken to203

1 prevent ac cidents like that which occurred at

2 TVA's Kingston facility from happening again.

3 Even EPA has found that the coal ash being

4 recovered from that site can be safely disposed of

5 in a RCR A Subtitle D non

- hazardous waste facility.

6 In other words, the coal ash from the accident

7 that really was the impetus for this rulemaking

8 is, with EPA's explicit approval, being safely

9 disposed of in a Subtitle D non

- hazardous waste

10 facility.

11 USWAG supports the development of

12 federally enforceable Subtitle D regulations for

13 coal ash, regulations that would include

14 groundwater monitoring, groundwater protection

15 standards, and safety and dam integrity standards

16 to protect the environment and help ensure that

17 coal ash releases like that wh ich occurred at TVA

18 don't happen again. The record is clear, Subtitle

19 C regulation of coal ash, the most burdensome and

20 costly option available to EPA, is simply neither

21 warranted or necessary. Thank you.

22 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Numbers 55, 56,204

1 57, 58, if you have that number, could you please

2 come forward? If 55 could come to the podium that

3 would be great.

4 MR. DeBOER: Hello, my name is Richard

5 DeBoer. I'm a member of the National Ready Mixed

6 Concrete Associati on. And on their behalf, I'd

7 like to thank the Environmental Protection Agency

8 for conducting this listening session.

9 As a matter of scale, the ready mixed

10 concrete industry consumes 75 percent of all the

11 Portland cement used in this country. We

12 represent over 1,500 concrete manufacturers and 50

13 state affiliated organizations. Concrete is the

14 most widel y used construction material in the

15 world and is produced and consumed in every

16 congressional district in the country.

17 With regard to fly ash, the ready mixed

18 concrete indust ry is the largest beneficial user.

19 Surveys of ready mixed concrete producers show

20 that over 55 percent of all ready mixed concrete

21 contains fly ash.

22 Fly ash is used in combin ation with205

1 Portland cement to impart the following benefits

2 to concrete: 1. Increased durability and service

3 life of stru ctures; 2. Reduction in waste sent to

4 landfills' 3. Reduction in raw materials

5 extracted, energy for production, and air

6 emissions including CO2; and 4. Lower concrete

7 material cost s.

8 While the concrete industry currently

9 uses about million tons of fly ash annually, it is

10 estimated that the concrete industry could

11 increase its current use to more than 3 0 million

12 tons per year by 2020, resulting in less fly ash

13 going to landfills and reducing the concrete

14 industry's carbon footprint by 20 percent.

15 Based on the concrete indus try's

16 extensive use of and reliance on fly ash in

17 concrete, and after examining the EPA's proposed

18 rule, we have determined that RCRA Subtitle C

19 designation for CCRs bound for disposal while

20 retaining exemptions for beneficial use will lead

21 to the following unintended consequences for the

22 concrete industry: 1. An increase in production206

1 costs and the cost of construction due to

2 increased regulations for handling fly ash. 2.

3 An increase in potential liability for concrete

4 producers. 3 . Potentially stricter state laws

5 impacting beneficial use. 4. The potential

6 elimination of fly ash in concrete. Fear of

7 liability will drive specifying engineers,

8 architects and e nd users to disallow the use of

9 fly ash in concrete. 5. There will be a drastic

10 impact on the durability of our nation's

11 infrastructure. There is an increased service

12 life of roads, bridges and structures built with

13 concrete containing fly ash. Other economically

14 viable alternatives for durable concrete do not

15 exist.

16 Finally, as with the Subtitle C

17 proposal, NRMCA believes a Subtitle D proposal

18 will also dramatically affect fly ash use in

19 concrete unless the proposed rule explicitly

20 states that fly ash waste from ready mixed

21 concrete operations is exempt and not subject to

22 these regulations. Thank you for hearing my207

1 concerns on behalf of the ready mixe d concrete

2 industry.

3 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 56?

4 MR. ADAMS: Good afternoon. My name is

5 Thomas Adams, I'm the Executive Director of the

6 Am erican Coal Ash Association in Aurora, Colorado.

7 I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to

8 participate here today.

9 In an effort to create regulations for

10 disposal of coal combustion products, the EPA has

11 elected to question certain beneficial uses which

12 have accounted for millions of tons of avoided

13 disposal for decades. Specifically, the EPA has

14 quest ioned certain recycling efforts described as

15 "unencapsulated" beneficial use. The primary

16 target has been the use of coal combustion

17 products for geotechnical purposes; that is fill

18 p rojects where coal combustion products are used

19 in lieu of mined sand, gravel and other aggregates

20 for structural fills to support all kinds of

21 beneficial commercial development. The Agency has

22 expressed concerns for potential leaching of heavy208

1 metals into groundwater, coincidentally the same

2 heavy metals found in the same levels in the

3 materials they are replacing. EPA has not asked

4 or answered the obvious question: If heavy metals

5 are detectable in sand, gravel, limestone and

6 other aggregates at sim ilar levels to those found

7 in coal combustion products, is there a leaching

8 concern with the use of these materials? The

9 answer would be a resounding "NO".

10 We know this beca use we have decades of

11 experience which gives us anecdotal evidence to

12 support that answer. We have the same anecdotal

13 evidence when it comes to the use of coal

14 combustion products in geotechnical fill. ACAA

15 member contractors and geotechnical consultants

16 have used coal combustion products to reclaim and

17 improve sites for decades. In fact, in the

18 Arlington hearin g on August 30th, a prominent

19 environmental group said that structural fills can

20 be done safely. Yet the EPA has chosen to go down

21 this road of questioning a very important

22 beneficial use.209

1 The current proposal that is the subject

2 of public hearings such as today says that large

3 structural fills are not considered beneficial

4 uses by EPA. We strongly disagree. First, we ask

5 the EPA: What qualifies as "large"? We do not

6 have knowledge of many 5 million ton fill projects

7 such as the Gambrills, Maryland site, the primary

8 example cited by EPA as a basis for questioning

9 structural fills. The quantity and method of

10 deposit in this site are unique to that site.

11 Geotechnical fills rarely, if ever, approach even

12 half the quantity used at Gambrills. Secondly,

13 has the Agency attempted to discover how fills are

14 engineered and constructed and their history of

15 performance? And lastly, has the Agency evaluated

16 all the materials used for this application to

17 understand the commonalities and differences

18 between the materials? These answers are la cking

19 and are needed to conduct any meaningful

20 evaluation of the use of coal combustion products

21 for geotechnical fill.

22 The American Coal Ash Association210

1 supports Subtitle D enforceable standards on a

2 federal level and opposes any form of Subtitle C

3 regulation. If we're going to continue the

4 recycling success story of the recent past, the

5 EPA must make a serious effort to understand the

6 engineering practices that support the decades of

7 safe and sustainable use of coal combust ion

8 products in the geotechnical markets. The science

9 and track record is available if the EPA is truly

10 committed to real science, not political science.

11 Thank you.

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 57?

13 MR. PATTERSEN: Thank you very much.

14 I'm Dr. Jeff Patterson, a physician and professor

15 at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine

16 and President of Physicians for Social

17 Responsibility. PSR is an organization of 30,000

18 health professionals dedicated to preventing those

19 threats which we cannot cure since 1961 when we

20 were founded to work on the crucial issues of

21 nuclear weapons and nuclear war. Our work now

22 includes other environmental issues and toxics.211

1 And coal ash falls squarely into this category.

2 Today, we have released this report, a

3 comprehensive report on the toxic and deadly

4 effects of coal ash. It's ava ilable our website,

5 www.psr.org. As this report points out, the

6 threat to public health from coal ash is already

7 both serious and widespread. Coal ash is disposed

8 of in approximately 2,000 dumpsites across the

9 nation. Coal ash toxicants have leached from

10 disposal sites in well over 100 locations carrying

11 toxic substances into aboveground and underground

12 waterways and, in many cases, drinking water

13 wells.

14 The impacts to health can be quite

15 severe. According to an EPA assessment report,

16 people who live near an unlined wet ash pond and

17 get their drinking water from a well have as much

18 as a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from

19 drinking water contaminated by arsenic.

20 Even when people are not drinking

21 contaminated water, their health may be threatened

22 if they eat fish taken from water sources212

1 contaminated by coal ash toxicants. Coal ash is

2 also dangerous if inhaled, making fugitive dust

3 from coal ash dumps a serious health concern.

4 Unfortunately, those least able to protect

5 themselves from contamination, dev eloping fetuses

6 and young children, are even more susceptible to

7 harm. Thus, the so

- called safe levels of

8 toxicants which are developed for adults may be

9 far too high.

10 Finally, coal ash is persistent over

11 time, raising long

- term concerns and challenges in

12 regards to health and in regards to the outcome of

13 these products. When coal ash contaminants leach

14 out of unlined surface impoundments, it may take

15 decades until they reach peak concentrations in

16 nearby well water: 74 years for selenium, 78 for

17 arsenic, 97 for cobalt. They don't di sintegrate

18 or lose their toxicity.

19 The stigma is already there. It is the

20 stigma of the damage to the health of thousands

21 that the coal industry has already caused and will

22 continue to cause for many years to come. Coal213

1 ash is a part of that damage. We must do our best

2 to prevent future damage . There is no cure, only

3 prevention.

4 For that reason, PSR calls on the EPA to

5 discharge its duty to protect the environment by

6 applying the strictest possible levels of cont rol

7 over coal ash disposal. We must apply the

8 precautionary principle. We strongly support

9 Subtitle C as the only option currently on the

10 table that would adequately protect human he alth.

11 Federal regulations of coal ash disposal

12 are important. State efforts are inconsistent and

13 frequently too weak. We must phase out wet

14 storage. And finally, we must l imit the recycling

15 of coal ash to uses where coal ash is not exposed

16 to water and where the ash is chemically bound.

17 On behalf of PSR, we support C and thank you very

18 much.

19 (Applause)

20 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is number 58

21 here?

22 MS. BUTTERFIELD: Good afternoon. I'm214

1 Claire Butterfield, I'm the Executive Director of

2 Faith in Place. And I also want to thank you for

3 holding this hearing on the proposed EPA rule to

4 regulate coal ash. I'm very pleased that you've

5 decided that it's time to act on this serious

6 public health issue. I know you're hearing today

7 from experts in the fields of public health and

8 environmental science on how important this is.

9 I'm here today as a Unitarian Universalist

10 minister and as the director of the Illinois

11 Interfaith Power & Light campaign of Faith in

12 Place.

13 Faith in Place works with over 600

14 congregations in the state to help people of all

15 faiths become better stewards of creation because

16 our faiths teach us that we must take care of thi s

17 beautiful planet on which we have been placed.

18 Every faith teaches this in a different way but

19 they all speak to the need for us to be careful

20 stewards of this extraordinary gift of being here

21 at all.

22 I'm also here to speak to you as a human215

1 being who spent her childhood among the farm

2 fields of East Central Illinois. One of the coal

3 ash impounds we've been learning about is just a

4 few miles east of where I grew up in some of the

5 richest farm country anywhere and in a place which

6 slow and careful observation will disclose over

7 time to be beautiful. We heard my colleague Brian

8 Sauder this morning testify about the impound near

9 the Vermillion River near K ickapoo State Park

10 where a ravine was slowly filled up with coal ash

11 with no oversight and no regulation. And people

12 who live near that site have been told not to

13 drink their water th ough no other source is

14 available to them.

15 When I see the pictures of that place

16 and when I think that the people who decided that

17 it was acceptable to take a natural ravine near a

18 river and fill it with hundreds of millions of

19 gallons of a toxic substance, I think that if

20 those people were churchgoers then the church also

21 has failed here. It should never have been

22 possible to think that this was an acceptable216

1 thing to do. We should always have known and we

2 should always hav e taught that our love of our

3 neighbor includes care for his well water and that

4 our neighbor is not just the person next door but

5 the soil and the river and the animals who depend

6 on them for their lives, too.

7 And moreoever, when I see the pictures

8 of this place which may have been destroyed beyond

9 saving, I am profoundly sad. I know what the

10 human anima l is. I am one myself. But my wish

11 for us is that we would always know to do better

12 than this. Left to our own, some of us have

13 chosen to value livelihood over life.

14 We ha ve seen what happens without

15 regulation. Through the proposed Subtitle C

16 option, you ensure that it does not happen again.

17 Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. To those persons

20 with numbers 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63, come forward

21 please. Could 59 come to the podium please?

22 MS. TREACY: Thank you very much for217

1 allowing us to be here today. My name is Theresa

2 Treacy. I live in Southern Illinois and I'm an

3 environmental activist organizer. And i n my work,

4 I have met dozens of people who have been

5 negatively impacted by the effects of coal ash.

6 I decided rather than giving my personal

7 comments today I would give thos e of a friend of

8 mine who I have met through this work who couldn't

9 be here today because he works 9:00 to 5:00,

10 Monday through Friday, and this was a very

11 inconvenient place for him t o come. It's an

12 all

- day trip. So, these comments actually come

13 from my friend, Dale Witowski who lives in

14 Marissa, Illinois.

15 Over 25 years ago, I moved my family to

16 a rural area to escape the pollution and other

17 perils of the city. I lived in this area in

18 harmony with the farming community, enjoying the

19 clean water and fresh air. Little did I know that

20 in 20 years a massive power plant would be built

21 that would destroy all of my reasons for rural

22 living. This huge facility is known as Prairie218

1 State Generating Company in Lively Grove,

2 Illinois. I have followed every process for

3 permitting of this facility and we were assured

4 that outside of a temporary area within the power

5 plant facility no coal ash waste would be stored

6 offsite in this area of the county.

7 We were distraught, however, that old

8 strip pits were issued permi ts to store mounds of

9 coal ash that would be over 100 feet tall and

10 would be located just two or three miles from

11 populated areas such as the town of Marisa.

12 Things got worse recently when my neighbors and I

13 discovered that Prairie State is planning a

14 storage area offsite of their plant just a mile or

15 so from our homes. This will also be adjacent to

16 my neighbor's f armland and they are of course

17 worried about how the dust and water runoff

18 contaminated with arsenic, lead, selenium and

19 mercury will affect the health of our children,

20 not to mention how it will depress property

21 values. I am at my wit's end at how the local

22 agencies such as the Illinois Department of219

1 Nat ural Resources and the Illinois Environmental

2 Protection Agency bend over backwards for any

3 company that mines or burns coal at the expense of

4 citizens that live in Southern Illinois. It is

5 this type of attitude that helped create the BP

6 oil atrocity and the coal ash tragedy in

7 Tennessee.

8 I am grateful that you are giving us an

9 opportunity to express our concerns about the

10 serious problems posed by toxic coal ash left from

11 burning coal. I urge you to stand up to industry

12 pressure and quickly issue strong, federally

13 enforceable safegua rds under Subtitle C to protect

14 communities from toxic coal ash. Continuing to

15 ignore scientific and safety concerns comes at a

16 high cost to our families, our communities and our

17 econ omy. Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is number 60

20 here? 61?

21 MR. KANE: Hello, my name is Bill Kane.

22 I'm with Headwa ters Resources. I've spent the220

1 last 29 years marketing coal combustion byproducts

2 to ready mixed producers, block manufacturers,

3 asphalt companies, pre

- stress concrete companies,

4 and many other organizations and companies.

5 Subtitle C will harm and diminish ash

6 utilization in the United States. The stigma of

7 hazardous waste going into any product would harm

8 and diminish it. If you are going to buy your

9 child a toy and you had an option of two toys, one

10 made with plastic and one made with pla stic and

11 hazardous waste, which one are you going to choose

12 for your child? It's I think pretty apparent that

13 labeling fly ash as a hazardous product, it is not

14 going to increase bene ficial reuse.

15 Back in October of last year, 60 Minutes

16 aired the TVA Kingston disaster. Shortly after

17 that happened, the next day, one of our number one

18 ready mixed producer s in Clarksburg, West Virginia

19 called and demanded all ash taken out of his

20 concrete that he was to receive that morning for

21 his new driveway.

22 I thought the EPA was supportiv e of221

1 reusing fly ash into concrete because it was

2 encapsulated. But once again, if you go with

3 Subtitle C, it will diminis h and I'm sure you will

4 hear ready mixed producers later on today tell you

5 that they will no longer use fly ash in concrete

6 if you go with Subtitle C.

7 The Kingston government owned, I don't

8 know if some people don't realize that TVA is I

9 think one of the only owned and operated utilities

10 owned by the United States Government. The

11 landfill was run by the U nited States Government

12 and it collapsed and it caused a lot of serious

13 environmental problem. So, your answer is to go

14 with Subtitle C, make fly ash hazardous and build

15 more landfill s? Because that's what's going to

16 happen.

17 You make it Subtitle C, we're going to

18 be building landfills all over the place. I would

19 have to say you're going to ruin the larg est

20 recycling program this country has ever seen.

21 And in conclusion, there is simply no

22 basis to pursue Subtitle C for CCBs. It will be222

1 equally protective for the EPA to develop a

2 federal program for CCB disposal practices under

3 RCRA Subtitle D non

- hazardous waste program that

4 ensures the protec tion of human health and

5 environment. I thank you for your time.

6 (Applause)

7 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Are numbers 62

8 or 63 here? Okay, we'll move on to 64, 65, 66 and

9 67. Is number 64 here? Sir, number 65.

10 MR. GRIGSBY:: Thank you. Good

11 afternoon. My name is Derek Grigsby, I am the

12 Chairperson of the Detroit Green Party as well as

13 a board member of the Clean Water Network.

14 Now, a lot has been said so I'll be

15 brief then. Sorry about the redundancy but I'm

16 reading a little bit of a statement the Cle an

17 Water Network has put out on this issue.

18 Every year, more than 136 million tons

19 of dangerous toxic coal combustion waste is

20 generated by coal burning power plants across t he

21 United States. The coal ash contains highly toxic

22 chemicals that are a risk to public health and the223

1 environment, inclu ding arsenic, boron, cadmium,

2 chromium, lead, mercury and selenium. Despite its

3 hazardous characteristics, coal ash is not subject

4 to federal regulations and the state laws that

5 regul ate its disposal are generally weak or

6 nonexistent. Lack of federal regulations continue

7 to threaten the health and environment of millions

8 of people who live in communities that surround

9 coal burning power plants.

10 People who live near unlined ponds

11 containing coal ash and coal refuse who drink

12 groundwater have been found to have a 1 in 50

13 chance of devel oping cancer from arsenic. That

14 number is more than 2,000 times higher than what

15 the EPA considers an acceptable rate. In addition

16 to causing cancer, toxins from coal ash ponds have

17 been linked to organ disease, respiratory illness,

18 neurological damage and developmental problems.

19 The Clean Water Network, the largest

20 grassroots coalition in the country working to

21 protect our nation's water resources calls on the

22 United States Environmental Protection Agency to224

1 promulgate strong federal regulat ions to govern

2 the management and safer disposal of coal ash. In

3 addition, CWN strongly recommends that coal ash be

4 regulated under all the requirements of Subtitle C

5 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

6 Also, issues that federal regulations must address

7 include: reducing coal ash contamination in waters

8 across United States; keeping coal ash

9 contaminatio n out of private and public drinking

10 water sources; eliminating coal ash dumpsites that

11 leak toxic slurry into rivers and streams;

12 requiring groundwater monitoring; forcing power

13 compa nies responsible for coal ash pollutions to

14 clean up the contamination. That's a serious one

15 right there. Thank you very much.

16 (Applause)

17 MR. BEHAN: Thank y ou for your comments.

18 Number 66?

19 MR. DONNAN: My name is Doug Donnan, I'm

20 speaking as a citizen and as a member of Sierra

21 Club here in Illinois.

22 M y story begins in an old rust belt city225

1 in the Midwest about 20 years ago. I developed

2 bladder cancer, about the same time many women in

3 the same city were developing an increase in

4 breast cancer. Attempts were made to isolate the

5 causes, none were found. But the ladies met by

6 themselves and tried to find patterns that t hey

7 found common to them that might cause it. The

8 only common denominator among them that they could

9 find was the drinking water in this old, heavy

10 industrial manufacturing city.

11 As a result, I decided to start

12 distilling my water for drinking. I have done so

13 ever since for the last 20 years in the hopes it

14 will flush out my system and help keep my cance r

15 at bay. My third and most recent operation to

16 remove tumors was last year, and after the first

17 two being cancerous, the last one was benign.

18 Whether this is my reward for my efforts , I do not

19 know for sure, but my problem took almost 20 years

20 to see any progress. After reading reports about

21 the unclean industrial sites and toxins in the

22 water supply, I think I t end to believe that the226

1 carcinogenic materials are there. To see the

2 pictures of the current crisis of coal ash causing

3 co ntamination in aquifers is a huge scare to

4 people who have to face this disease.

5 I think you have a means of finding a

6 solution. The cap and trade has obviously been a

7 very contentious thing, therefore, why not try

8 something different? How about taking all the

9 research costs and totaling them up and charging

10 the coal companies for the need to find it or make

11 it neutral or useful and add it as a surcharge to

12 the coal companies so that they will meet the real

13 costs of this contaminant and hopefully bring the

14 cost of coal up to its real value in real cost

,

15 and thereby push us over into looking at other

16 alternatives of energy? So, I don't believe the

17 real cost of coal is included in the price and I

18 think you can do something about it a nd you can

19 find an option to the cap and trade solution which

20 has been stymied.

21 My final comment today is to develop an

22 insight into this issue along with highly227

1 contentious, controversial and potentially

2 explosive emotional ones can be better handled.

3 Americans are incredibly angry. We are deve loping

4 a huge contentious society that's not helping us

5 solve these problems. And I would love, you know,

6 even choosing a TV station is becoming a political

7 decision instead of a deci sion to get information.

8 I am asking you, the EPA, to please do

9 what you can to make this discussion civil. Today

10 we heard many interesting viewpoints that a lot of

11 people h ere I'm sure have never heard before.

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you, sir, your time is

13 up. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MR. BEHAN: Could those with numbers 67,

16 68, 69, 70, 71 and 72 come forward? Could 67 come

17 to the podium please?

18 TYLER: All right. Well, my name is

19 Tyler, I'm a student at the University of

20 Missou ri. I'd like to thank everybody for giving

21 me the opportunity to speak here. I'm a member of

22 the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign at the228

1 University of Missouri.

2 And the reason I'm here speaking is

3 because coal ash has affected everyone here in

4 some way, shape or manner. Me, I'm an avid

5 snows kier. Love to snowski. It's my life. But

6 when it comes to mountaintop removal, I can't ski

7 without a mountaintop. And so, I want to come and

8 express my voice on why coal ash needs to be

9 declared toxic.

10 It's currently just destroying all the

11 landscape we're storing it in. And I really think

12 that, I probably should have formed my argument

13 better. Sorry , I'm a little late getting up here.

14 I just believe strongly that this is something

15 that needs to be done and it's a step for us to

16 take in making the United States a leader in going

17 c arbon

- free in our energy sources. Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 68?

20 MS. DAVIS: Hi, my name is Tammy Davis.

21 I'm representing my household as well as my

22 neighborhood. I just offered a sample of what our229

1 wonderful water in our area is doing to things in

2 our homes. That is from my neighbor, Peggy

3 Richardson, it's only two years old, it's a dinner

4 knife and it has pitted ridiculously. It's doing

5 it to, you know, things in all of our households.

6 Our neighborhood is located slightly

7 southeast of Yard 520 in Pine Township, Indiana.

8 Yard 520 is not properly lined and has leached.

9 When I moved here ten and a half years ag o, I

10 truly believed that there were issues with our

11 water then and chose not to drink or allow my

12 household or pets to do so. Water should not

13 contain the things that our water in our area

14 does. Our yards and streets and drives are full

15 of coal ash. My water and soil have both been

16 tested by EPA representatives and have both been

17 proven to contain unsafe toxic le vels of

18 contaminants.

19 The American dream, or one of them, own

20 a home and have it increase in value. Between

21 2002 and 2001, we needed an appraisal of our

22 pr operty be performed. The appraiser stated and230

1 disclosed in our appraisal that they believe there

2 to be issues with our water then. The prop erty

3 values in our neighborhood are in the proverbial

4 toilet, helping to ensure that we'll not only

5 suffer many probable health issues but take a very

6 substantial financial loss as wel l. You might as

7 well shoot us now. We have an escalated number of

8 Alzheimer's cases in our area as well as other

9 diseases.

10 And if any of you have ever had

11 first

- hand experience with someone that has

12 Alzheimer's which we believe these contaminants

13 directly are related to, it's very devastating to

14 the family members as well as with the individual

15 with those.

16 Approximately eight plus years ago when

17 I attended my first meeting called by the EPA, my

18 suspicions were confirmed. At this meeting, a

19 question was put to each member of the panel

20 comprised of EPA, IDEM, ASTDR, et cetera. The

21 question: Would you drink, bathe, cook, play, or

22 use our water or allow your children or231

1 grandchildren to do this without hesitation? Each

2 panel member emphatically responded no. So, why

3 are we expected to at this late date?

4 When I see what the water and steam

5 created from this water does to items in my home

6 on a daily basis, I am very fearful of what it is

7 doing to us and our children's bodies, both

8 physically and mentally, as we are in constant

9 contact on our skin surface and internally. We no

10 longer plant a garden. As avid hunters, we are

11 concerned with consuming wild game that inhabit

12 our area and the surrounding areas that the local

13 landfills have leached into.

14 Gee, a home with value, a garden, our

15 hunting and fishing heritage, parts of the

16 Am erican dream, right? EPA, I put it to you: Are

17 you protecting our environment or the responsible

18 parties that they have found for our area? Thank

19 you.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is number 69

22 here?232

1 MR. RODOLFO: I am Kelvin Rodolfo,

2 Emeritus Ge ology Professor at the University of

3 Illinois at Chicago, a long

- time landowner in the

4 Driftless area of Wisconsin and currently residing

5 in Viroqua. I speak for three grassroots

6 orga nizations: Harmony Opposing Pollution of the

7 Environment, Asbury Ridge Community for Hope, and

8 Valley Stewardship Network which monitors and

9 protects the water quality of the Kickapoo River

1 0 watershed. We unequivocally oppose Subsection D

11 and offer qualified support to Subsection C.

12 Last year, we prevented a local

13 coal

- fired utility from establishing a landfill in

14 Vernon County to accommodate as much as 380,000

15 cubic yards per year of fly ash

- lime scrubber

16 waste.

17 Our western Wisconsin upland is called

18 the "Driftless Area" beca use the glaciers skirted

19 it during the Pleistocene. Our counties are not

20 rich, and poor areas often are targets for

21 landfills. The area has not been adequately

22 studied geologically, but the entire region is233

1 "karstic", underlain by soluble carbonate rocks

2 with numerous vertical and horizontal fractures,

3 s inkholes, caves, crevices, disappearing streams

4 and springs. These features facilitate

5 contamination of the underlying sandstone aquifers

6 that provide virtually all our potable water.

7 In an 88 square mile study area in our

8 county, 30 percent of all wells drilled since 1938

9 encountered caves and crevices. Even the most

10 meticulously engineered landfill can be

11 compromised by subterranean collapse of such

12 cavities.

13 A landfill site would have taken up 600

14 acres of prime farmland, displacing 20 families

15 that have lived and farmed there for generations.

16 The one in Viroqua was justified by its proximity

17 to the existing county landfill.

18 But the water well for that landfill had

19 penetrated 109 feet of crev iced dolomite. All

20 proposed sites are heavily karstic, but the

21 geologic consulting firm that documented no karst

22 problems is a subsidiary of Alliant Energy which234

1 also burns coal.

2 We urgently need the stringent federal

3 standards and regulations stipulated in Subtitle

4 C. But all landfills leak ev entually, and water

5 monitoring can only report "so far so good" until

6 contamination is detected and an aquifer is ruined

7 forever.

8 EPA knows the increased health risks for

9 people who use wells near coal ash impoundments.

10 Wisconsin is the state with the most cases.

11 Clearly, our State Department of Natural Resources

12 cannot be relied upon to protect us.

13 Importantly, Subtitle C would prevent

14 individual states from imposing inadequate

15 standards, and would allow for more stringent

16 local control which we are currently denied. Our

17 state tends to let industries write the guidelines

18 they must follow. Neither Subtitle advocates

19 recycling of coal ash. The 130 million tons

20 America produces annually should all be used in

21 road or airport runway bases, or converted into

22 concrete, green brick, inert aggregate or plastics235

1 that entrap and immob ilize the toxic metals. The

2 cost of an aggregate plant is comparable to that

3 of a landfill.

4 But the ultimate solution is to stop

5 burning coal altogether. Greenhouse CO2 out put is

6 not reduced by either Subtitle.

7 (Applause)

8 MR. BEHAN: Sir, could you wrap up your

9 comments?

10 MR. RODOLFO: Carbon capture an d

11 sequestration is not the answer. Mining and

12 burning one ton of coal carbon produces almost

13 four tons of CO2. How can it be stuffed back into

14 the ground?

15 MR. BEHAN: Sir, your time is up. Thank

16 you.

17 MR. RODOLFO: Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Is number 70 here?

20 MR. REI NKE: Good afternoon. My name is

21 Thomas Reinke. I am from Self Reliant Energy

22 Company, not to be confused with Reliant Energy236

1 Company. We don't burn coal. We put up renewable

2 energy equipment.

3 I'm speaking on behalf of Terry Miller

4 who is a member of the Lone Tree Council. I

5 support the Sier ra Club, Progress Michigan,

6 National Wildlife Federation, and Great Lakes

7 Renewal Energy.

8 We're talking about the Saginaw Bay. In

9 2008, the grassroots group Lone Tree Counci l began

10 an investigation in handling the coal ash at

11 Consumer Energy's at two coal

- fired plants at the

12 mouth of the river. Documents obtained from

13 Michigan Department of Environmental Quality

14 showed that the state knew that the Consumer

15 Energy's ash landfills were discharging arsenic,

16 boron, lithium and sulfate from coal ash leaching

17 into the Saginaw Bay as early a s 2002.

18 There are two ash landfills, one is a

19 292 acre site, and the adjacent 172 acre site.

20 Both filled with fly ash and bottom ash slurry

21 bordering the Saginaw Bay. They w ere constructed

22 in the 1940's through the 1970's on bay and the237

1 wetlands.

2 The landfills were originally supposed

3 to be isolated from the bay by walls keyed into

4 the clay bedrock, but according to the Michigan

5 Department of Natural Resources, the utility

6 failed to create a sealed barrier. Testing

7 ordered by the DEQ in 2002 showed levels of

8 arsenic leaching into the Saginaw Bay that

9 exceeded water quality standards for Michigan.

10 Mercury is also a concern.

11 The ash landfills over at least three

12 different state administrations were given a total

13 of 14 variances. These exempted the utility from,

14 among other things, staying 100 feet from the

15 shoreline, four feet clearance from groundwater,

16 and continuous supervision of unloading.

17 Also, because the ash was in liquid form

18 and had access to groundwater, the company in 1986

19 was exempted from getting a state groundwater

20 discharge permit. The company has recently

21 requested that they continue to be exempted from

22 getting a state groundwater permit.238

1 We need help. I do believe that the

2 Department of Natural Resources is committed to

3 protecting the public but the state's a rms are

4 tied by limitations of state law. We need the

5 EPA's help again. We need strong federal

6 safeguards against toxic ash. We need minimum

7 national standards for storage, transpor t and

8 disposal of this hazardous waste, required

9 corrective action, storage and management

10 requirements, regular inspections, closure and

11 post

- closure requirements, reporting for locat ions

12 of past and present sites, and enforcement

13 guarantees.

14 We urge you to issue a strong rule. We

15 need help in Michigan, help only the resources of

16 the fe deral government can provide. Thank you

17 very much for the opportunity to speak today.

18 Thank you all for coming.

19 (Applause)

20 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 71?

21 MR. KNOTT: Good afternoon and thank you

22 for holding this hearing. My name is Adam Knott239

1 and I'm the Legislative Director of Michigan

2 Citizen Action. We have 11,000 members throughout

3 the State of Michigan.

4 We strongly support Subtitle C because

5 of the state and federal enforcement th at would be

6 part of the rule, because private citizens cannot

7 bring a suit on their own, through their own

8 resources. The industry has the unlimited

9 checkbook and can outlast any citi zen group.

10 Plus, there is no guarantee that the state, even

11 though it can be acting as a citizen, will

12 necessarily bring corrective action or bring

13 enforcement to the industry.

14 And also, we support the state and the

15 federal government's corrective actions under the

16 Subtitle because the industry, as much as they

17 have the good intentions of fixing their mist akes

18 and self regulating, don't always do that. I can

19 tell you as someone who lives 30 minutes from

20 Marshall, Michigan where 800,000 gallons of oil

21 were leaked into the Kalamazoo Rive r where I get

22 my water from, that company had 350 areas of240

1 concern and did not address them at all. So, we

2 strongly need b oth the state and the federal

3 government in there to enforce any corrective

4 action that is needed.

5 And lastly, Subtitle C will create

6 uniformity throughout the country, from cradle to

7 grave of coal ash and its regulation. And if

8 everyone knows the rules, everyone can act

9 accordingly and, you know, those that use, whether

10 it's cement makers or the coal ind ustry, if they

11 know what the rules are, they can act accordingly

12 and offer the best service and the best product

13 and the landfills will not dry up overnight.

14 Every time a rule such as this is proposed, they

15 always say that they'll go out of business. Well,

16 we hear that from the regulation of industries

17 that have abused their positions regularly. If

18 it's not the co al industry, it's the insurance

19 industry, and not one of them has gone out of

20 business yet. So, we strongly support Subtitle C.

21 Thank you.

22 (Applause)241

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 72?

2 MS. SCHUBA: Good afternoon. My name is

3 Patricia Schuba and I came here from outside of

4 St. Louis, Missouri. It's a place called Labadie,

5 Missouri, a small rural town about 35 miles west

6 of St. Louis. And I want to share with you some

7 facts about the plant and our gr oup that came

8 together to try to find more reasonable regulation

9 of a proposed coal combustion waste dry landfill

10 that AmerenUE wanted to put in the Missouri River

11 floodplain. It's a hundred

- year floodplain. The

12 plant is there, it has operated for about 40

13 years. And we have two very large impoundments,

14 one unlined which is 154 acres, and one that is

15 lined that i s 79 acres and is leaking and has been

16 leaking since 1993 to the amounts of 25.4 million

17 gallons per day with a maximum as high as 57.8

18 million gallons per day.

19 So, when I fi rst came to looking at the

20 issue, I had concerns about what is in fly ash.

21 My background is biology and healthcare. We all

22 know and I don't need to repeat the implications242

1 of some of these heavy metals being in the

2 environment and bio

- accumulating.

3 But the concern for me was that I

4 assumed the E PA or our State DNR, or at the last

5 our local government would do something to monitor

6 and protect us from any unneeded leaching and

7 movement of materials toward the Missouri River.

8 An d the Missouri River provides drinking water for

9 half of Missourians. And there is a huge

10 population just east of us. 50 miles down the

11 river is an intake for St. Louis County and then

12 St. Louis City. In our Metro St. Louis area, we

13 have four plants operating. The one in Labadie is

14 the largest, and the proposal is for up to a

15 1,100

- acre dry landfill site. That's what's been

16 purchased.

17 So, not only are there issues with what

18 is happening at the impoundments that are very

19 disturbing, that I think the rule, if you decided

20 on Subtitl e C, would help protect us because it

21 would at least establish guidelines for how to

22 manage the ponds, how to phase them out, to line243

1 them, and to have some standards. But also, we

2 have grave concerns about the movement of the

3 materials in our community. Again, I had no idea

4 until we followed trucks, until we started aski ng

5 questions, and the materials are used readily on

6 the roads, exposed to air, exposed to being

7 compressed and turned into particulate matter on

8 the roads. And what I found out is thi s is

9 happening across Missouri.

10 So, what we're asking for is that you

11 consider the strictest measures as possible to

12 monitor, regulate and set standards at the federal

13 level, and someone point out earlier, that you can

14 go from state to state and know what is happening.

15 And also, we are all connected by our national

16 waterways. Again, the Missouri and the

17 Mississippi who touch Missouri are particularly

18 important. And I do have a lot of additional

19 facts, I think it's important for you to know

20 what's happening at the state level and on th e

21 ground, so I'm going to leave those with you from

22 Washington University.244

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you, ma'am.

2 MS. SCHUBA: Thank you.

3 (Applause)

4 MR. BEHAN: Just to update the audience,

5 the next group that I'm going to be calling up is

6 part of the 2 :30 to 2:45 group, and it looks like

7 we're right about on schedule for those that need

8 to see where you stand. Could numbers 73, 74, 75

9 and 76 come forward please? Number 73 please?

10 Thank you.

11 MS. BAIER: Hi, my name is Mary Ann

12 Baier, I'm from Dearborn, Michigan and I also

13 belong to the Sierra Club. And what I want to say

14 is I don't really believe that there is such thing

15 as a clean coal. I think that's a misnomer. And

16 coal is just not clean, it's dirty.

17 And there's three things wrong with

18 coal. The first thing that's w rong with coal is

19 the extraction. So, what that does is it destroys

20 the environment. It destroys the watersheds and

21 destroys people's lives.

22 The second thing is when you bu rn it,245

1 you get all kinds of pollution and CO2 in the air.

2 So, you know, it causes asthma and medical

3 problems and pollutes the water again. And then

4 the third problem is disposal of the coal ash.

5 It's highly toxic and it's just like nuclear

6 waste. No one wants it, it can't go anywhere and

7 it can't be pro perly disposed of.

8 So, the conclusion I've come to is that

9 coal should not even be used. But I would be

10 willing to accept Subtitle for now and then what

11 we need to do is pla n to use renewable resources

12 for our energy instead of coal. Thank you.

13 (Applause)

14 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 74?

15 MR. ADAMS: My name is Mike Ad ams and I

16 work for Headwaters Resources, and I have been

17 recycling fly ash for the past 30 years. My

18 premise for my testimony is that stigma is real

19 and listing CCPs as a hazardous ma terial for

20 disposal will effectively kill the most successful

21 recycling program in the US and increase

22 greenhouse gas production by millions of tons of246

1 CO2 and requiring an additional 50 million cubic

2 yards of landfill space annually.

3 I have been at two hearings before this,

4 Arlington and Charlot te, and at both examples of

5 stigma are part of the testimony. A competing

6 blasting grit company gave testimony in how boiler

7 slag should not be used a blasting grit even

8 though there is absolutely no documentation of any

9 harm to people or the environment. They provided

10 this testimony for one reason, only to gain a

11 competitive advantage over companies using boiler

12 slag, not for their concern over the environment.

13 A lightweight aggregate company

14 cautioned against the use of bottom ash in the

15 production of concrete block, again with no

16 d ocumentation of harm to the environment. In

17 fact, prior independent testing has shown very

18 little difference in testing between some

19 manufactured lightweight aggregates which by the

20 w ay produces significant greenhouse gases when

21 being produced and bottom ash. Again, this

22 testimony was given to gain a competitive247

1 advantage over a competing CCP. These are both

2 examples of stigma.

3 So, in reviewing the testimony of these

4 public hearings, EPA will see examples of what

5 will happe n in the marketplace. If companies will

6 use these EPA public hearings to gain an

7 advantage, you can exponentially imagine what

8 competitors will say about CCPs in the everyday

9 marketin g of their product if CCPs are declared

10 hazardous in any way.

11 There has been significant testimony by

12 companies that use CCPs in their products

13 regarding possible nefarious l awsuits over the use

14 of CCPs. Our industry is unanimous in our opinion

15 that this fear is real and will ultimately lead to

16 the elimination of fly ash in concrete, synthetic

17 gypsum in w allboard, and synthetic gypsum as an

18 agriculture enhancer, and other encapsulated uses.

19 As an example of this, I'm aware of a company that

20 is being sued by an employee over an illness that

21 he claims was caused by CCPs even though there is

22 no evidence whatsoever that CCPs have caused this248

1 illness. In fact, the employee's pa st lifestyle

2 have a direct link, tobacco, to this illness.

3 This is what will happen if CCPs are

4 declared hazardous under Subtitle C. Attorneys,

5 in their effort to make a big payday, will bring

6 forth suit after suit hoping for the pot at the

7 end of the rainbow. Thank you.

8 (Applause)

9 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 75?

10 MR. KOZIAR: Good afternoon. My name is

11 Paul Koziar and I am speaking on behalf of myself

12 and my small business, Paul Koziar Consulting,

13 LLC. For the last five years, I have been

14 providing consulting services to clients that

15 beneficially use coal ash primarily for

16 geotechnical applications. Prior to starting this

17 business, I was the program manager for the

18 beneficial use program known as NR 538 at the

19 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources from

20 2000 to 2006. This program is today viewed by

21 many as the standard for state regulation of

22 beneficial use.249

1 The purpose of my testimony this

2 afternoon is to share insights on proper

3 beneficial us e of coal ash materials from my

4 experience as a regulator and as a consultant. I

5 believe this unique experience could be useful to

6 EPA in their deliberations on the beneficial use

7 of coal ash.

8 EPA's Draft Rule seems to prefer

9 regulating the material under RCRA Subtitle C

10 which relies on strict and administratively

11 burdensome approach that is not required by the

12 level of risk posed by coal ash when beneficially

13 used. I believe this will discourage beneficial

14 use and believe proper regulations under RCRA

15 Subtitle D will be adequate.

16 Why do I say this? It has been my

17 experience as a regulator responsible for

18 implementing NR 538 that an effective program can

19 be developed to protect public health if it is

20 based on a simple and common sense and balanced

21 approach.

22 When NR 538 was originally designed and250

1 adopted in 1998, it was done with the cooperation

2 of all stakeholders. The resulting program

3 included material assessment, locational criteria

4 to protect sensitive environments, public health,

5 and engineering criteria to ensure proper design

6 and construction, and post beneficial use

7 monitoring activities. It also provided

8 flexibility to try new and innovative approaches

9 while saving money and conserving natural

10 resources without risk to the public health and

11 the environment.

12 I believe NR 538 provides a successful

13 model that EPA should follow with regard to

14 beneficial use. One particular example of the

15 cooperative approach is the success story with our

16 Wisconsin Department of Transportation. They have

17 embraced the use of coal wherever possible for

18 structural fills, for roadways, bridges and

19 embankments. These projects have been implemented

20 according to the most strictest designs of

21 engineering and environmental protection.

22 However, in order to get contractors building251

1 these projects and comfortable with the use of

2 these materials, the Wisconsin legislature had

3 passed a law in 2002 to limit the liability of the

4 use of this ash under NR 538. This success in

5 economically building public infrastructure in

6 Wisconsin could not have occurred without these

7 byproducts being designated as a hazardous waste.

8 The current EPA proposal to prohibit

9 structural fills such as these transportation an d

10 infrastructure improvements will be a severe

11 setback for projects that are critically needed.

12 EPA should develop specific standards and criteria

13 under Subtitle D that will enable the se projects

14 to continue to generate savings and benefits for

15 the public.

16 In my experience, the private sector has

17 embraced good engineering practice and safe

18 environmental design. And I would encourage the

19 EPA to use this rule process to improve the

20 disposal of coal ash where needed and treat

21 beneficial use of the materials as a resource, not

2 2 as a threat. Thank you.252

1 (Applause)

2 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 76?

3 Could numbers 77, 78, 79, 80 and 81 come forward

4 please? Is number 77

--

5 Please? Could you go to the podium

6 please? Thanks.

7 MR. SWARTZ: Hello, my name is Steve

8 Swa rtz and I'm President of New Age Fastening

9 Systems. We're a specialized welding company

10 based out of Sewell, New Jersey, and we have a

11 satellite position in Portage, Indiana.

12 I want to submit a more technical

13 document, but from the verbal standpoint, I want

14 to kind of make this simple. Earlier, there was a

15 testimony from Harsco Corporation, an

16 environmen tal engineer, and he spoke about that

17 they have 15 sites within a 500 mile radius area.

18 What they're producing is coal slag abrasives. I

19 want to submit the, this is a picture of a

20 fac ility that's literally ten miles from this

21 position, over 20,000 to 30,000 tons of coal

22 combustion waste on the ground. It's not in any253

1 lined containers or any type of containment. This

2 is a typical site. They have 15 of these sites.

3 You're talking about a million tons of this a year

4 on the ground.

5 Next exhibit is Exhibit B. Now, this is

6 the same shot but it's a little farther shot. And

7 it gives you a good indication of where this plant

8 is in proximity to Lake Michigan, literally less

9 than four miles away. So, right now, I think it

10 was September 7th, the EPA, actually Lisa Jackson

11 had said that President Obama has made protecting

12 the Great Lakes a national priority. N ow, when I

13 look at these pictures, we keep talking about

14 common sense, to me it doesn't seem like it's very

15 commonsensical that you would put all this

16 material near a treasured waterwa y.

17 You know, this is the second that I've

18 come to these hearings and I keep hearing the word

19 TCLP. Earlier, the engineer had spoken about TCLP

20 which is a testing means for l eaching in a

21 landfill. Now, understand when you have 30,000

22 tons of material, okay, in a landfill, okay, I254

1 need to do a li ttle, I just need to explain this,

2 it's in a landfill. I understand the leaching

3 part of that. I don't totally agree with the test

4 but I understand that. But when you have the same

5 amount of material that's on the ground, what does

6 the TCLP have to do with that? I'm just, I don't

7 understand that. So, if someone could explain

8 that to me? It just, to me, it doesn't sound like

9 it's relevant.

10 In closing, July 19th, 2010, an

11 executive order was released from the White House

12 citing the immediate attention paid to the overall

13 stewardship of the oceans, coasts and the Great

14 Lakes. The true definition of stewardship is a

15 person using every talent and repeatedly

16 sacrificing desires to do the right thing. I

17 think at thi s point we just need to do the right

18 thing, and we trust that the EPA will do that.

19 Thank you.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 79?

22 MS. GRUBA: Thank you, EPA, for giving255

1 us the opportunity to be heard. I am Carol Gruba,

2 a volunteer for the John Muir Chapter of the

3 Sierra Club. Can I hear some applause?

4 (Applause)

5 MS. GRUBA: I am from Madison, Wisconsin

6 and have made Wisconsin my home for a lifetime. I

7 have little time to speak. We as a country, as

8 the human race have little time to put into place

9 measures that protect life as we know it against a

10 set of ecological and climate tipping points th at

11 are brightest climatologists and computer

12 scientists say are occurring and will occur with

13 greater severity unless we act quickly to change.

14 And here we are. Glad to have this

15 toehold in our fight against coal. Our three

16 minutes to say please tell us where they have been

17 burying the coal waste that poisons with

18 molybdenum, selenium, arsenic, lead and more.

19 Three minutes to say provide Choice C regulation

20 of coal ash. Please allow me a few non

- regulatory

21 thoughts as well.

22 First, the earth and the life upon it is256

1 part of my wealth, wealth that is stolen when

2 utilities spoil our water with unlined pits of

3 heavy metal laden ash. Second, the wea lth of

4 nature is also a touchstone for my spirituality.

5 I do not live in beautiful Vernon County,

6 Wisconsin, but I am glad it is there. Vernon

7 County is where the citizens of Genoa an d Lafarge,

8 Wisconsin successfully banded together to halt

9 turning a hill abutting a Class 1 trout stream

10 into a pit. And by the way, that almost pit is a

11 century dairy farm, a home th at will pass into

12 future generations as a farm, not a pit, because

13 people from Wisconsin fought the Dairyland Power

14 Cooperative successfully.

15 It is too late for the residents of

16 Caledonia, Wisconsin who must drink bottled water.

17 Their wells are contaminated by molybdenum

18 leaching from coal ash deposits put there by the

19 utility We Energies.

20 Dear EPA, please wake up. Can I get

21 some applause please?

22 (Applause)257

1 MS. GRUBA: Plea se wake up. Please wake

2 up. Regulate coal ash waste, offering the

3 strictest controls available. Protect us from

4 coal ash poison. I do not want encapsulated coal

5 ash in road embankm ents or in agricultural

6 applications. Please implement Subtitle C which

7 will achieve 100 percent compliance. Thank you

8 very much.

9 (Applause)

10 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 80?

11 MR. MURTHA: Good afternoon. My name is

12 Mike Murtha. I am the President of the Florida

13 Concrete and Products Association. Somebody asked

14 me why I came to Chicago because actually from

15 Orlando it's the easiest access of all your

16 meetings, but we appreciate you having us.

17 I represent about somewhere in the

18 ne ighborhood of 75, depending on how the economy

19 is, individual companies. Beyond that, we have a

20 concrete coalition auxiliary of probably 150 other

21 companies. Some big, some small, some mom and

22 pops, you know, some of them are just family run.258

1 Prior to that, for 20 some odd years, I

2 was a legislative aide and hel ped work on some of

3 the most progressive environmental law that

4 Florida did at the time.

5 When we crafted that legislation, we

6 knew a few things. The few things that we did i s

7 that the issues had, that our final outcome with

8 the statutes had to be based on science, that it

9 couldn't be refutable anecdotal evidence, that it

10 couldn't be hearsay, that it could n't be some sort

11 of arbitrary and capricious just hunch. We had to

12 go back to the numbers, we had to look at the

13 numbers, and they couldn't be numbers that had

14 some sort of self

- fulfi lling prophecy or they were

15 a means to an end.

16 Our companies have looked at the

17 numbers. We've looked at the data. We wouldn't

18 think not to look at the data because our

19 companies use fly ash for our products. We're

20 concerned about the health, safety and welfare of

21 our workers and employees and our communities.

22 And we do a good job with it. We've been g ood259

1 corporate partners in our communities.

2 And so, we're at a point here now where

3 we believe that Subtitle D wou ld be an outstanding

4 regulatory mechanism for the EPA to implement.

5 I'm here when I should be down in Florida trying

6 to get our businesses back online and firing

7 again. We have a 45 p ercent unemployment rate in

8 our industry down in Florida. Every single day

9 I'm laying off people and we're laying off people

10 and it's hard.

11 If you want to help us just get t o that

12 recovery or at least no impede us, choose Subtitle

13 D so that we can all work together and have a

14 solution that is healthy for our communities and

15 healthy for our industry and he althy for our

16 economy. I appreciate your indulgence. I thank

17 everybody for coming out here. I know that

18 sitting in these long meetings is rough and thank

19 you very much.

2 0 (Applause)

21 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is number 81 in

22 the room? Could those with numbers 82, 83, 84 and260

1 85 please come forward? Is 82 here? Ma'am, I

2 guess 83.

3 MS. VON KANO: First, let me put this

4 up. This is Save Our

-- this is the Missouri

5 River

-- beautiful, bea utiful. Do you know that

6 the Missouri River is the longest river in the

7 United States? I drove up this morning, I got up

8 when it was dark and I brought something really

9 special with me. And I'll be so glad when I can

10 drink it. This is from my tap at home, this is

11 Missouri River water. It's clean and safe.

12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: We can't hear you.

13 MS. VON KANO: This is Missouri River

14 water from my tap at home in St. Louis County.

15 I'm asking you to protect us like your Agency's

16 name says. I worked in Washington for 20 years.

17 I served on Capitol Hill and worked when there was

18 a spill in the Ohio River when Doug Costa was the

19 administrator. I saw what that did to the

20 communities that took their water from that Carbon

21 Tech spill.

22 I don't want to have to think every261

1 morning when I pull out my toothbrush and, did you

2 know that they put coal ash, they put it in so

3 many things it's even in toothpaste. But I'm

4 asking you to please consider Subtitle C. I

5 wanted to inject a little humor in this, but

6 serio usly, please don't take this for granted.

7 Please don't listen to people, I was going to

8 bring up a five

- dollar bill or a couple of

9 one

- dollar bills. I don't care if I have to pay

10 Amer en Electric more money each month, because

11 this is too precious to me.

12 I have way too many things in my life I

13 have to worry about. I lost a mother to kidney

14 cancer. I left my job in the Clinton

15 administration and came home and nursed her

16 through her radiation treatments. It's really

17 serious. I believe that right now all I have is

18 my little Britta wate r pitcher. This is what it

19 looks like after one week. That's pretty bad.

20 But if AmerenUE's plant in Labadie, if

21 they get to put the 400 acres of coal ash out

22 there, I don't trust the lining of the ponds.262

1 I've heard too many of our scientists at our

2 universities say they are not. Also, I want you

3 to know that in 1993, that entire acreage was

4 under water in the flood of '93. And don't tell

5 me we'll wait another 500 years.

6 So, please classify this as hazardous.

7 This is too important to our families. I'm a

8 small businesswoman, I have a family. Besides my

9 Britta water pitcher, you and Administrator Lisa

10 Jackson are all that stands between me and feeling

11 that I won't be drinking arsenic, cadmium, et

12 cetera from my tap. Thank you very much.

13 (Applause)

14 MR. BEHAN: Ma'am? Ma'am, could you

15 state your name for the record please? Thank you.

16 MS. VON KANO: I'm sorry. Jane Von

17 Kano, and we have written testimony. The LEO, the

18 Labadie Environmental Organization has had so many

19 hearings and we have thousands of signatures.

20 Once people learn about what coal ash is and what

21 it could do, it's full of education. Thank you.

22 MR. BEHAN: Thank you.263

1 (Applause)

2 MR. BEHAN: Is number 82 here? Okay.

3 MS. MOSHER: Hello, my name is Melissa

4 Mosher . I'm a resident of Cheboygan, Wisconsin.

5 When my husband and I began looking for a house in

6 Cheboygan, I knew that I did not want to live near

7 the coal plant. I knew that I was pregnant and

8 didn't want to be exposed to those chemicals that

9 leach into the air and we are exposed to in the

10 water as well. That was before I heard a

11 co

- worker speak of a study indicating increased

12 health problems within a specific proximity of the

13 Cheboygan plant. This was before I learned of the

14 coal ash disposal in an unlined depository on the

15 shore of Lake Michigan in between Koh ler Andrae

16 State Park and King Park where many families go to

17 recreate and swim.

18 Now that we are expecting our second

19 child, thankfully my first son Baron was born

20 healthy, I've learned of the unsafe coal ash

21 disposal and the unlined facility at Cheboygan.

22 I'm even more concerned about the mercury levels264

1 in the fish as well as the lead and arsenic levels

2 in the drinking water.

3 As Cheboygan learned with the river,

4 years of contamination are hugely expensive to

5 clean up after the fact. If we destroy our Great

6 Lake, we destroy our recreation opportunities, our

7 food sources, and our drinking water. I visited

8 Lake Shore Park last night so that I coul d provide

9 a visual witness and testimony about what I saw.

10 And I saw clear visual evidence of the waste

11 seepage in the black streaked sands. I started at

12 Lake Shore Park and I walked south, and the

13 streaks in the sand became more prevalent as I

14 walked toward the power plant.

15 And we know that China is beginning to

16 eliminate coal plants and invest in renewa ble

17 energy. And I am depending on you to regulate

18 these toxic chemicals for the sake of the health

19 of my children and the citizens surrounding the

20 Great Lakes. And I encourage you st rongly to

21 support Subtitle C. Thank you.

22 (Applause)265

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 84? 85?

2 MR. DIEDRICK: Good afternoon. I'm Dave

3 Diedrick, the Director of Cementitious Materials

4 for Lafarge North America, Lakes & Seaway Business

5 Unit. And I have a Bachelor of Scienc e in

6 Construction Engineer and have been employed with

7 Lafarge for 21 years with the last 14 years

8 dedicated to fly ash and coal combustion residual

9 (CCR) marketing. I manage the fly a sh contracts

10 for Lafarge in the Midwest and work

11 collaboratively with our utility partners to

12 beneficially reuse the products they generate in

13 the construction industry. On an annual basis,

14 Lafarge recycles over six million metric tons of

15 CCRs in North America, in a variety of

16 applications including as a Portland cement

17 replacement in concrete, raw material in the

18 production of Portland cement, to enhance the

19 engineering properties of soils and base materials

20 on construction sites, and in the production of

21 gypsum wallboard. In all these cases, these

22 materials replace either a manufactured product,266

1 as is the case with Portland cement, or naturally

2 occurring aggregat es. It is always done in an

3 environmentally responsible manner and

4 professional manner working with specifiers and

5 engineers in sustainable construction practices.

6 These app lications are recycling in the

7 purest form. Living in the Detroit area, my

8 neighbors and friends are generally associated

9 with the auto industry, almost all of them. They

10 find what I do for Lafarge as unique, innovative,

11 environmentally responsible in a CO2 constrained

12 environment, and are all intrigued by the

13 beneficial uses of CCRs, it makes sense to them,

14 peopl e with no knowledge of the industry. Fly ash

15 reduces the amount of CO2 required to produce a

16 cubic yard of concrete, the material that allows

17 us to all stay warm and dry in our homes, drive

18 our kids to soccer practice, and educate them in

19 our community schools. We cannot take our

20 infrastructure for granted, like the building

21 we're in right now.

22 Fly ash i s a valuable constituent in267

1 concrete not only replacing Portland cement but as

2 an important ingredient in high performance

3 concrete resulting in higher strengths, thinner

4 sections, less permeable and more durable

5 concrete, ultimately giving it a longer life.

6 These attributes cannot be obtained by Portland

7 cement alone.

8 As the EPA contemplates a Subtitle C

9 Special Waste classification, or Subtitle D

10 classification of CCRs, as a result ultimately of

11 a dam engineering failure in Tennessee, it must

12 consider the consequences of such a decision. A

13 Subtitle C ruling, even as a "special waste" is

14 perceived as a hazardous material. Unfortunately,

15 perception is rea lity, and even with the rule in

16 the proposed stages, we have had customers move

17 away from fly ash and other CCRs due to liability

18 concerns. Quoting one of our precast customers

19 who sh ips products throughout the United States:

20 *"If fly ash is classified as hazardous, what will

21 happen to the projects that have been sold over

22 the past six years?" *"Will these products be268

1 considered, too?" *"What other products do you

2 sell that can replace fly ash?"

3 Within the past four months, this

4 customer has removed fly ash from their operation

5 and is now using straight Portland cement,

6 resulting ultimately in a more expensive product

7 and in the generation of additional CO2. All of

8 this with no science to support such a

9 classification. Ultimately, what have we

10 accomplished? Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is n umber 84 in

13 the room? Okay.

14 MS. JONES: My name is Cory Jones. I'm

15 a local volunteer, citizen activist as you may. I

16 care about clean air and clean water. That's why

17 I'm here today. And I have submitted some

18 comments in writing, but to be honest, I think

19 this comes down to somewhat of a common sense

20 issue. Again, fighting for clean air and clean

21 water, why do we have to fight for clean air and

22 clean water?269

1 (Applause)

2 MS. JONES: And clean water is actually

3 one of the issues that coal ash directly affects.

4 Clean water. We take it for granted, clean water,

5 and being a Chicago resident, I love Lake

6 Michigan. O ur drinking water comes from Lake

7 Michigan. And if you look at the satellite photos

8 of the retention ponds for coal ash along Western

9 Michigan, their coal retention ponds are adjacent,

10 directly adjacent to the beaches of Lake Michigan

11 which is the single source, by the way, of

12 Chicago's drinking water.

13 Now, this is not just a Chicago issue.

14 This is not ju st a Lake Michigan issue. This

15 isn't just an issue of myself, my family and my

16 friends having clean drinking water. This is a

17 national issue and I'm a little emotional about it

18 becau se I have friends who, their family who lives

19 in Western Michigan just tested positive for

20 arsenic. They live just a couple of miles from

21 the Port Sheldon coal ash retention pond. And

22 they just sold their house at about half of the270

1 appraised value to get out there. And they're not

2 doing well, they have health problems.

3 If we wait until there is nothing but

4 indisputable evidence of the direct correlation

5 between the cause and effect of the hazards of

6 coal ash, it's going to be a regrettable,

7 regrettable situation. There are over 1,000

8 superfund sites still that are not cleaned up.

9 I'm sure those decisions were made with the best

10 of corporate intentions, with the best of p romises

11 of safeguarding the communities. And where are we

12 today? Where was the EPA back then? What were

13 the decisions that were made back then? What were

14 the compromises that were made back then?

15 This is a common sense decision. This

16 is a decision for clean water. This is a decision

17 for the safety of our communities. And this is a

18 decision as to wha t legacy as part of the EPA you

19 want to leave. Do you want to make apologies to

20 your grandchildren that you would have, should

21 have, could have if you had only known? Or are

22 you goin g to take a proactive approach and help271

1 the families like my friends in Western Michigan?

2 Thank you.

3 (Applau se)

4 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. We're making a

5 panel switch for one member. Let the record

6 reflect that Laurel Celeste, EPA's Office of

7 General Counsel, is returning to the pane l to

8 replace Jerri Garl.

9 Could the individuals with numbers 81,

10 87, 88 and please come forward? Could 81 come to

11 the podium please?

12 MR. PINEGAR: Good afternoon. My name

13 is Stan Pinegar. I'm the President of the Indiana

14 Energy Association, a trade association based in

15 Indianapolis whose members include five

16 investor

- owned ele ctric utilities. I very much

17 appreciate the opportunity to provide comments

18 today.

19 As you are aware, Indiana relies heavily

20 on coal fired generation to meet its electricity

21 needs. Approximately 96 percent of Indiana's

22 baseload generation is currently fueled by coal272

1 with a capacity to produce al most 21,000

2 megawatts. Our members serve over 4,000,000

3 Hoosier customers.

4 The impact of this decision with regard

5 to these proposed rules will certainly have a

6 major impact on Indiana customers, generators,

7 landfills and those engaged in substantial

8 beneficial use of this product in Indiana.

9 The Indiana Energy Association submits

10 that the appropriate route for USEPA is to

11 regulate CCRs under Subtitle D Prime with

12 modifications. Subtitle D Prime avoids many of

13 the major flaws provided in the alternative

14 Sub title D option, including what we believe to be

15 an arbitrary requirement to retrofit all surface

16 impoundments regardless of the risk to the

17 environment. Subtitle D Prime provides a

18 fr amework for an appropriate platform for ensuring

19 environmentally sound management of CCRs.

20 We do believe the Subtitle D Prime

21 option needs to be improved to allow for

22 adminis tration of the requirements by state273

1 regulatory agencies and through the traditional

2 permitting programs. In addition, the schedule

3 for closure of certain CCR disposal units must be

4 reasonably extended to reflect realistic

5 challenges of closing large units.

6 The prospects of regulating CCRs under

7 the Subtitle C option would have far

- reaching

8 adverse impacts on Indiana. Despite notions to

9 the contrary, Subtitle C, even with an exemption

10 for beneficial use, will have a chilling effect on

11 productive use of the material. Indiana

- produced

12 CCRs are used widely for the manufacturing of

13 concrete, construction materials, and by our State

14 Department of Transportation. The Subtitle C

15 option would drastically increase our members'

16 operating costs, raising the cost of power to

17 Indiana households, industry and commercial

18 operations. This isn't just the message from the

19 Indiana Energy Association. Our Indiana Utility

20 Regulatory Commission as well as our Office of

21 Consumer Counselor have both weighed in,

22 advocating against a Subtitle C determinat ion.274

1 The IEA strongly supports the federal

2 regulation of CCRs as non

- hazardous waste,

3 Subtitle D Prime regulation s, implemented and

4 enforced by the states. Thank you very much.

5 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 87?

6 MR. IRVINE: Thanks for having me here

7 today. My name is Jim Ir vine and I'm the

8 President of Fly Ash Direct. I have a small

9 business. We have some 35 employees. We're based

10 in Cincinnati, Ohio. We have offices throughout

11 the Midwest, mainly lo cated at coal fired power

12 facilities.

13 I've spent the better part of my career

14 developing beneficial markets for fly ash. I've

15 been around fly ash, like I say, for over 20

16 years, and I've got many employees that live and

17 work, load trucks and support this industry.

18 My company and my industry has worked

19 very hard to develop what we're very proud t o be

20 what we think is a great American success story

21 relative to recycling. Until now, the US

22 Government and the USEPA has always been a strong275

1 supporter of ours, helping us. They seem to well

2 understand what we do for the environment.

3 And for this reason, you can probably

4 imagine I am a suppor ter of Subtitle D because

5 it's just one of two options that I see that are

6 out there. I do want people to know, I doubt

7 there are many environmentalists or special

8 interest groups or concerned citizens that like to

9 ski mountaintops more than myself or fish streams

10 or oceans or rivers, or hike or camp. I have

11 three small children. I have a tremendous

12 interest in t heir health and safety.

13 Because I sell fly ash and represent

14 utilities, you should not mistake that I'm as

15 concerned as everybody out there. For everybody

16 that stands at thi s podium, from the Sierra Club

17 or anywhere else, who claims to have a relative

18 that's suffering from cancer, well, I think there

19 are people from the utilities that can make that

20 same c laim.

21 I think the problem here, as I listen to

22 this testimony both in Charlotte and here, is that276

1 the EPA is pitt ing its citizens against each

2 other, asking us to come up here and debate each

3 other on something that we both want. I think we

4 need better options and I think that we need to go

5 back to the drawing table and you need to present

6 the public with a few more options that meet both

7 parties' interests. These utilities aren't

8 interested in muddying up the environment any more

9 than the Sierra Club is. And we need to come

10 together and we need to figure out an option that

11 works for both parties. So, thanks for having me

12 here today.

13 (App lause)

14 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 88?

15 MS. ECCLES: Hello, my name is Courtney

16 Eccles. I'm the Assistant Director of Outreach

17 and Policy at Protestants for the Common Good.

18 PCG is a not

- for

- profit organization comprised of

19 individuals and churches from mainline Protestant

20 denominations across Illinois. Our work centers

21 around education and a dvocacy with people of faith

22 on a wide range of social justice issues including277

1 the environment. And we work and communicate

2 directly with over 5,000 individuals and 500

3 congregations across the state.

4 I wanted to thank you for the

5 opportunity to speak today. I am here to express

6 our full suppo rt for EPA regulations under

7 Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and

8 Recovery Act, which would categorize coal ash as a

9 hazardous waste. My intention today is to tell

10 you just how important this issue is to people of

11 faith.

12 Protestants for the Common Good has made

13 environmental issues a main concern of ours for

14 the past three years, and we have seen s ignificant

15 and growing interest from faith communities on

16 local, state and national initiatives. And while

17 this is exciting and of course very necessary, we

18 realize that individual ac tion and congregation

19 action cannot be the only answer. The EPA plays a

20 crucial role in protecting our land, water, air

21 and the health of all of those who live in this

22 country and on this planet through the regulation278

1 of emissions and toxic substances, and coal ash

2 should be no exception.

3 We're particularly concerned about coal

4 ash because we consider it to be an environmental

5 issue, a health issue and a justice issue. Coal

6 ash sites can contaminate water sources with

7 danger ously high levels of arsenic, selenium,

8 mercury, cadmium and many other toxins. And these

9 toxins endanger the plants and animals located in

10 those waterways, not to mention contaminate

11 drinking water. For individuals that live near or

12 around dumping sites, there are grave health

13 concerns. According to an EPA risk assessment,

14 living near a coal ash site is more dangerous than

15 smoking a pack of cigarettes each day. The risk

16 of getting cancer can be as high as 1 in 50

17 individuals, and all of these health concerns are

18 even more grave for young children and infants.

19 Furthermore, those families or

20 individuals who live near coal ash sites probably

21 have no idea what the risks are. Many of them may

22 not even know that they live near a site. And for279

1 those that do, they may very well not have the

2 economic ability to move elsewhere. And we

3 consider that a huge j ustice issue.

4 It's clear that the industry is not

5 doing enough on their own to solve these problems.

6 Not all sites are monitored. Nor do they provide

7 basic protections like composite liners, water

8 runoff controls, or the financial assurance that

9 they will cover the damage costs of leaks and

10 spills. More significant measures need to be

11 taken to protect ou r land and water and all of

12 those who live in the communities near these

13 sites. EPA regulations that require compliance

14 would ensure those types of protections.

15 So, with tha t, I thank you for the time

16 to speak and I strongly urge the implementation of

17 regulations under Subtitle C, labeling coal ash as

18 a hazardous substance that it so clearly is.

19 Thank you

.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is number 89

22 here? Number 90?280

1 MS . HARLEY: Thank you so much for

2 listening to all of these compelling stories

3 today, and thank you for allowing me the

4 opportunity to testify. My name is Susan Harley

5 and I am here on behalf of Clean Water Action's

6 over 250,000 Michigan members and Clean Water

7 Action's national membership of 1.2 million. I'm

8 also speaking for the Clean Energy Now activists

9 here in the audience who are not speaking today

10 and for those following us on Twitter.

11 I am here today to urge you, the

12 Environmental Protection Agency, to stand up to

13 big coal inte rests who want to protect their

14 pocketbooks. Instead, you must ensure that the

15 American people are protected from toxic coal ash

16 pollution.

17 Clean Water Action's members know that

18 protection of water is vital; vital to our

19 economy, vital for habitat and recreation, vital

20 for life for the future of our children. The EPA

21 has the duty to protect all waters f rom pollution,

22 pollution like the toxic chemicals found in coal281

1 ash, arsenic, lead, selenium, mercury, to name

2 just a few. Chemicals that cause cancer impede

3 neurological development and mutate fish.

4 You must put in place rules that truly

5 protect us from health damages, like shockingly

6 high canc er risks, as high as 1 in 50. The only

7 choice is Subtitle C regulation.

8 If states were adequately protecting us,

9 we wouldn't see hundreds of known leaking coal ash

10 sites and an unknown amount that are out there

11 poisoning our water that have not yet been

12 discovered. Subtitle D would mean nothing

13 improves, and we demand better.

14 I have vivid memor ies of growing up in

15 Lansing, Michigan. I and my friends played on the

16 banks of the Grand River, in an area that has

17 recently been exposed as an old coal ash dump.

18 What contaminants w as I exposed to? And what

19 about the hundreds of kids playing there right

20 now? No one knows. We need public knowledge and

21 we need federally enforceable standards.

22 Will the special hazardous waste label282

1 affect beneficial reuse? No. But if it is done,

2 these recycling efforts must be safe. That means

3 only allowing encapsulated forms if it is show

4 that they won't leach.

5 Please, EPA, do your duty. Coal is a

6 hazardous waste and it is time for it to be

7 treated as such . The American people deserve it,

8 our future deserves it. Thank you.

9 (Applause)

10 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is there anyone

11 in the room that has a number lower t han 90 that

12 has not spoken today? Okay. Numbers 91, 92, 93

13 and 94. If 91 could come to the podium, that

14 would be great.

15 MS. COAKLEY: Good afternoon. My name

16 is Ann Coakley. I'm the Director for the Waste

17 and Materials Management Program for the Wisconsin

18 Department of Natural Resources. In Wisconsin,

19 our solid waste program regulates disposal under

20 the State's RCRA Subtitle D equivalent program and

21 also allows for substantial beneficial use of CCR

22 materials when appropriate. Our brief comments283

1 today are on three main categories: the disposal

2 of CCR materials under Subtitle D, the successful

3 beneficial reuse of CCRs, and the potential

4 negative consequ ences of RCRA Subtitle C

5 regulation.

6 For disposal, Wisconsin fully

7 acknowledges that failure to properly manage CCR

8 materials can result in significant negative

9 effects on the environment and human health, so

10 they must be managed responsibly. We believe that

11 proper management practices for CCR materials that

12 cannot be beneficially reused is under an

13 effective Subtitle D waste management program. In

14 Wisconsin, we currently effectively regulate

15 disposal under the State's RCRA Subtitle D

16 equivalent program. We oversee landfill siting,

17 liner requirements, monitoring, capping and

18 financial responsibility. All active CCR

19 landfills in Wisconsin are engineer

- lined

20 facilities that are routinely monitored.

21 We believe that Wisconsin and other

22 states have demonstrated that effective regulation284

1 of CCR disposal sites already occurs under state

2 authority and rules. We do not support the

3 self

- implementing RCRA Subtitle D alternative. We

4 believe that it is essential that rules have

5 sufficient flexibility to include sit e specific

6 issues.

7 Beneficial use. Wisconsin's successful,

8 nationally recognized and renowned program has

9 resulted in Wisconsin utilities beneficially

10 reus ing up to 85 percent of coal ash each year.

11 Some examples. FGD materials are used in

12 wallboards, cement manufacturing, and in concrete

13 products. Coal bottom ash is successfully used as

14 geotechnical fill material in road construction.

15 Approximately 10 million cubic yards of CCR

16 materials have been beneficially used since our

17 Beneficial Use Program was created in 1997, the

18 equivalent of three to four landfills. The high

19 level of reuse in Wisconsin greatly decrease the

20 need for disposal, saves on landfill space,

21 reduces need for virgin products, and reduces

22 greenhouse gas production while protecting public285

1 health and the environment.

2 The consequences of Sub C. We believe

3 regulation of CCR materials under Sub C would

4 negatively affect the successful programs that

5 Wisconsin has in place for beneficial use and

6 disposal. DNR does not believe these materials

7 have characteristics to be classified as hazardous

8 or special waste. Regulating these would severely

9 curtail or eliminate the successful beneficial

10 use. Wisconsin utilities produce a total of two

11 million tons of CCR materials each year. We

12 currently do not have any hazardous waste

13 landfills in the State of Wisconsin. If this is

14 passed under Subtitle C, we would need to site

15 several, probably up to ten hazardous waste

16 landfills in the state, or transport it out of

17 state at considerable expense.

18 In conclusion, of the options presente d,

19 Wisconsin DNR only supports regulation of CCR

20 materials under the EPA Subtitle D option but with

21 state authority and rules. Thank you.

22 (Applause)286

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 92?

2 MR. TAYLOR: The State of Indiana is

3 home to a vast and diverse ecosystem, ranging from

4 the shores of Lake Michigan to the converging

5 Wabash and Ohio Rivers. Our environment is

6 constantly flourishing with the help of non

-

7 profit organizations and volunteers from all

8 across our great state. Restoration projects have

9 an indefinite future in Indiana, projects that are

10 integral to the health and prosperity of our

11 state's environments and us Hoosiers.

12 Organizations such as the Nature

13 Conservancy, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned

14 Scientists and the Hoosier Environmental Council

15 have provided the people of Indiana with a

16 scientific and sustainable approach to combat and

17 reverse the destruction of our environment. Such

18 destruction have been caused by the misguided,

19 ignorant and often corrupt individuals from both

20 the food and energy industry as well as the

21 Indiana state government. I hear too often of

22 government officials and energy lobbyists287

1 justifying the destructive actions to our

2 environment by proclaiming that those actions also

3 provide jobs. Job creation can never become a

4 justifiable reason to deteri orate the health of

5 our people and our environment. In relation, our

6 outlook on our health and the health of our

7 outdoors should never depend on the state of our

8 economy.

9 In 2005, Governor Mitch Daniels

10 appointed Tom Easterly to the Commissioner of the

11 Indiana Department of Environmental Management,

12 though the same person was in charge of Bethlehem

13 Steel's Environmental Services from 1994 to 2000.

14 Easterly has become our state's highest

15 environmental official in charge of enforcing

16 rules and regulations against his former Bethlehem

17 employer. Since 2005, the IDEM has slowly become

18 an economic development tool rather than an

19 environmental enforcement agency by relaxing, if

20 not eliminating, environmental guidelines fo r the

21 food and energy industries.

22 In 2007, Lake County Sheriff Roy288

1 Dominguez questioned if the IDEM had been

2 adequately monitoring a landfill outside Lowell,

3 Indiana after his environmental enforcement team

4 had built four wells on site of the landfill. His

5 team had discovered deadly cyanide vapo rs leaking

6 from the landfill. The IDEM responded with a

7 statement that expressed the utmost safety of the

8 landfill and ordered the sheriff to close the

9 wells or face a $25,000 daily f ine.

10 In December of 2008, the IDEM dissolved

11 their Office of Enforcement, and in May of this

12 year, Governor Daniels appointed David Joest, a

13 lobbyist for the world's largest coal company, as

14 Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Legal

15 Counsel for the IDEM. Three weeks ago, the newly

16 appointed Assistant Commissioner issued new rules

17 on how the state's e mployees should cite companies

18 for violating environmental laws. The Assistant

19 Commissioner wrote, "I would like to encourage you

20 to emphasize with your staff that it is not

21 necessary to cite every possible statue and

22 regulation that could be violated in a given289

1 situation."

2 From this, I can only come to the

3 conclusion that our state's environmental policy,

4 or lack thereof, needs some correcting. I do not

5 believe that implementing Subtitle D would achieve

6 any environmental or personal health victory.

7 That is why I believe Subtitle C would be best

8 suited for the newly proposed rule regarding coal

9 combustion residues or coal fly ash. Thank you.

10 (Applause)

11 MR. BEHAN: Sir? Sir.

12 MR. TAYLOR: My name is Hans Taylor.

13 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 93

14 please?

15 MS. KEELEY : Thank you. That was my

16 son, he's a student at Purdue. All right, at

17 ease. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Keeley, I'm a

18 retired US Army Officer. I spent 25 years serving

19 my country and f ighting in three conflicts. And I

20 don't want applause for that because what I'm here

21 today for is to tell you where I live. And I live

22 in beautiful Indiana, my son and I are both290

1 Hoosiers. But too long people have been coming

2 and just polluting our beautiful State of Indiana

3 and I'm tired of it. All right?

4 (Applause)

5 MS. KEELEY: Please, I only have like

6 less than three minutes, all right? So, give me

7 some time. Here is the deal. I've traveled the

8 world, you all know that, from being in the

9 military. But where did I choose to retire? I

10 chose five acres in Wheatfield, Indiana. It's so

11 beautiful there.

12 Now, I've been to hell and back, all

13 right? But my property is so beautiful. I've got

14 five wooded acres and I'm there with my dogs and I

15 walk my dogs. And I love to sit and watch my

16 trees blow in the win d. I got demons I fight.

17 All right? That's my sanctuary.

18 You can tell where my house is. I've

19 got a beautiful well, too, I forgot to tell you

20 about my well. When they put my well in, it's 60

21 feet down, and you can actually take a garden hose

22 and drink my water, it's so pure and beautiful.291

1 Thi s is what I dreamed about for 25 years, to

2 retire here.

3 But you know how you can find my house?

4 For 20 miles you can see the stacks of NIPSCO,

5 that's Northern Indiana Public Service Company.

6 For 20 miles at a distance, because if you're not

7 from, if you're from the city, okay, you'd get

8 lost if you tried to find my house. Just look for

9 the stacks, I tell people, I'm south of the stacks

10 by five miles.

11 See, I didn't know. I'm an intelligent

12 woman, kind of messed up now with TBI. (I know,

13 one more minute) But I'll tell you thi s, nobody

14 told me about that crap that's coming out of

15 NIPSCO, the coal ash. Do you know a train

16 everyday comes into NIPSCO and those smoke stacks

17 are blowing everyday. That's how yo u know whether

18 the wind is blowing because that wind that's

19 blowing my trees, it's blowing that coal ash.

20 And, EPA, I was around in 1963, that was

21 a civil rights movement. Y ou were here and

22 enacted as an Environmental Protection Agency.292

1 Protect us, that's why you were formed.

2 I served my country and I fought and

3 defended her. I shouldn't have to now fight and

4 defend my right to breathe. Thank you.

5 (Applause)

6 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. When yo u're

7 ready, sir?

8 MR. HILL: My name is Jarred Hill,

9 though many know me as Parson Brown, that's

10 probably because I talk quite a lot. Coal ash is

11 a hazardou s substance. The woman that just spoke,

12 it's a story that sounds far too familiar to far

13 too many stories that I've heard as a

14 documentarian and as a film maker.

15 For the las t six years, I have followed

16 not just the fight against mountaintop removal or

17 coal mining in Appalachia but also the fight

18 against coal and the destruction, devastation and

19 the poison that it is bestowing upon our people.

20 I have talked with people from all over the

21 country, from up and down Appalachia, here in

22 Chicago where they burn coal in our south side.293

1 I've met with those in the south of Illinois where

2 they are doing long wall mining and destroying our

3 great farmland.

4 I knew nothing about coal until I

5 learned that they were blowing up the mountains

6 that I grew up just several hours away from. And

7 I'm here to tell you I don't necessarily have the

8 fact s to throw at you right here right now.

9 You've probably heard those all day. But what I

10 have done for the last six years of my life is

11 listen to people who have lived and breathed and

12 bathed in this coal that is destroying us.

13 I have heard so many tales of despair.

14 I have heard people that have everything, that

15 have almost given up everyday but have continued

16 to pull through because there is a group of people

17 in our country, a huge group of people and more

18 and more are becoming aware every single day that

19 coal is old, coal is dirty, and we are going to

20 move on and we have to move on.

21 And as the Environmental Protection

22 Agency, I urge you, I don't just encourage you, I294

1 plead, I DEMAND that we move past coal, coal ash,

2 coal burning, coal mining.

3 (Applause)

4 MR. HILL: And I testify today that

5 coal/coal as h, the mining process associated to

6 such mountaintop removal, underground mining, no

7 matter where we're getting it from, it's

8 destroying us. I testify that I am merely one of

9 a growin g number who are becoming aware of this.

10 And I am not a coal field resident. I do not

11 directly breathe or drink coal ash every single

12 day. I am an American. I am an American citizen

13 demanding justice for my neighbors, my brothers

14 and sisters across the country and I testify today

15 in hopes that the Environmental Protection Agency

16 of the United States of America will accept its

17 responsibility to protect us.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. A quick update

20 for the audience. The next group I'll be calling

21 up is the 3:45 t o 4:00 o'clock group. It's about

22 3:30 right now so we're running a couple of295

1 minutes ahead. If there are some people that are

2 not here in those groups, I'm going to try to fit

3 in some other walk

- in speakers and other folks.

4 Numbers 95, 96, 97, 98 and 99, if you would come

5 forward, that would be great. Is number 95 here?

6 96?

7 MR. SCHMITT: Good afternoon. My name

8 is Ed Schmitt, and I'm the President of Glass

9 Recycling and Grinding USA located in Rockford,

10 Illinois. Glass Re cycling and Grinding USA is a

11 small business that was formed three years ago to

12 produce open air abrasive blast media from

13 recycled glass. It's marketed under the brand

14 name of New Ag e Blast Media. We also produce

15 post

- consumer glass fillers for various industries

16 seeking to meet their post

- consumer content

17 requirements for their products. There are many

18 busines ses like ours across the country trying to

19 compete in the abrasives market by offering

20 products that are non

- toxic and inert.

21 Our plant commenced operation in

22 September of 20 07 and we employ up to five people296

1 at our plant running one shift. That could double

2 if demand increased. Over the past three years,

3 we've shipped thousands of tons of this New Age

4 Blast Media to customers throughout the Midwest

5 and nationwide as a safe, non

- toxic alternative to

6 coal slag and other metal laden slags curre ntly

7 being used widely across this country. Much of

8 this recycled glass came directly from the

9 Northern Illinois area, Wisconsin, and even the

10 suburbs of Chicago.

11 The operation required an investment of

12 hundreds of thousands of dollars in private funds

13 and we have not sought and received any government

14 assistance to build this facility. We have

15 created new jobs in a green industry and recycled

16 thousands of tons of glass annually. This glass

17 would have been destined for a landfill and we

18 have been able to work with companies and

19 municipalities to prevent that. We have the

20 capacity at our facility to manufacture 12,000

21 tons per year which would replace coal slag and

22 other CCRs that the EPA and others recognize have297

1 serious health and environmental issues.

2 The fact remains, however, that the

3 EPA's old Beneficial Use designatio n for coal slag

4 abrasives provides an advantage over our non

- toxic

5 abrasives, and most companies and workers do not

6 understand the hazards that exist when blasting

7 with slag abrasives due to the past EPA Beneficial

8 Use designation. Because the blasting industry

9 has been allowed to handle spent coal slag as if

10 it were non

- toxic, the blasting industry has

11 little reas on to buy abrasives that are safer.

12 The past Beneficial Use designation also allowed

13 coal slag abrasives to be blasted on bridges and

14 ships over open water with little concern about

15 th e environmental impact by most state agencies.

16 We hope that the EPA follows through with their

17 decision to remove coal slag abrasives from the

18 list of Beneficial Uses of CCRs.

19 We support the EPA's decision so that

20 coal slag abrasive industry can no longer use the

21 EPA to promote their product as a beneficial use

22 for open air blasting when it is clearly a hazard298

1 if used in this manner. We are also asking that

2 spent slag abrasives found to be containing high

3 toxic levels of metal and other elemen ts after

4 blasting should be handled as hazardous waste.

5 By accurately acknowledging the hazards

6 of spent blast media from slag abrasives, the EPA

7 will let the open marketplac e determine how

8 effective the use of recycled glass abrasive media

9 can be versus other products on the market. We

10 fully believe that the EPA's recognition of

11 toxicity of spent slag ab rasives will allow small

12 businesses like ours to continue to grow and

13 provide jobs. Thank you for allowing me to speak

14 on this topic.

15 (Applause)

16 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 97?

17 MR. ROSENMERKEL: I'm Jim Rosenmerkel

18 representing Lafarge North America as its Great

19 Lakes Regional geotechnical engineer. I'm a

20 pro fessional engineer with over 50 years

21 experience in construction of highway pavements,

22 commercial/industrial sites, commercial/industrial299

1 buildings, and have become an advocate of

2 environmentally responsible construction

3 practices, one of which is the reuse of industrial

4 products, specifically coal ash, one of several

5 CCRs produced by coal plants in our region.

6 For nearly ten years, I've been

7 promoting the use of Class C fly ash from coal

8 fired power plants throughout Wisconsin and

9 Illinois. We have successfully used fly ash to

10 stabilize soft, unsuitable soils in highway

11 construction and to recycle hot mixed asphalt

12 pavements. We have experienced extraordinary

1 3 results by increasing the bearing strengths of

14 native soils over 20 times and we now have fly ash

15 owners that have hundreds of thousands of dollars

16 and reduced construction times by as much as 25

17 percent.

18 Four years ago, we stabilized the

19 existing soils under the new runway at Chicago's

20 O'Hare Airport. We used 110,000 tons of fly ash

21 and eliminated the need to export/import suitable

22 soils, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in300

1 both cost and time. We used fly ash to construct

2 a sand foundation under a new power plant in

3 Wausau recovering more than two months of lost

4 time using 15,000 tons of fly ash and saved the

5 utility company nearly eight million dollars.

6 A number of counties are now using full

7 depth reclamation, that's fly ash, to increase the

8 strength of pulverized pavement. Full depth

9 reclamation reuses all existing materials,

10 eliminates the need for new natural materials and

11 reduces the thickness of new asphalt pavements.

12 Total savings exceed 30 percent. Full depth

13 reclamation at the Waukesha County Airpo rt in 2005

14 resulted in a $50,000 cost savings.

15 In my years of advising others on design

16 and construction with fly ash, we have used well

17 over three

- quarters of a million ton s of material

18 that would otherwise have gone to landfills, and

19 that's just in Wisconsin and Illinois. If EPA

20 imparts the stigma of classifying fly ash as a

21 hazardous material, no othe r contractor will risk

22 using it, owners will reject the method and301

1 someone will need to find disposal sites for 65

2 million tons of this material each year in the

3 future. EPA should adopt the Wisconsin

4 administrative NR 538 as a national model for

5 monitoring, encourage every state to enforce these

6 rules, a nd continue with effective and

7 environmentally sound construction practices.

8 I encourage EPA to continue to support

9 beneficial reuse of CCRs, reinstitute the C2P2

10 partnership website and treat CCR as a solid

11 waste. Keep C2P2 and the Green Highway initiative

12 active. Thank you.

13 (Applause)

14 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is there anyone

15 in the room that has a number 100 and lower that

16 has not spoken today? Does anyone have a number

17 315 or lower, well, between 300 and 315 that has

18 not spoken today? What number do you ha ve? 313?

19 119? 183 and 160? 312?

20 MS. GORDON: Good afternoon. I've

21 learned a lot today. I came to make a statement

22 but what I ended up was with an education. This302

1 is worse than I thought. I'm heartbroken.

2 I'm a little emotional. I'm going to

3 use up my three minutes crying. I've learned what

4 special interests really are and I also feel sorry

5 for some of the industry, I suppose, that is

6 trying to make a living recycling coal ash. But I

7 don't know that it reall y, it's like cake or

8 death. I'll go ahead with my statement.

9 My name is Sallie Gordon. I live in

10 Pilsen, Chicago's 25th ward and six blocks from

11 the Fisk Coal Plant. I've lived in this area for

12 25 years. Only in the last ten years have I fully

13 realized the horrendous human and environmental

14 effects of coal burning plants, despite

15 undisputable evidence and increased national and

16 global concern over the environment. I naively

17 believed the rhetoric generated by local public

18 officials, corporations, city and federal agencies

19 that reass ured us that Midwest Generation's coal

20 burning plants are significantly reducing their

21 emissions. I don't even know where the coal ash

22 from Fisk and Crawford coal plants is dumped.303

1 I am aware of the complex ongoing,

2 seemingly never

- ending, legal political maze

3 fostered by corporate money, influence and profit

4 over the very air we breathe, the water we drink,

5 and the planet that we live on. And despite the

6 tireless efforts of informed and conscientious

7 residents, national and local organizatio ns, the

8 pollution continues with very little significant

9 changes. Apologetically, I have had my head down

10 until a few years ago when I suddenly looked up

11 and realized that my neighbor hood was the most

12 polluted place to live in the City of Chicago.

13 The collective apathy of many and my

14 sense of powerlessness were reinforced during the

15 eight years of the Bus h administration. In July

16 2009, a handful of residents including myself

17 built an organic vegetable garden with the thought

18 of increasing environmental awareness and health.

19 This is in Pilsen's industrial corridor with a

20 long toxic history. I became aware then that this

21 land was already earmarked as an overdue,

22 politically motivated, greening gesture that had304

1 been put aside for over ten years, apparently

2 meant to divert our eyes from the shadow of the

3 coal plant chimney that looms over this entire

4 neighborhood.

5 I'll read my last statement since I

6 spent my time. It's unnecessary for me to cite

7 statistics and all. I just implore, IMPLORE the

8 EPA in favor o f the Subtitle C. And I would like

9 to say one last statement. If one

- third of the

10 money and effort that is spent on debating was

11 spent on building clean energy, can you imagine?

12 (Applause)

13 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 119?

14 MR. FERRY: Good afternoon. My name is

15 Jeff Ferry, Senior Director of Dynergy Government

16 Affairs. I'm testifyin g today on behalf of

17 Dynergy Midwest Generation. DMG produces and

18 sells electricity in the Midwest. DMG's power

19 generation portfolio includes over 3,100 megawatts

20 of coal fire genera tion in Illinois which produces

21 coal combustion byproducts that would be subject

22 to the EPA's proposed CCR rule.305

1 DMG believes that the EPA should resist

2 the temptation to use the berm failure at a

3 federally owned corporation to impose a hazardous

4 waste classification on coal ash and scrubber

5 slud ge that are safely being stored and

6 beneficially reused by private industry. DMG

7 supports the dam safety integrity standards and

8 inspection provisions of the proposed rule even

9 though they are mostly duplicative of the existing

10 regulations enforced by the Illinois Department of

11 Natural Resources.

12 Throughout the CCR proposal, EPA has

13 stated its belief that regulating CCRs as a

14 hazardous waste would not create a stigma against

15 the use of fly ash for soil stabilization or as a

16 concrete additive. The evidence in Illinois

17 belies that. The Army Corps of Engineers has

18 proposed a project to strengthen the levees along

19 the Mississippi River. One of the Corps

20 alternatives involves an injection of lime and fly

21 ash grout int o the levee side slope. The Corps

22 believes that this alternative would safely and306

1 cost

- effectively strengthen the levees. Even

2 though the EPA has not yet finalized its

3 rulemaking, several comments already oppose the

4 use of fly ash in this project through a

5 perception that the ash is toxic and the metals

6 will be released into the environment. If the EPA

7 designates CCR as hazardous, these arguments will

8 become commonplace whenever CCR is considered for

9 soil stabilization or reuse in other products.

10 DMG has a long history of selling coal

11 ash for reuse. Besides the economic benefits of

12 reuse, fly ash reuse in concrete reduces the

13 demand for natural resources, and each ton of fly

14 ash used in concrete reduces CO2 emissions

15 associated with cement production. Hazardous

16 waste under Subtitle C will drastically impact

17 these uses, increase the cost of constructi on

18 materials, and threaten the existence of companies

19 that market these byproducts.

20 On the other hand, a Subtitle D or D

21 Prime approach would create an environmentally

22 protective program for coal ash disposal without307

1 destroying these beneficial reuse options or

2 imposing unnecessary compliance cos t upon power

3 plant operators that will eventually appear as

4 higher price for concrete, electricity, or other

5 products. DMG opposes the Subtitle C option and

6 agrees with others to supp ort the Subtitle D or D

7 Prime options that will provide environmental

8 options without additional waste, increased cost,

9 and the stigmas associated with hazardous ash.

10 MR. BEH AN: Thank you. 160?

11 MR. LeMAIRE: My name is Walter LeMaire,

12 Director of Mineral Resource Technologies (MRT).

13 MRT is a coal combustion product marketing and

14 management comp any that promotes, manages and

15 expands the developed beneficial applications for

16 CCPs along with our sister companies. I would

17 like to thank today's EPA panel for giving me time

18 to ad dress the recent proposal for the disposal of

19 coal combustion residuals from electric utilities.

20 MRT and its parent company CEMEX use

21 CCPs including fly ash, bottom ash and synthetic

22 gypsum in its cement, construction products and308

1 ready mixed concrete manufacturing operations and

2 we promote the beneficial use of C CPs to external

3 customers. We are continuously expanding the

4 applications where beneficial use of CCPs can add

5 value to and lower the environmental impact of the

6 construction material s industry, both internally

7 and for our external customers. Fly ash has been

8 extensively used in concrete throughout the United

9 States to enhance the plastic and hardened

10 properties w hich cannot be obtained from ordinary

11 Portland cement concrete.

12 The Freedom Towers project in New York

13 City was previously unable to obtain the required

14 specifications until they utilized concrete made

15 with fly ash. Fly ash has been used in interstate

16 highways since the early 1950's and its use was

17 encouraged by the Federal Highway Administration

18 beginnin g in 1974. There have been many other

19 organizations that support the beneficial use of

20 fly ash such as the American Concrete Institute,

21 the American Association of State Highway and

22 T ransportation Officials, and State Departments of309

1 Transportation.

2 MRT and CEMEX understand the importance

3 of sust ainable development, and continually seek

4 ways to reduce the environmental impact of our

5 operations by balancing materials demand with a

6 commitment to environmental sustainability. The

7 beneficial use of CCPs saves virgin resources,

8 lowers the cost of electricity generation, reduces

9 energy consumption, lowers greenhouse gas

10 emissions, lowers the end user cost of concrete

1 1 products, reduces the need for landfill space

12 which further lowers the impact on the

13 environment. We conduct business with respect and

14 care for the environment as evidenced by our

15 Energy Star Partner of the Year awards in both

16 2009 and 2010. Another example is our

17 participation in the Coal Combustion Products

18 Partnership (C2P2) which is a joint government and

19 industry program to increase the beneficial use of

20 coal combustion products to reduce energy

21 consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and increase

22 industrial recycling. We are committed to310

1 preserving and improving the ecologies in which we

2 operate and devote considerable resources to

3 environmental quality efforts.

4 MRT and CEMEX urge the EPA to manage

5 coal combustion products under the proposed RCRA

6 Subtitle D option. This option increase the

7 existing federal physical requirements and

8 management guidelines of coal combustion products

9 almost identically to the RCRA Subtitle C option,

10 but allows coal combustion products to remain

11 clearly classified as a non

- hazardous material.

12 Should the EPA choose to reclassify coal

13 combustion products under RCRA Subtitle C, there

14 may be severe collateral damage to future

15 beneficial uses of CCPs and could cripple or

16 potentially eliminate a major strategy in the

17 reduction of greenhouse gases in our country.

18 I would like to thank the EPA panel for

19 allowing my company to address some of our

20 concerns.

21 (Applause)

22 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 312?311

1 MS. DOOLIN: Good afterno on. My name is

2 Cathy Doolin and I so thank you for having this

3 forum for us to voice our life's journey. I'm a

4 female so of course I am going to be emotional. I

5 don't want to put st ats out there, we've heard

6 them all day long.

7 I'm here to tell you a story of what

8 this does. I don't want anyone to lose their job.

9 I want new jobs created and new controls put in

10 place.

11 (Applause)

12 MS. DOOLIN: I am a victim of coal ash.

13 It was mixed in my land while I was growing up. I

14 have never smoked or dra nk a day in my life and I

15 have COPD. I brought it in case someone didn't

16 believe me. I don't smoke but I have COPD.

17 In the land where I grew up, it was

18 mixed with the sand. And what do children do?

19 They go out and they build sandcastles. My

20 grandson now suffers with psoriasis and eczema

21 across his face all the time. He is ten now, this

22 is when he was three.312

1 Not only am I physically affected, all

2 of my internal organs are dying, I was told that.

3 I have mercury, I have lead, I have all of these

4 chemicals that you have mentioned today. I don't

5 care, I don't want no more babies to suffer. We

6 are adults, we can change this. It is our

7 responsibi lity to change this. Only take the

8 toxins out of our waters.

9 I've heard from people, EPA people,

10 MOVE! I've been to five different homes. I've

11 been subjected to five super funds and didn't know

12 until after I had my water tested. This is not a

13 small issue, this is a big issue. I do not want

14 jobs lost, I want jobs created. I want us to care

15 about each o ther and our water and our land

16 because it won't be here forever. It will be

17 destroyed if we don't take it into our hands and

18 cure it.

19 My lead, my mercuries can never be tak en

20 away from me. They've gone to my children and to

21 my grandchildren. Do we want this cycle to

22 continue? NO! Thank you.313

1 (Applause)

2 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 183?

3 MR. WILK: Good afternoon. My name is

4 Charles Wilk. I am a former RCRA hazardous waste

5 m anagement facility permit writer working at the

6 US Environmental Protection Agency here in Region

7 5. My comment today relates to the landfill

8 design for coal ash if it is managed under RCRA

9 Subtitle D.

10 The current proposal describing this

11 scenario requires a landfill liner system that is

12 not state of the art. The proposed rule under

13 Subtitle D's scenario as it is written now

14 excludes the use of geosynthetic clay liner.

15 Geosynthetic clay liner or GCL is part of the

16 state of the art landfill liner system. GCLs have

17 long been used and a pproved for both RCRA Subtitle

18 C hazardous waste landfills and Subtitle D solid

19 waste landfills.

20 By excluding GCL from the design of coal

21 ash landfills under the currently wr itten Subtitle

22 D scenario, we are missing an opportunity to314

1 provide the public with the most protective

2 landfill liner syst em available. I suggest that

3 EPA review the data and establish the use of GCL,

4 and then promulgate a final rule that includes

5 geosynthetic clay liner in the presumptive

6 landfill liner design regardless if coal ash is

7 classified as Subtitle D or Subtitle C. Thank

8 you.

9 (Applause)

10 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Numbers 110,

11 111, 11 4, 115, 116. 110, 111, 114, 115 and 116

12 please. 117? Could 110 come to the podium

13 please? 111? Could the person with the lowest

14 number come to the self select? Thank you.

15 MR. WARREN: 114?

16 MR. BEHAN: Excellent. Thank you, sir.

17 MR. WARREN: Hello, my name is Warren

18 Dick. I am a professor of Soil and Environmental

19 Science at the O hio State University, home of the

20 future national champion football Buckeyes. I

21 grew up on a diversified small grain farm and

22 animal production farm in North Dakota. My desire315

1 was to farm with my dad, but with seven younger

2 brothers in waiting, I instead went to graduate

3 school in agriculture. Two of my brothers remain

4 on the family farm and we are all very much

5 concerned about the sustainability of such small

6 businesses.

7 Since approximately 1990, I have

8 conducted research on the beneficial land

9 application uses of coal combustion products. My

10 first projects were on the use of these materials

11 for reclamation of highly degraded abandoned mine

12 lands in Oh io. The use of coal combustion

13 products was found to be highly effective.

14 However, today I want to speak

15 specifically about the more extensive research I

16 have conducted on t he beneficial agricultural uses

17 of flue gas desulfurization gypsum that is

18 produced when coal is burned and the sulfur

19 dioxide is removed from the flue gases. During

20 this process, a v ery high quality gypsum is

21 produced. Sulfur is a major nutrient and a

22 component of proteins and other molecules of life.316

1 I t is an essential element for good crop

2 production. With removal of sulfur from our

3 atmosphere due to scrubbing of flue gases, our

4 crops are increasing becoming deficient in sulfur

5 th at must be added back to the soil. There is no

6 such thing as a free lunch. If we remove sulfur

7 from the soil via harvested plant products, this

8 sulfur must be replaced. We have found FGD gypsum

9 an excellent source of sulfur for improving crop

10 production.

11 FGD gypsum has many benefits for soil

12 and crops. In fact, our early country fathers,

13 George Washing ton and Benjamin Franklin, were

14 strong proponents of the use of gypsum in

15 agriculture. Some benefits of gypsum for

16 agriculture include: 1. Improving soils

17 negatively impacted by sod ium 2. Overcoming

18 problems associated with subsoil acidity; 3.

19 Improving aeration of soils needed for good root

20 growth; 4. Improving water infiltration which is

21 important as our Midw est climate is often

22 deficient in rainfall during the months of July317

1 and August; 5. Improving the efficiency of

2 nitrogen f ertilizers for crop production, thus

3 reducing nitrogen fertilizer inputs and nitrate

4 leaching into our water bodies; 6. Increasing the

5 amount of land that can be farmed using no

- tillage

6 practices, thus reducing the farmer's use of

7 fossil fuels and increasing the amount of carbon

8 that is sequestered in soil; and 7. Decreasing

9 the runoff concentrations of nitrate and

10 phosphorus.

11 It is important that FGD gypsum not be

12 labeled a hazardous material. It has been

13 extensively studied and it can make a contribution

14 to improving agricultural p roductivities in the

15 United States. And it is important that this

16 increased productivity continue to feed the

17 increasing world population. Thank you.

18 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 115?

19 MR. GONET: Hello, I'm Phil Gonet,

20 President of the Illinois Coal Association. The

21 Illinois Coal Association is a professional trade

22 association that is composed of 2 0 coal producers318

1 and coal reserve owners. The coal industry has a

2 significant impact, economic impact in the state

3 particu larly in Central and Southern Illinois. We

4 appreciate the opportunity to comment on this

5 proposed rulemaking as some ICA members place coal

6 combustion residues, or CCRs, in their mines and

7 otherwise beneficially use CCRs in their

8 facilities.

9 The ICA strongly supports EPA's preamble

10 statement that the agency "..is...not proposing to

11 address placement of CC Rs in mines, or

12 non

- minefill uses of CCRs at coal mine sites in

13 this action."

14 In 2006, the National Academy of

15 Sciences recommended that the Office of Surface

16 Coal Mining and its state partners under the

17 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act "take

18 the lead in developing new national standards for

19 CCR use in mines because the framework is in place

20 to deal with mine

- related issues." The ICA agrees

21 with the NAS and urges EPA to continue to defer to

22 OSM given its considerable expertise in mine319

1 regulation.

2 However, the ICA is concerned that EPA's

3 intention to defer to OSM is not executed properly

4 in the proposed regulatory text. For example, the

5 definition of "minefill" in the preamble is vague

6 and does not adequately account for non

- minefill

7 uses of CCRs which EPA states is not regulating

8 under this proposal.

9 In addition, only the proposed hazardous

10 waste regulations under Subtitle C specifically

11 exclude "minefilling operations." No definition

12 appears in the proposed regulations for the term

13 "minefilling." Although we believe that EPA's

14 intention was for the other non

- minefill uses at

15 coal mines to be exempt, this point is left

16 unclear in the text and needs to be fixed.

17 To avoid significant confusion and

18 regulatory uncertainty, EPA must make it clear in

19 the preamble and in the final regulatory text that

20 placement of CCRs at mines and other non

- minefill

21 uses of CCRs at underground and surface coal mines

22 are excluded from the rule's requirements.320

1 The ICA s trongly supports the EPA's

2 decision not to reverse the regulatory

3 determination for beneficial uses of CCRs, but is

4 concerned with EPA's discussion on unencapsulated

5 uses, a term not w ell defined in the proposed

6 rule. This term could be interpreted to encompass

7 certain uses of CCRs at mines, contradicting EPA's

8 stated intention.

9 CCRs serve a variety of im portant uses

10 at mine sites, and EPA's final rule should not put

11 these uses in peril by failing to appropriately

12 exclude them from disposal regulations for surface

13 impoundments and land fills. OSM is and should

14 continue to be the exclusive regulator of these

15 materials. Thank you.

16 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 116?

17 DR. McDONALD: Good afternoon. My name

18 is Dr. David McDonald. I'm here on behalf of the

19 Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute. I'm a

20 licensed professional engineer and a member of the

21 American Society of Civil En gineers. I'm also a

22 father who cares about a clean safe environment321

1 for my son.

2 Concrete is an essential compone nt of

3 the national infrastructure, and almost no

4 construction can be made without it. It is used

5 for buildings, bridges, schools, hospitals,

6 pipelines and dams. Many of these structu res are

7 owned by the public and many already contain coal

8 combustion products.

9 The EPA has put forward two proposals.

10 Under both rulings, substantial improvements will

11 be made to the retention and storage of coal

12 combustion products. Thus, the issue of future

13 dam failures, like that in Kingston, Tennessee, is

14 being addressed by both proposals.

15 Under Subtitle C, fly ash will contain a

16 hazardous label. The implementation of Subtitle C

17 will result in less fly ash being used in concrete

18 and more material being stored, increasing the

19 risks to the public and reducing use of it in

20 concrete.

21 The benefits of using fly ash in

22 concrete have been well proven. The EPA itself322

1 has stated that encapsulated coal combustion

2 products "do not raise concerns and offer

3 important environmental benefits." Our concern is

4 that the proposed regulations may result in the

5 disposal of coal ash that prevents users obtaining

6 these important environmental benefits and

7 increases the risk to public safety.

8 In 2008, approximately 12 million tons

9 of greenhouse gas emissions were avoided by using

10 coal combustion products in concrete. Through the

11 use of fly ash, federal projects avoided energy

12 use of approximately 25 billion megajoules; water

13 consumption of two billion liters; and avoided

14 carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of 3.8 million

15 metric tons.

16 Und er Subtitle D, recycling coal ash in

17 concrete will be encouraged as a safe,

18 environmentally preferrable alternative to

19 disposal. Thus, the Concrete Reinforcing Steel

20 Institute strongl y supports the implementation of

21 Subtitle D.

22 On behalf of the Concrete Reinforcing323

1 Steel Institute, I would like to thank the EPA for

2 conducting this listening session on this very

3 important and complex issue. Thank you.

4 (Applause)

5 MR. THORPE: Good afternoon. My name i s

6 Mike Thorpe and I'm a senior technical manager for

7 LifeTime Composites, LLC.

8 LifeTime Composites began with the

9 objective of creating a product that can serve as

10 a sustainable replacement for wood in any

11 nonstructural application in which wood is

12 deteriorated by the elements.

13 The result of our years of extensive

14 research and d evelopment and the product design is

15 LifeTime Lumber, an eco

- friendly wood alternative

16 that uses up to 70 percent recycled fly ash.

17 The fly ash is used as an engineered

18 fille r which is bound and encapsulated within a

19 polyurethane matrix in a proprietary process. The

20 resulting composite provides a unique combination

21 of weight, strength, hardness, flexibility and

22 resistance to water absorption.324

1 LifeTime Composites is a member of the

2 US Green Building Council, certified by the

3 Scientific Certification Systems for material

4 manufactured with a minimum of 60 percent recycled

5 content, and complies with the requirements for

6 LEED 4.1 and 4.2 credits.

7 Currently, LifeTime Composites is

8 beginning a national launch of various product

9 lines which include privacy fencing, equestrian

10 fencing, decking, docks, pergolas and arbors.

11 So far in 2010, LifeTime Composites has

12 safely recycled one million pounds of fly ash

13 within its products.

14 2011 forecasts anticipate the beneficial

15 use of five million pounds of fly ash. This

16 equates to over 76,000 cubic feet of landfill

17 space.

18 LifeTime Composites directly employs 34

19 hardworking individuals.

20 Ou r engineering and development group

21 has evaluated the toxicity characteristic leaching

22 procedure analysis for the fly ash in our products325

1 and concluded our products are safe to use in the

2 applications we are marketing.

3 The composite lumber industry is very

4 competitive and if fly ash has the association as

5 a hazardous material, the negative connotation

6 would seriously affect the sale and the use of

7 products in our industry.

8 Our marketing group has surveyed that a

9 haza rdous designation would significantly degrade

10 the public opinion of fly ash in any products that

11 are manufactured with recycled fly ash.

12 Should the EPA rule coal combustion

13 r esiduals including fly ash as hazardous, it would

14 mean redeveloping a new engineered filler that has

15 taken over ten years and millions of dollars to

16 develop.

17 This would serio usly threaten the

18 business of LifeTime Composites in the United

19 States and could lead to the loss of 34 jobs, as

20 well as the end of recycling millions of pounds of

21 material each year. Thank you.

22 (Applause)326

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Could speakers

2 with numbers 119, 120, 121, 122 and 243 come

3 forward please? While those folks are coming

4 forward, is there anyone in the room that has a

5 number between 300 and 321? What number do you

6 have? 314? Okay, you'll be in t he next group.

7 Could 119 come to the podium please? 120?

8 MR. PETERSON: Good afternoon. My name

9 is Terry Peterson. I've been working in the coal

10 combustion product industr y for 27 years. I

11 currently work for a company called Boral Material

12 Technologies. Boral is a small ash management

13 business based out of Roswell, Georgia. We have

14 161 people working at 22 power plants selling

15 material in 18 states. Just a couple of comments

16 on what's happening and what I've been hearing the

17 last couple of hearings I've attended is one of

18 the thi ngs that's been very successful and led to

19 30 years of recycling of these products is EPA's

20 support and continuing support of Subtitle D

21 classification. We think that this is a very

22 i mportant continuation of this classification, not327

1 only because of the stigma you've heard in many

2 cases about marketing, but more importantly , we

3 need more investment money in this industry to try

4 to do more with these products. We're firm

5 believers that we'd rather recycle than landfill.

6 That takes care of two problems. But we also

7 recognize that there's landfill practices out

8 there that are not up to standard and agree that

9 something needs to be done.

10 So, in conclusion, we would encourage

11 the EPA to maintain a Subtitle D classification

12 for CCRs while also working with state regulators

13 to improve landfill management procedures. This

14 logical approach will provide the solu tion for

15 both sides of this debate. Thank you for your

16 time today.

17 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 121?

18 MS. MICHETTI: Hello, I would like to

19 thank the U SEPA for holding this public hearing on

20 coal ash. We need public hearings like this on

21 more issues.

22 Coal ash needs classification as a328

1 listed toxic substance to be regulated under RCRA

2 Subtitle C with a comprehensive program with

3 federally enforceable requirements as a minimum,

4 not through citiz en suits that require deep

5 pockets and will bring bankruptcy to those

6 citizens.

7 The coal industry outrageously brags

8 they meet the standards while contaminating the

9 drinking water in Wisconsin, so Caledonia has to

10 have bottled water. Since voluntary industry

11 self

- regulation is beyond failed, industry

12 corporations must be held financially accountable

13 for all external cost including testing and

14 cleanup, not paid by individual victims of these

15 unfair, unethical externalities of their costs of

16 doing business.

17 Su btitle C as a comprehensive program of

18 federally enforceable requirements is the only

19 acceptable option with some corporate

20 accountability if adequate enforcement occurs and

21 if the cos t of violating the rules isn't cheaper

22 than the right action. So, that's all part of the329

1 picture.

2 The long

- term, overdue, precautionary

3 principle must become part of this equation before

4 any real accountability shifts the industry

5 burdens and the costs back to their source instead

6 of unfairly on the victims. The victims are

7 getting sick and tired of being victimized by

8 everything we turn around everywhere we go in

9 every aspect of our lives.

10 And the Wisconsin DNR is a politically

11 driven agency. By definition, limited legal

12 liability of coal in Wisconsin indicates that

13 serious hazards and risks do exist for the public.

14 And so, I just don't even b elieve in all of the

15 reasons that they're giving for adopting Subtitle

16 D.

17 Coal ash concentrates the arsenic,

18 cadmium and mercury. It is not cheap. The costs

19 are transferred to the public through

20 environmental pollution, adverse health effects,

21 innocent victims are harmed, absorbed coals,

22 external and polluted cost of doing business.330

1 Subtitle D option is unacceptable. It further

2 shifts the unfair cost of externalities of doing

3 business to the victims when it should be being

4 paid honestly as a cost of doing business.

5 Okay. I want to also say that people

6 are being tested for heavy metal poisoning and

7 people are being found positive with heavy met al

8 poisoning everywhere. Do you know that orthodox

9 medicine can do nothing clinically about it? They

10 can only help you if you have an acute problem,

11 not if it's chronic. It's up to you to figure it

12 out.

13 MR. BEHAN: Thank you, ma'am. Ma'am,

14 could you state your name for the record? I might

15 have missed it at the beginning.

16 MS . MICHETTI: My name is Susan

17 Michetti, I'm from Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

18 MR. BEHAN: Thank you.

19 (Applause)

20 MR. BEHAN: 122?

21 MS. BURTON: Good afternoon. My name is

22 Kathy Burton and I am a Trustee for the Village of331

1 Caledonia in the State of Wisconsin. Caledoni a

2 has a problem. We have several families that

3 cannot drink the water from their wells because of

4 high levels of molybdenum. They are afraid, and

5 rightfully so.

6 Those that want to leave cannot because

7 no one wants to buy a home with a contaminated

8 water supply. Their homes are essentially

9 worthless. So, they remain day after day, having

10 to use bottled water for their drinking and

11 cooking.

12 As their representative, I feel that it

13 is my sworn duty to help these families find

14 relief. But that task has been e xtremely

15 frustrating. The suspect company denies that they

16 are the source of the contamination, and the DNR

17 claims that it could take up to five years to find

18 the source. Meanwhile, everyone is forced to just

19 sit and wait.

20 I find this situation absolutely

21 unacceptable. As a village, we must adhere to

22 regulations and time lines imposed on us by the332

1 DNR, or face fines and penalties. Yet when the

2 village needs the DNR to be responsive and swift

3 because we have a safety situat ion, we have no

4 recourse and are expected to be patient with a

5 five

- year time line.

6 This to me is not acceptable. America

7 has some of the highest standards in the world,

8 and the fact that there are places here in America

9 where people cannot drink their water is not

10 acceptable.

11 We need this regulation under Subtitle C

12 to help pr ovide people with the basic need of

13 clean drinking water, to protect them by holding

14 these companies to a higher standard, and to seek

15 justice for them by holding them accountable when

16 they pollute. Thank you.

17 (Applause)

18 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 243?

19 MR. CLARK: I'd like to thank the EPA

20 for taking the time to listen to this ruling . My

21 name is Jim Clark and I've worked in the concrete

22 industry for 30 years. I'm currently employed by333

1 Prairie Material, the largest concrete supplier in

2 Chicago. Since 1948, Prairie Material has gone to

3 have 75 concrete plants throughout the Midwest in

4 which 98 percent of our plants use fly ash.

5 Prair ie has been using fly ash for 30 plus years

6 and we have consumed over a million tons of fly

7 ash today.

8 As you know, concrete is the most

9 versatile, durable, economical constr uction

10 material in the world. Our industry along with

11 other governing agencies have spent millions of

12 dollars in research, years of research to fully

13 understand the beneficial use of concrete. We use

14 fly ash everyday on multiple projects. We use it

15 in the construction of homes, schools, hospitals,

16 water storage, water treatment, industrial and

17 commercial projects . Some of the more familiar

18 ones are the Trump Tower, the Aqua Building, and

19 the O'Hare expansion, just to name a few.

20 Besides the obvious benefit of being

21 less expensive th an cement, it prevents CO2

22 emissions on a pound for pound basis. Fly ash is334

1 a recycled, sustainable material; labeled

2 haza rdous, it would likely end up destroying this

3 recyclable segment. Our industry has shown again

4 and again that fly ash enhances the performance as

5 well as the durability of concrete. The Federal

6 Highway Administration and the Federal Aviation

7 Administration are just two of the governing

8 agencies that have long accepted its use.

9 When the truck hauling fly ash leaves

10 the power plant, does it matter which way it

11 turns, right or left? No. Society as a whole

12 will not be able to differentiate between fly ash

13 labeled as a hazardous material and the fly ash

14 labeled as acceptable for use. The label of being

15 hazardous has its own inherent meaning and it is

16 not a good one for our industry. Engineers and

17 architects alike will quit using it o n their

18 projects because of the stigma that goes along

19 with the label. This proceeding alone has brought

20 attention to concrete specifiers and they are very

21 cautious to say the least.

22 Without the use of fly ash, the cost of335

1 concrete will go up 10 to 15 percent. We will

2 have to use more costly, l ess sustainable

3 materials to replace it. The cost will be driven

4 directly to the consumers and those costs will

5 directly affect all construction projects that use

6 concrete.

7 If somehow we were able to use fly ash

8 after labeling it hazardous, the cost would still

9 go up because of additional insurance and OSHA

10 requirements needed to handle it. If you consid er

11 this hazardous today, what was it yesterday?

12 You've just opened Pandora's box, you've bankrupt

13 the whole industry because the lawsuits would be

14 endless. We use fly ash everyday and we have not

15 had any medical issues related to it in the

16 concrete plants.

17 We are very concerned about the decision

18 of labeling of fly ash as it will directly affect

19 the way we do business. Thank you for your time.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 125, 126? Is

22 there anyone in the room that has a number below336

1 126 that has not spoken today? 314? How about

2 317? Anyone have a number 322 or lower? Or

3 between 300 and 322? How about between 324 and

4 328? Come up, sir. What number did you have?

5 328. How about 330 or 331? Come up, sir. 125,

6 if you can come to the podium. 126?

7 MS. RACE: I'm Maria Race. I'm speaking

8 today on behalf of Midwest Generation, owner and

9 operator of a coal ash landfill which is part of

10 our Joliet 9 Generating Station located in Joliet,

11 Illinois. The Joliet 9 landfill was recently

12 identified in the August 2010 publication entitled

13 "In Harm's Way" prepared by certain environmental

14 interest groups to support their claims that

15 federal regulation of coal as h is needed and, in

16 particular, regulation of coal ash as a hazardous

17 waste.

18 I've been personally involved with the

19 Joliet 9 landfill since 2001. The true story of

20 Midwest Generation's Joliet 9 landfill does not

21 support the claim that more federal regulation of

22 coal ash landfills or regulation as a hazardous337

1 waste is needed to protect the public health;

2 rather, it shows that current Illinois regulations

3 are protective of the environment and public

4 health.

5 So much of what is contained in the "In

6 Harm's Way" publication is false and misleading

7 that I will not have enough time today to identify

8 and correct all of its errors. However, I will

9 cover the most egregious of their false claims. *

10 In the "In Harm's Way" document, it claims that 18

11 nearby residential drinking water wells were

12 contaminated with boron from Midwest Generat ion,

13 and that is not true. * The document claims

14 that there is evidence of offsite contamination in

15 the direction of the Smiley subdivision, and that

16 is not true. * The document claims that there

17 was an enforcement action taken by the State of

18 Illinois, and that is not true.

19 Because the authors of "In Harm's Way"

20 elected not to discuss any of the con tents of

21 their story with Midwest Generation before

22 publishing it, we did not have the opportunity to338

1 correct these mistake s before they were published.

2 The Joliet 9 landfill has been subject

3 to IEPA regulation since the 1970's. State

4 regulations provide extensive requirements and

5 protections ag ainst the outward migration of any

6 impacted groundwater from the landfill. These

7 requirements include quarterly monitoring and

8 reporting for an extensive network of groundwater

9 monito ring wells within the boundaries of the

10 landfill for numerous constituents that are known

11 to be associated with coal ash such as boron,

12 arsenic and manganese.

13 The "In Harm's Way" document ignores

14 these requirements and the fact that Midwest

15 Generation has consistently complied with them.

16 We have acted ethically with regard to the local

17 communities. We've provided new wells in a deeper

18 aquifer when modeling showed groundwater

19 contamination could potentially reach these wells,

20 although sampling of these wells showed that none

21 of them wer e contaminated.

22 We submit that the true story of the339

1 Joliet 9 landfill is not one which supports the

2 call for fed eral regulation of coal ash disposal

3 sites or regulation as a hazardous waste. Rather,

4 it shows that states can and do effectively

5 regulate and monitor the operations of coal ash

6 land fills. It also shows that in the operation of

7 its Joliet landfill, Midwest Generation has

8 consistently taken a responsible, proactive course

9 of action when dealing with the community so the

10 risks, whether real or not, are addressed. Thank

11 you.

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 126? 314?

13 MR. VENCES: Hi, my name is Jose. And

14 in the summer camp that I go to, they took us

15 through a tour of all the places that pollute

16 Chicago. Out of all the places that are polluted

17 and that we saw, the two that concerned me the

18 most were Meyer Steel D rums and Crawford Coal

19 Plant. Meyer Steel Drums used to blow toxic ashes

20 through the neighborhood but they stopped now and

21 no one knows what they do with the ashes. Coal

22 companies do this thing called mountaintop removal340

1 when they blow up the top of a mountain for coal.

2 When these companies do this, it's bad for the US

3 and the environment. They cause asthma and

4 cancer. Please shut down these places and make

5 more clean energy like solar power and wind

6 turbines.

7 (Applau se)

8 MR. BEHAN: Thank you for your comment.

9 MS. GUZMAN: Dear EPA, when my summer

10 camp went to a field trip called the Toxic Tour,

11 at first I thought it was going t o be boring. But

12 when it finished, I remember a lot of things about

13 Crawford Coal Power Plant. This company is bad

14 for the environment and the people around their

15 neighborhood becaus e it could create asthma,

16 cancer and other disease. Please shut down this

17 place and build more clean energy. Sincerely,

18 Leslie Guzman.

19 (Applause)

20 MR. SEGURO: Hi, I'm Gustavo. Dear EPA,

21 do your job and make people stop polluting and

22 help clean the Gulf of Mexico. Animals are dying,341

1 not to mention birds and turtles. Please close

2 Meyer Steel Drum and Crawford Coal Power Plant in

3 Chicago. Conclusion: Stop Polluting.

4 (Applause)

5 MS. ASEJAGA: Dear EPA, one of my family

6 members has asthma. You should stop coal and the

7 power plants because my cousin can get hurt. We

8 need a good environment.

9 You should close the steel drums and

10 Crawford coal power plant because they are

11 polluting. Please use clean energy instead like

12 solar and wind. These are better for the earth

13 and people. Dyannara Asejaga.

14 (Applause)

15 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 328 please?

16 MR. ZELLNER: Yes, my name is Ralph

17 Zellner. I'm from the Green Bay, Wisco nsin area.

18 I think it's mandatory that you pass Subtitle C

19 and here are some of the reasons.

20 My problem is they put one of these

21 cancer pits right across the road from my hou se.

22 First of all, we were never notified that this342

1 thing was coming in or nothing. We had to follow

2 the trucks back to the

-- plant to find out that

3 they were hauling this fly ash. They put this

4 thing in there. They never did any borings to see

5 if this was going to be a safe place to put this

6 stuff or n ot. They had been dumping debris in

7 there for probably 20 years.

8 Now, when that debris decomposes, the

9 bottom of that liner, they only put in a clay

10 liner, that's just going to fall right out. This

11 stuff is going to get right in the water because

12 we're on the Niagara Escarpment and it's total

13 rock there so it won't hold nothing. The water

14 was polluted t here once before but it was not from

15 this product, it was from TCE.

16 When we were told about the liability

17 for this thing, Wisconsin has passed a law that

18 the liability falls totally on the taxpayers. The

19 guy who put the stuff in there or was paid for

20 putting it in there will have no liability at all.

21 So, we'll have bad water and there will be nobody

22 to ta ke care of it because with the TCE, all they343

1 did was like the people down at Caledonia, they

2 brought them a water bottle or something, they p ut

3 a water tank up there, you go fill up your own

4 water jugs.

5 So, I think it's very essential that you

6 do something that this is mandatory and that we

7 have a law that pertains to everybody in this

8 country that they can't just go around changing

9 and putting their own regulations in place and it

10 all depends who is in political power and they get

1 1 done what they want and the people will have to

12 pay the price.

13 And the thing is about the fly ash,

14 they're always saying, well, we're going to have

15 to use a lot more la ndfills for it, I do not

16 believe we have to use any more landfills because

17 this fly ash can be put right back into train cars

18 that haul the coal and be hauled back to the

19 mountains wh ere it came from.

20 (Applause)

21 MR. ZELLNER: And another thing, I

22 believe the stigma about the TVA or whatever, the344

1 Tennessee Valley Association down there where they

2 had the big leak, I think it's just the stigma

3 being used by the industry or fly ash industry to

4 make it look like, y ou know, that we're putting

5 something up. But all I think is this was the

6 last straw that broke the camel's back. Thank

7 you.

8 (Applause)

9 MR. BEHAN: Thank you, sir. We're going

10 to make a one

- member panel switch right now. Let

11 the record show that Jesse Miller, USEPA, is

12 returning to the panel to replace Julie Gevrenow.

13 I understand 118 is now here? Could 118

14 come forward? Or maybe not. 110? Is there

15 anyone in the room that has a number 120 or lower

16 that has not spoken today? Okay.

17 240, 188 and 139. When you're ready,

18 ma'am.

19 MS. WALLACE: Good afternoon. I'm

20 Katherine Wallace from the Topless America Project

21 which is an environmental, social just ice and

22 media organization. In our last five years, I've345

1 had the opportunity to go around the country

2 documenting and witn essing the effects of coal on

3 local communities. Unfortunately, our nation is

4 still dependent on coal. But the more we regulate

5 and enforce those regulations, the coal companies

6 will have a harder time capitalizing on the

7 devastation inflicted on their employees and

8 communities they infiltrate. And that would allow

9 more opportunity for cleaner, renewable energies

10 to compete against such a dirty industry as coal

11 which literally gets away with murder.

12 Coal ash and incidents like the TVA

13 spill in 2008 are just another example of how our

14 regulations don't harbor devastating destruction

15 on local communities. Sitting in your living room

16 shouldn't have toxic effects no matter where you

17 live. Arsenic, mercury, aluminum and titanium are

18 only a few examples of the chemicals and heavy

19 metals which poison unfortunate human beings who

20 live near to a toxic waste impoundment, a coal

21 plant or a mining site. Eventually, the

22 contamination will spread from these local346

1 communities through spills, transportation on

2 trucks and trains, and will travel downwind and

3 upstream.

4 This is not only an issue for those who

5 are sick today. This is an issue for a whole

6 nation who will be poisoned by those

7 contaminat ions sooner or later.

8 I'm here to tell you that whether it is

9 coal ash or coal in general, this will only cause

10 destruction. Any way you try to disguise it,

11 through cement o r containment ponds, it will

12 always seep through to the people.

13 So, I ask you, EPA, please protect your

14 citizens and your environment by regulating coal

15 ash as a Subtitle C a s suggested.

16 (Applause)

17 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 240?

18 MS. REILLY: Thank you for this

19 opportunity to comment on this important

20 rulem aking. My name is Michalene Reilly and I'm

21 the manager of Environmental Services for Hoosier

22 Energy Rural Electric Cooperative.347

1 Hoosier Energy is a not

- for

- profit

2 generation and transmission cooperative serving

3 over 290,000 rural consumers at 48 Central and

4 Southern Indiana counties and 11 Southeastern

5 Illinois counties. As an Indiana utility, our

6 baseload portfolio is mainly coal, and as such,

7 our members will be disproportionately impacted by

8 a final coal combustion residue rule, particular ly

9 one that regulates coal ash as hazardous waste. I

10 see nothing special in the euphemistic term of

11 "special waste" that is being used in the

12 regulation. In fact, despite numerous st udies and

13 reports, including two EPA made to Congress

14 stating that coal ash does not exhibit

15 concentrations of leachable metals that would be

16 considered hazardous under current regulat ions,

17 political pressure from interest groups has led

18 the EPA to disregard their own scientific results

19 and propose a listed hazardous classification for

20 CCRs.

21 Hoosier Energy supports development of

22 federal regulations for CCRs under RCRA Subtitle D348

1 non

- hazardous waste program and believes that t he

2 Subtitle D Prime provides substantial safety for

3 human health and the environment. In fact, the

4 standards for landfill design under the EPA

5 proposals are essentially equal under th e Subtitle

6 D and Subtitle C options. Statements have been

7 made that Subtitle D or D Prime would be akin to

8 the design for a municipal solid waste landfill,

9 and Hooser Energy concurs w ith that assessment.

10 The fact is that municipal landfills are designed

11 to ensure that waste of all types thrown in the

12 trash by homeowners are protective. This includes

13 conditionally exempt wastes, mercury thermometers,

14 fluorescent light tubes, CFLs, lighting ballasts

15 and batteries. In fact, the design of municipal

16 landfills recognizes the disposal, with an

17 adequa te safety factor, of materials from

18 households that would fail test for hazardous

19 characteristics. However, this is not the case

20 for CCRs as they do not exhibit the hazardous

21 waste le vels for the same constituents.

22 In a time when jobs are scarce, when it349

1 is difficult to make ends meet, and when the

2 middle class is being squeezed by rising energy

3 prices and decreases in pay, it would be

4 irresponsible for EPA to over

- regulate coal ash

5 for the purpose of "equalizing the cost of power

6 between coal and renewables." Administrator

7 Jackson in her confirmation hearing testimony said

8 that EPA would use science to dictate the

9 direction of regulation. We call on EPA to let

10 their own scientific studies and their previous

11 determinations not to regulate ash as hazardous to

12 guide the way to regulations that are protective

13 but not excessive. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 200, 175, 140,

16 210 and 312. Ma'am, you showed me your number.

17 Was it 312? Oh, 320, okay. 320. 200 please?

18 M S. DeCLUE: Hello. My name is Mary

19 Ellen DeClue. I'm from Litchfield, Illinois,

20 Montgomery County. All around me are coal mines,

21 Shay One to my west, Crown Three to the north, and

22 D eer Run which is being constructed to my east.350

1 South, I have a coal fired power plant, so I'm

2 pretty familiar with the coal situation.

3 The mine operators and the utility

4 operators, their job is to make money. And

5 they're good at it. The job of the EPA is to make

6 sure that when they make their money, that they

7 are also protecting the health and safety of

8 citizens. We desperately need national,

9 enforceable minimum standards. We have to have

10 that because basically there is quite a

1 1 variability within the states about how laws and

12 rules are enforced. And Illinois is very much a

13 pro

- coal state.

14 I would like to establish the fact that

15 we've talked a bout toxic metals, arsenic, lead,

16 mercury. That's fine. No one has talked about

17 PAHs, that poly aromatic cyclic hydrocarbons.

18 These are semi

- volatile chemicals that are

19 carcinogenic, are known to attach to particles

20 like fly ash or fluidized bed coal waste. And so,

21 basically if EPA could characterize, you know, we

22 see coal combustion waste or residue or351

1 byproducts, I mean that's lumping very different

2 items together. You need to characterize, do

3 analyses, chemical analyses.

4 If those products are benign

5 environmentally, they're clean, I don't think any

6 of us care what we do with it. That would, if

7 anything, help beneficial use. I would be the

8 first, th e first to say if it's not toxic, please

9 don't put it in a landfill, use it. Please use

10 it. But what we have to establish is minimum

11 standards and actually characterize what we're

12 ta lking about.

13 It's ironic that the utility companies

14 concentrated, they put on the anti

- pollution, they

15 concentrated the chemicals, and now we have

16 allowed them to basically p ut those toxic

17 chemicals wherever. Especially what's egregious

18 is to put it in mine voids, where you're not

19 monitoring it, you can't see it, it affects the

20 groundwater. So, please, p lease consider Subtitle

21 C. The citizens will thank you for it. Thank

22 you.352

1 (Applause)

2 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 320?

3 MS. BOUDART: I'm Jan Boudart. I live

4 in Rogers Park, Chicago. I belong to the Rogers

5 Park Sustainable Food System and the Chicago

6 Conse rvation Corps. I am now active in Habitat

7 Restoration and am helping to create a Museum of

8 Native Plants on the shores of Lake Michigan in

9 Rogers Park. I wanted to thank the EPA for an

10 opportunity to speak to this issue of coal ash.

11 As a budding scientist in Salt Lake

12 City, I was exposed to coal smoke constantly,

13 including our own coal burning furnace that heated

14 our house. Periodically, someone would come by to

15 pick up the powder and clinkers, but there was

16 never any information as to whether they were safe

17 or where they were taken. But now we know, and we

18 are learning more everyday, mainly, that the more

19 we investigate, the more realize that the danger

20 is much greater than we realized last year, last

21 week or even yesterday.

22 The Bush administration refused to take353

1 action against arsenic in water even after its

2 danger was understood. But no w we have an

3 administration that not only believes in science

4 but also believes in protecting its most important

5 resource

- its people. And about 40 years ago,

6 European governments took action against their

7 citizens' exposure to lead as soon as its dangers

8 were known. But in the United States, the

9 influence of paint manufacturers and corporations

10 prevented action to the great suffering of many

11 Americans.

12 Regulating coal ash will have a minor

13 effect on industrial uses. As has been pointed

14 out, industry always claims that it is doom for

15 their industry to regulate it. But you will

16 notice that we have heard from several sheet rock

17 manufacturers and the representatives from their

18 associations and coalitions. Did you no tice who

19 we're not hearing from? The laborers and workers

20 who deal with the raw materials of sheet rock and

21 Portland cement. They have not been mentioned as

22 victims of unregulated ha ndling of fly ash and354

1 clinkers.

2 (Applause)

3 MS. BOUDART: Regulating coal ash will

4 have an effect on the industrial uses but it's

5 much better to regulate it and protect citizens

6 than it is to allow, it's going to cost a lot

7 more, a lot of sick people and sick parents with

8 alienated children, et cetera. Now we have

9 another opportunity to place coal ash in a special

10 category under Subtitle C of the Resource

11 Conservation and Recovery Act. We must act

12 decisively to protect our born and unborn children

13 and all the citizens of our country. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MR. BEHAN: Thank you, ma'am. Are

16 numbers 127, 128, 129, 130 and 131 here? If so,

17 could you come forward?

18 132, 133, 134, 135, 136?

19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: 132 would like to

20 speak later.

21 MR. BEHAN: Okay, that's fine. Okay,

22 all numbers below 136 were scheduled to speak355

1 before our dinner break. Seeing that there are no

2 speakers at that time, I'm going to go ahead and

3 use the rest of the time now between now and 6:00

4 to call all those people that are here. So, I'm

5 going to start calling some numbers tha t I know

6 that are in the room or might be here. 158, 165?

7 I can't read numbers. 140? I can't read these

8 numbers. Okay, hold on, hold on. 351, 139, okay.

9 That's enough for now, tha nk you.

10 If those individuals could self order

11 over there and announce their number when they

12 come up to the podium, that would be great. Thank

13 you.

14 MR. MILLER: I'm 158. My name is John

15 Miller. I've worked in the fly ash industry for

16 Headwaters Resources for seven years. But I come

17 before you today as a private citizen.

18 I've always been a supporter of the EPA

19 in the job they have before them. I believe very

20 strongly in protecting our environment. I'm a

21 proud father, grandfather and husband. My

22 13

- year

- old son and I spend every second that we356

1 can in the outdoors, enjoying it with everything

2 that we have. But I believe the goal of the EPA

3 should be to protect the environment based upon

4 science and not politics. I believe that a large

5 part of this is a political effort to gain control

6 over the coal industry.

7 There are a few points I'd like to make

8 concerning the proposed Subtitle C regulation.

9 How would we pay for the increased cost of power

10 generation this will result in? What if w e are

11 wrong as we heard people testify that the Subtitle

12 C designation would impact and destroy the

13 beneficial use of fly ash? I talk to users

14 everyday and I truly believe this will h appen.

15 How many jobs are we willing to lose if this

16 industry is destroyed? There are thousands of

17 jobs that could be impacted by this decision.

18 Any Subtitle C hazardous mate rial

19 designation will impact this industry. Subtitle C

20 will destroy one of the most successful recycling

21 programs ever in the US. It will have allowed

22 millions of tons of CO2 to be e ntered into the357

1 atmosphere in a year. It will have put thousands

2 of people out of work and will increase the cost

3 of power generations. There is options for both

4 the utility and end users of fly ash. They do not

5 have to use this product.

6 There is basically no difference between

7 Subtitle C and Subtitle D in terms of protecting

8 the environment. With Subtitle D, there is no

9 doubt that this recycling will continue to grow.

10 There will be less materials and landfill around

11 the c ountry. There will be millions of tons less

12 of CO2 and we will have improved the disposal

13 methods for CCPs in wet impoundments.

14 I agree, wet impoundments need to be

15 regulate d. I agree, more stringent regulations,

16 putting liners, groundwater testing and monitoring

17 needs to be done as outlined in your Subtitle D

18 proposal. The part I have a concern is whether

19 EPA would support the continued beneficial use of

20 the fly ash through a proposal of regulation that

21 would impact and possibly destroy it.

22 If we go forward with a Subtitle C358

1 regulation, we will impact the environment by

2 destroying one of the most successful recycling

3 programs. We will place, as I stated earlie r,

4 millions of tons of CO2 in the environment every

5 year. Subtitle C will greatly increase the amount

6 of tons in landfill every year.

7 The carbon footprint to dispose of CCPs

8 is massive. Thousands of machines will be

9 operating daily to be able to do this. I ask the

10 EPA to do the right thing and to protect the

11 environment and to choose the Subtitle D prop osal

12 for the regulation of coal ash. Thank you for

13 your time.

14 MR. BEHAN: Thank you.

15 MS. ZEMAN: 165. My name is Christine

16 Zeman, Regulatory Aff airs Manager for City Water,

17 Light & Power, the municipal utility of the City

18 of Springfield, Illinois. Thank you for the

19 opportunity to express why we oppose regulation of

20 ash under Subtitle C and under Subtitle D of RCRA

21 except potentially under Subtitle D Prime.

22 Illinois has long regulated the359

1 integrity of structures like ash structures, has

2 strict groundwater standards, has strict landfill

3 regulations that already meet Subtitle D, and

4 strictly limits the beneficial uses of coal ash,

5 protecting the environment while also encouraging

6 their reuse. Further, Illinois recently

7 established strict closure requirements for

8 specific ash ponds.

9 In some ways, this regulation is

10 premature. USEPA recently sent two different

11 teams of consultants into our site to inspect and

12 investigate our ash handling system as well as our

13 ash ponds a nd their integrity. And we are in the

14 middle of doing an extensive ICR. We just now put

15 the information into the mail to USEPA. It seems

16 like USEPA should have the benefit of those

17 observations, analyses and details before

18 proceeding further on this rule. We haven't seen

19 the results of either of the site inspections.

20 CWLP currently operates four coal

21 c ombustion units burning Illinois coal from a

22 local mine, having installed scrubbers as early as360

1 1980. Last year, we began commercial operati on of

2 a new unit, Dallman 4, which won accolades from

3 engineering and environmental groups alike,

4 including for our unique agreement with the Sierra

5 Club. While the new unit was const ructed

6 utilizing dry ash, the older three sluice ash to

7 our ash ponds. Converting the existing units to

8 dry ash was studied but deemed not feasible or

9 exorbitantly expensive.

10 Our ash ponds are low risk. The ash

11 ponds are near the city's public water supply

12 system which has consistently met drinking water

13 standards and has seen no influence from the ash

14 ponds. We seek but cannot always find beneficial

15 uses for our ash and often must pay for its reuse,

16 especially in the present economy. The increased

17 risk associated with its classific ation as

18 hazardous will increase the cost for its reuse as

19 we've already heard today, and will dissuade many

20 recyclers from accepting it due to CERCLA strict

21 liability scheme.

22 At the request of the League of Cities361

1 and the Conference of Mayors, CWLP estimated that

2 under current prices, the cost t o dispose of our

3 ash as hazardous would increase by $8 to $20

4 million annually, which for our small municipality

5 is an exorbitant cost that would be passed

6 directly onto our customers, the citizens of

7 Springfield and businesses when they can least

8 afford it. That doesn't include the increased

9 cost of disposal that is likely to arise because

10 of the increased competi tion for disposal

11 capacity.

12 For these reasons, we do encourage

13 regulation of ash under Subtitle D Prime if at

14 all. Thank you very much.

15 MR. BEHAN : Thank you.

16 MR. FLENNER: My name is Sam Flenner,

17 I'm from Indianapolis. I do outreach work for

18 Environmental Integrity Project. I do want to

19 say, after listening to the hearing so far, I do

20 applaud those in the reuse industry who are doing

21 their very best to adequately encapsulate a

22 hazardous waste into products so that they don't362

1 leach and affect people's health. And I also want

2 to applaud the EPA for doing their best to try to

3 juggle this very difficult issue and come up with

4 adequate responses for both sides.

5 I also want to say that just last week I

6 spoke with people in Sullivan, Indiana who have

7 had a total home remodeling project paid for by

8 Hoosier Energy because the coal ash that came off

9 of their dry landfill site totally ruined their

10 home. And so, I do believe there is nothing that

11 you could do when you're encapsulating this stuf f

12 about the stuff that is not being encapsulated,

13 and that's where the problem is and that

14 absolutely must be handled under Subtitle C. The

15 EPA absolutely must have authority because the

16 state regulatory agencies are doing absolutely

17 nothing to help these people and this type of

18 example right here is not an isolated example.

19 It's very common.

20 In fact, there are some

21 misinterpretations about determinations about coal

22 ash in the past. In 1993, when the EPA made a363

1 determination for Subtitle D, they did state that

2 the current disposal practices at the time could

3 cause health and environmental problems in the

4 future, and they have. In 2000, the

5 determination, the press release from the EPA,

6 there has been a whole drumbeat of letters talking

7 about how the EPA determines D, EPA determined

8 that. But here I'll take a quote from what they

9 determined in the year 2000 and the quote is from

10 their press release. Their press release states

11 that "If the states and industry do not take steps

12 to address these wastes adequately in a reasonable

13 amount of time, and if the EPA identifies

14 additional risk to public health, EPA will revisit

15 this decision," and this revisiting of the

16 decision is not any bit too soon.

17 Since then, there have been a number of

18 EPA recognized damage cases which has increased

19 from 6 to 67. Even if the recently released

20 non

- profit reports are not factored in, th at's a

21 tenfold increase in damage cases which merits more

22 investigation. And this type of investigation as364

1 voluntary under Subtitle D is absolutely not going

2 to happen. Anything that gets landfilled needs to

3 go to Subtitle C. Thank you.

4 (Applause)

5 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Next sp eaker?

6 MR. NIEBERGALL: 251. Everybody hear

7 me? Hi, I have good news for you today. I am not

8 here to help you guys decide whether you're going

9 to go C or D. I'm here as y our guy on the street,

10 okay? I own five businesses. I'm very familiar

11 with regulation.

12 One of the businesses I own is a

13 sandblasting abrasives company, okay? Now, here

14 is the problem. You know, I would not normally be

15 up here, I would not normally be the guy up here.

16 I'm not a big environmental guy. But when I heard

17 about these hearings and I've watch ed the way the

18 industry has changed over the last number of

19 years, I was in it back when they sandblasted with

20 sand. Great abrasive, works awesome. Small

21 problem, the stuff hits the wall, atomizes,

22 becomes unencapsulated, people breathe it in, they365

1 get silicosis. The government says uh

- uh, we

2 don't want no more of that because, you know, if

3 you're dead you can't pay taxes, that whole thing.

4 So, they decided, you know what, no more sand,

5 we're going to come out with something called

6 B lack Beauty, coal slag.

7 Well, one problem. It's black but it's

8 not beautiful. You know, in the 1997, EPA called

9 it a hazardous airborne pollutant, okay? So, now

10 that's bee n established. But the problem is it's

11 like the elephant in the middle of the room. What

12 do you do? You put a doily on it, you put a nice

13 lamp on it? Everybody knows it but nobody wants

1 4 to do anything about it, okay?

15 So, on June 21st in your new release,

16 you said that you were going to pull it from the

17 Beneficial Use Program. Here is my problem, okay?

18 I sell recycled glass, New Age Blast Media. Okay,

19 I'm out there trying to talk to big businesses and

20 trying to talk to the sandblasters and trying to

21 get them to use our product which I know is EPA

22 compliant, OSHA compliant, carbon compliant, US366

1 Military compliant, all the acronyms, it's

2 compliant to. But I have, and I s ubmit to you

3 this, the May 4th article on the JPCL, okay, where

4 a big business and Harsco and Black Beauty say

5 "The EPA Draft Proposal released May 4th...

6 strongly supports beneficial reuse of coal

7 combustion byproducts and is not seeking to

8 regulate beneficial uses." Okay, that's their

9 words.

10 Now, this has been their mantra all

11 summer. They're lying, okay, they are constantly

12 jumping through the hoop. This is what we're

13 asking of you. If you're going to come down on

14 the side of the fence, be stern. Tell them, look,

15 we do not support this, we do not support

16 unencapsulated use, okay? That's the problem. If

17 you're going to say something, say it, be stern

18 about it and let the hammer come down and let it

19 be right. That's what we're asking for. Thank

20 you.

21 (Applause)

22 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Next speaker367

1 please.

2 MR. BARGAHEISER: My name is Keith

3 Bargaheiser. I'm the National Manager of CCP

4 Utilization. 30 years ago I did my Master's

5 thesis on the utilization of coal combustion

6 products.

7 My issues today address the stigma

8 associated with the proposed rule and a suggestion

9 for compromise. I was involved in a therap eutic

10 riding program in Ohio which aided disabled

11 children, and on rainy damp days these children

12 were unable to go riding due to the fact that it

13 was dangerous. Coal combustion produ cts, bottom

14 ash, was looked at being utilized for the project,

15 and at the very end the owners decided to not do

16 this due to the fact of what happened in the TVA,

17 and all the conversati ons about toxicity and being

18 a hazardous material, they felt the liability was

19 too high. We showed them that there's many

20 materials that we utilize today such as shampoos,

21 foods, anim al foods, bibs for our children and

22 fillings in our teeth that have more toxic368

1 chemicals than what bottom ash had, but it didn't

2 matter.

3 It is recognized from your draft

4 proposal that you do not believe that this is a

5 beneficial use. However, I would ask you, how can

6 this not be when so much goo d could have come out

7 of this? We could have avoided landfilling of

8 waste material, virgin material would have been

9 spared, the impact of our carbon footprint would

10 have been reduced, and both the kids and animals

11 would have been safer. There is a stigma here.

12 We need to reach deep within ourselves,

13 and that's both industry, EPA and

14 environmentalists, an d put aside our differences

15 to find out what the real answers are, because the

16 right answers for our nation, environment and in

17 common are very important. Under the existing

18 draft rul e, there will be no winners. There will

19 only be lawsuits and years of confrontation as we

20 exist right now.

21 I ask you to look for a compromise and

22 comprise a committee of the stakeholders here.369

1 And take this opportunity to utilize their

2 knowledge and come to a consensus and a decision

3 on this rat her than going one way or the other. I

4 thank you.

5 (Applause)

6 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 357?

7 MS. NOWAK: My name is Josephine Nowak

8 a nd I'm a Loyola nursing student who is currently

9 doing my clinical rotation at Loyola Medical

10 Center

-- I'm sorry.

11 I'm Josephine Nowak, I'm a Loyola

12 nursing student and I'm c urrently doing my

13 pediatric rotation at Loyola Medical Center in

14 Maywood. And in my rotation I have seen numerous

15 children come in with asthma exacerbations, and

16 these children who do come are mainly of Hispanic

17 and African American backgrounds which, as we

18 know, the coal plants are located in those

19 communities. And I just wanted to say that

20 besides seeing these c hildren with asthma

21 exacerbations and the whole issue of them not

22 having insurance and all of that with the370

1 healthcare syst em, I'm not going into that, the

2 coal ash is a huge problem that is not being

3 regulated. It's contaminating water supplies

4 elsewhere and not just affecting the air, you

5 know, in this area. And we need strong

6 regulations to help keep people safe and healthy

7 from both in this area and wherever this ash is

8 being disposed. And I want enforcement fines high

9 enough to deter strategic violations for profits.

10 And I'm in strong support of Subtitle C.

11 (Applause)

12 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Could numbers

13 321, 170, 186 and 231 come fo rward please? 321?

14 MR. SHOCK: My name is Dennis Shock, I'm

15 a retired clergyman from Carmel, Indiana. And

16 thank you for the opportunity to be here. It's

17 been a long day, I 've learned a lot.

18 But as a clergyman, I came today out of

19 a deep concern for caring for creation. It's my

20 belief and that of many people of faith that one

21 of the purposes o f our being here on earth is to

22 be stewards, good stewards of the earth. Many of371

1 us are alarmed at the unregulated tons of coal ash

2 being accumulated in Indiana and in our nation.

3 As I've listened today, some people seem

4 to speak almost as if regulation is a dirty word,

5 but we regulate many things for good purpos es, for

6 the public good. Coal ash contains many toxins,

7 and in my mind that makes it hazardous. It is

8 common sense.

9 And so, I bring today a brief statement

10 endorsed by 17 members of faith, most of them

11 clergy, and I'm going to read that statement now

12 and then I'll turn that in:

13 "As people of faith, we consider the

14 unregulated accumulation of coal ash in Indiana to

15 be dangerous to people's health, and therefore, a

16 moral as well as a legal issue. Coal ash contains

17 many toxins that threaten to contaminate our

18 groundwater and should be regulated as a hazardous

19 waste. We, therefore, support strong public

20 safeguards under Subtitle C. Thank you."

21 And that's signed by 17 of us, most of

22 them clergy and then lay people as well. Thank372

1 you.

2 (Applause)

3 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 170?

4 MR. ZIMMERMAN: Good afternoon. My name

5 is Tom Zimmerman, I'm with Boral Composites, Inc.

6 We're a new startup business, a wholly owned

7 subsidiary of Boral US. We're focused on the

8 manufacture of green building products. As a

9 startup, we're just now getting underway with our

10 first commercial facility. We broke ground last

11 week. We're building a LEED fac ility in North

12 Carolina. A large part of our product utilizes a

13 specific coal combustion residue or CCR. This

14 offers our product an enhanced performance as well

15 as a green content. We utilize the CCRs as

16 rapidly renewable materials and recycled content.

17 Our customers are not typically

18 scientists or environmental policy makers. They

19 will likely not be a ware that the EPA has formally

20 encouraged the use of CCRs since 1983, or that the

21 EPA has twice ruled that CCRs are non

- hazardous,

22 going so far as to form the Coal Combustion373

1 Products Partnership in 2003, or that the USGBC,

2 US Green Building Council, American Society for

3 Testing and Materials (ASTM) or the American

4 Concrete Institute all endorse and encourage the

5 use of CCRs. Unfortunately, our customers are

6 more likely to hear inaccurate information about

7 CCRs and that their beneficial uses are from

8 uninformed or biased media sources, negative

9 stigmas that will not only exacerbate with

10 unwarranted changes

-- I hate speaking in public

11

-- designated Subtitle C.

12 We currently support the EPA's effort to

13 protect human health and the environment. We

14 further believe that CCR disposal should be done

15 in a responsible manner to avoid ash spills like

16 the tragic storage failure at the TVA's Kingston,

17 Tennessee plant in December 2008. However, poor

18 storage facilities or mishandling of designated

19 non

- hazardous materials should not be grounds f or

20 changing the classification of the material

21 itself, therefore jeopardizing one of the most

22 successful recycling programs in the US history.374

1 Boral Composites is only a small startup

2 business but a great example of green

- tech,

3 advanced manufacturing opportunities that our

4 economy desperately nee ds. As I mentioned, last

5 Thursday we broke ground on our LEED facility

6 going into North Carolina. It's a $13 million

7 investment on close to four acres of land. This

8 facility will cr eate 25 jobs when completely built

9 out, in addition to supporting another 25 sales

10 shops across the country.

11 The decision that the EPA makes around

12 CCR classification will di rectly impact this new

13 green

- tech business, these new job opportunities

14 and future job opportunities that this business

15 would create. The negative stigma associated with

16 hazardous cla ssification through Subtitle C is

17 real and will virtually eliminate demand for these

18 products and our business overnight. We want to

19 find a more responsible way to deal with CCR

20 stora ge and storage issues that the Kingston,

21 Tennessee plant has brought to light. Subtitle C

22 is not the answer. Thank you.375

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 186?

2 MR. DOUGLAS: My name is Mark Douglas

3 and I'm President of the Iowa Utility Association

4 which is a state organization of investor

- owned

5 electric, natural gas and transmission companies

6 with energy facilities in Iowa. I am here on

7 behalf of our association members and principally

8 on behalf of two of our member electric companies,

9 MidAmerican Energy and Alliant Energy. I would

10 also like the record to note that my comments also

11 have the support of Iowa's generation and

12 transmission cooperative members of the Iowa

13 Association of Electric Cooperatives.

14 I'd like the panel to note that our

15 state is second among all US states in the amount

16 of installed wind generation. We also have been

17 long

- time leaders in the United States as far as

18 energy efficiency programs. I say this because as

19 our companies make further investments in these

20 areas, coal fire generation remains a ver y

21 important part of course of providing baseload

22 generation to Iowans.376

1 We are supportive of the development of

2 federal regulations of CCR under a Subtitle D

3 Prime non

- hazardous waste rule. We would,

4 however, express our opposition to regulation of

5 CCRs under the Subtitle C hazardous program.

6 In 2000, the EPA evaluated and resolved

7 the issues of whether CCR should be regulated as

8 hazardous waste. In the year 2000, the EPA issued

9 a final regulatory determination that CCR does not

10 warrant hazardous waste regulation, concluding

11 instead that Subtitle D regulations are "the most

12 appropriate mechanism for ensuring that these

13 wastes disposed of in landf ills and surface

14 impoundments are managed safely."

15 This position is also supported by state

16 regulatory agencies that have to date weighed in

17 on this issue and oppose the regu lation of CCR as

18 hazardous waste. These state agencies make the

19 compelling case that Subtitle C regulation of CCR

20 is unnecessary as CCR does not exhibit hazardous

21 waste characteristic s and would draw limited state

22 resources away from more pressing environmental377

1 health issues.

2 We would also submi t that the regulation

3 of CCR as a hazardous waste would have devastating

4 impact on the beneficial use of these materials.

5 You already heard that from many businesses today.

6 O f particular concern to our state is

7 that the elimination of beneficial use

8 applications would clearly and quickly overwhelm

9 existing Subtitle C disposal capacity. There are

10 no existi ng hazardous waste landfills in Iowa and

11 only one in the six states that are contiguous to

12 Iowa. Our companies will be forced to transport

13 CCR great distances at great cost to just a few of

14 the permitted sites in the Midwest and the West.

15 Most certainly, the available capacity for

16 additional CCR at those sites would be quickly

17 overwhelmed.

18 In conclusion, we submit that the EPA

19 should regulate CCR under Subtitle D. This will

20 continue to ensure the protection of human health

21 and environment without adversely impacting its

22 beneficial use . Thank you.378

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 231?

2 MR. MUSSELMAN: Good afternoon. My name

3 is Michael Musselma n and I work specifically in

4 the ag industry, working with farmers who grow

5 food on the precious soil that we have here in

6 Illinois. I specifically work in the Central

7 Illinois area a nd I have a gentleman here today

8 that also uses the FGD gypsum on his own farm.

9 So, my comments specifically today are regarding

10 FGD gypsum and its agricultural and the

11 classification of that.

12 My comments would be to avoid labeling

13 FGD gypsum as a hazardous waste and avoid

14 regulating it under Subtitle C. And I want to

15 echo the comments the gentleman from Ohio, the

16 professor gave the beneficial uses of gypsum for

17 what it can do for the environment, improving the

18 soils and so forth. We are getting the product

19 out of the Springfield powe r plant which currently

20 has ag use, and the potential there is for

21 hundreds of thousands of tons of this material to

22 be used in a beneficial manner. And I would echo379

1 the comments from the lady from Litchfield that it

2 would be good in any type of regulation that you

3 specifically don't broad brush the situation but

4 go to each level of what material is being used.

5 If FGD gypsum was classified as a

6 hazardous material, it would probably pretty much

7 do away with the use for ag use because you're not

8 going to get a farmer to put hazardous material on

9 his soil to grow a crop that someone is going to

10 use as food. So, I want to be very cautious or

11 caution you that it is very importa nt to be

12 specific and I think that toxic material should be

13 regulated. Everyone would agree with that. So,

14 it's the appropriate regulation, the appropriate

15 classification and ethical consideration first.

16 And people will pay more for a product if they

17 know it's been ethically taken care of and done.

18 So, I'll again echo, FGD gypsum should

19 not be a hazardou s waste, it has beneficial use,

20 and I would avoid regulating it under the Subtitle

21 C. Thank you.

22 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Could numbers380

1 128, 131, 232, 330 and 359 come forward please?

2 If 128 could come to the podium?

3 MR. MONK: Good afternoon. My name is

4 James Monk. I'm President of t he Illinois Energy

5 Association which is a trade association

6 representing investor

- owned electricity and

7 natural gas utilities and electricity generators

8 here in the State of Illinois. Thank you for

9 providing the opportunity to present testimony on

10 behalf of the state's energy industry on this

11 vital and important topic.

12 Members of the energy association or

13 generators I think will also be providing

14 testimony, so the main focus of my testimony is

15 going to be from the perspective of the local

16 distribution utilities, electric utilities. Th e

17 two main utilities in our state are Commonwealth

18 Edison that serves Chicago and the northern part

19 of the state, and the Ameren Illinois Utilities

20 which serves basically the lower two

- thirds of the

21 state.

22 Our state has a competitive electricity381

1 industry where generation and distribution

2 entities are separated by function. Our local

3 distribution electric utilities do not own or

4 control generation facilities such as those which

5 produce coal ash. However, our distribution

6 companies do purchase electricity generated by

7 those facilities and deliver that electricity to

8 industrial, commercial and residential end users.

9 The rates for distributing electricity are set by

10 our state utility regulatory commission but the

11 cost of the commodity itself is determined by the

12 competitive market.

13 We believe that regulating coal

14 combustion residuals as hazardous waste would have

15 an extremely negative effect on the cost of

16 electricity in Illinois and our competitive

17 marketplace. In some instances, generation

18 companies would be required to spend enormous sums

19 of money to make the infrastructure changes in the

20 power plants necessary to comply with the

21 regulation. And in other situations, on a plant

22 by plant economic analysis, plants might in fact382

1 be shut down rather than make those types of

2 infrastructure investments.

3 The additional cost of compliance will

4 certainly find their way into the price of

5 electricity. In our competitive system, those

6 price increases would be figured in to the

7 procurement of electricity to supply our

8 customers, either directly by the State of

9 Illinois which procures power on behalf of what we

10 call default customers, or indirectly through

11 third party brokers who purchase power and then

12 resell it to mostly our industrial and commercial

13 customers. So, in this situation, we feel that

14 there would be, if the ash was regulated as a

15 hazardous waste, in our competitive system the

16 increased cost to comply with that regulation

17 would in fact have a negative economic effect on

18 our business as electric utilities and certainly

19 on the customers who have to pay the cost of that

20 electricity.

21 For those reasons, we would certainly

22 urge a decision to not regulate as a hazardous383

1 waste but instead to regulate under D or D Prime.

2 Thank you.

3 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 131?

4 MS. BAYLESS

- M ICKLES: Good afternoon.

5 My name is Felecia Bayless

- Mickles, I'm a social

6 worker with the State of Illinois. But I don't

7 come under that capacity, I come to speak as a

8 child that was raised in the Joliet area off of

9 Brandon Road within the area of ComEd and now

10 Midwest Generation and Exelon Company. At our

11 home, our water was filthy. It came out with

12 smells. It came out smelling like rotten eggs.

13 Sometimes it came out brown. Sometimes it came

14 out black and looked like coal ash, or I'm not

15 saying coal ash but the things that I put in my

16 firep lace. It came out in the water.

17 I had a father who died within six

18 months of cancer in that area. I have two

19 brothers who are suffering from cancer as well.

20 We lived in tha t area for over 50 years. We

21 bought the house there in 1954, we sold the house

22 in 2006. We as a family lived this nightmare. We384

1 suffered this nightmare.

2 Our wells were contaminated. Actually,

3 the water, we could not drink. It has hard to

4 bathe in. We had to go to what we called the

5 Flowing Well in Pilcher Park in Joliet to get

6 water. We suffered an impact. It wasn't

7 regulated at that time.

8 I read a study that was presented to us

9 at our church by Jeffrey Stant . It said since

10 1962 that that coal ash in our water ran back into

11 where I lived. I believe it, it did occur. We

12 had the impact and we of course, we were an

13 African

- American communi ty where that was the only

14 place we could live in Joliet based on the time

15 and the culture and the discrimination that was

16 going on at that time.

17 I'm here to tell you, there is an

18 impact. I do support Subtitle C. I am a living

19 witness that something has happened and I was

20 appalled, I was hurt. I come here to support not

21 only Subtitle C but my family of ten that has

22 suffered a real grave impact because of this,385

1 asthma, skin diseases, cancer, death.

2 Please do the ri ght thing. We at the

3 time didn't really have even the rights to

4 probably stand up and say much, but I do today.

5 So, please do the right thing. And I definitely

6 support Subtitle C. T hank you.

7 (Applause)

8 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Number 232?

9 MR. SHANKLIN: Good afternoon and thank

10 you for giving me the opportunity to give my

11 testimony. My name is Brooks Shanklin. As a

12 farmer and steward of the soil and as a food

13 producer, I speak with sincerity to all. Each

14 cropping season, I take time to consider how to

15 grow a better yielding and quality crop to deliver

16 in the market and how I can make myself and my

17 operation better.

18 A systems approach is important. For

19 years, I've been using FGD gypsum as a component

20 of this system. It has helped improve my

21 profitability and improve and amend my soils.

22 FGD gypsum is a wonderful byproduct of386

1 the coal industry. It is not a waste, nor should

2 it be classified as such. It is a nutrient soil

3 amendment that has a broad spectrum of positive

4 benefits when applied in agricultural use to the

5 soils.

6 My growing crop needs both calcium and

7 sulfur, and this product helps supply those two

8 key nutrient s. It is not toxic to my soil. It is

9 actually improving my soil's ability to grow

10 healthier plants for food by supplying nutrients

11 and helping manage air and water movement within

12 th e soil profile.

13 A measurable result I also have seen is

14 much less water runoff on my fields as compared to

15 my neighbors, even after a one to two inches of

16 rain in a given sho wer. When water moves off of

17 my field from surface drainage, what goes with it?

18 Nitrogen, phosphorus, soil organic material and

19 other nutrients.

20 By applying FGD gypsum to my fields, the

21 runoff is greatly reduced, and so is the

22 misplacement of nutrient material and soil387

1 particles. It is my belie f that this is good for

2 the environment. Less soil and nutrient erosion

3 aids in improving water quality downstream.

4 So, the hazardous designation of gypsum

5 would stop its be neficial use in American

6 agriculture and thereby take away the opportunity

7 to help the environment in so many ways.

8 I ask you to: * Avoid labeling FGD

9 gypsum as hazardous waste, and * Avoid

10 regulating it under Subtitle C of RCRA.

11 Thank you for your time and

12 consideration.

13 (Applause)

14 MR. BEHAN: Than k you. 330?

15 MR. MOORE: Hi, I'm Bill Moore from

16 Southeast Wisconsin. First of all, I'm a little

17 confused by some of the owners of concrete cement,

18 wallboard and other conta ined applications who

19 have spoken today when it says in your handout

20 that under both approaches proposed by the EPA

21 that the Agency would leave in place the exemption

22 for beneficial us es of coal ash and that these388

1 uses would not be impacted by today's proposal.

2 Not only that, but it would ensure that safe and

3 beneficial uses are not restricted and in fact are

4 encouraged. Just wanted to bring that up.

5 I myself am lucky. I haven't lived long

6 near a coal fired power plant. I'm 67 years old

7 but relatively healthy because I've been able to

8 live most of my life in safe neighborhoods, drink

9 clean water and breathe clean air. But not all of

10 us are or can be so lucky.

11 I have visited Beijing, China where the

12 average visibility is four miles, and Xian where

13 the visibility average is a mile and a half, both

14 affected by the burning of coal. I have visit ed

15 citizens downwind of power plants who have

16 contracted asthma. I have hiked mountains and

17 forests threatened by mountaintop removal for coal

18 mining. And I understand the effects of coal ash

19 on our land and water.

20 My message to you is simple. I live in

21 a suburb where the majority of the citizens have

22 escaped the inner city and tried to close the door389

1 behind them, including opposing workforce housing.

2 They even were successful in opposing a natural

3 gas fired plant in the co mmunity. But they are

4 not ashamed to use as much power as they want from

5 that coal fired power plant many miles away just

6 so they can stay far away from it.

7 But not everybod y has the wherewithal to

8 move away to the suburbs. Some have to accept the

9 lower property values and cheaper living where

10 their lives may be affected by pollution. But

11 isn't that a m essage in itself? Is it fair that

12 those who take flight turn their backs on those

13 who can't escape the pollution?

14 So, that's why I'm here, to say that

15 there are many people not directly affected by

16 coal ash and power plant pollution who care. I

17 say regulate coal ash and the pollutants it

18 carries. I say make me pay higher rates by

19 enacting Subtitle C if that's what it takes. I

20 say government must protect us all, even those who

21 live near coal plants and work to promote clean

22 energy and move coal minors into clean energy390

1 jobs. Help us all be lucky and healthy. Strongly

2 regulate coal ash.

3 (Applause)

4 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Is numb er 359 in

5 the room? 359? I see a couple of folks with

6 numbers. If you're in the room and you have not

7 spoken today and you have a number, if you could

8 come to the front of the room, that would be

9 great.

10 Okay. 118?

11 MR. BENNINGHOVEN: My name is Richie

12 Benninghoven. I'm the President of the UC

13 Technologies based out of Kansas City, Missouri.

14 We're a small company that uses self

- cementing,

15 self

- encapsulating fly ash to stabilize

16 underground limestone mines to provide structural

17 support to make the surface safe. If this work is

18 not done, here is what can happen. Collapse of

19 the road made it impassable.

20 These limestone mines, even though they

21 are below the water table, are ver y restrictive to

22 groundwater flow with permeabilities of 10

- 7 to391

1 10

- 8 centimeters per second. We have had

2 groundwater moni toring wells in place at one

3 particular project for over 14 years. Test

4 results showed no increase in heavy metal

5 concentrations in the groundwater since ash

6 placement began. This co nfirms the very

7 protective situation of using self

- encapsulating

8 fly ash and being surrounded by very impermeable

9 bedrock.

10 Here is a picture of the underground

11 limestone mine before being backfilled. And here

12 is what it looks like after it's backfilled.

13 These are all the fly ash layers. That's

14 actually, we dug out a berm and it's standing at a

15 negative one to one slope. So, it's very well

16 cemented in there and strong.

17 The stabilization of fly ash over this

18 site has resulted in nearly $200 million of

19 develo pment on the surface such as this Class A

20 office building.

21 I urge the EPA to handle non

- coal quarry

22 applications in large scale fills such as ours392

1 similar to coal mine applications that would most

2 likely use an ash characterization and site

3 characterization approach to determine that an

4 applicati on is safe.

5 Finally, on a personal note, I have a

6 niece named Ashley. I don't run around calling

7 her Rachel, I call her Ashley. So, let's not call

8 coal ash hazardous when i t doesn't meet any of the

9 characteristics of hazardous waste. EPA has

10 outlined identical engineered protections under

11 both Subtitle D and Subtitle C. Subtitle D will

12 protect all of u s and not risk the safe recycling

13 of coal ash due to stigma. We should all be

14 focusing on making these materials recyclable

15 rather than talking about disposing of them.

16 Thank you.

17 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 155?

18 MR. GLASSCOCK: My name is John

19 Glasscock. I'm with the company Synthetic

20 Materials. We are a charter member of C2P2, a

21 program that the EPA established to benefit the

22 recycling of coal combustion products. Our393

1 primary product is synthetic gypsum. We proces s,

2 transport and deliver this to the end users,

3 primarily wallboard companies, Portland cement

4 companies, fillers and agriculture.

5 I think, from what I've heard people

6 talk about today, there are a lot of things that

7 we all have in common or common thoughts. One is

8 that the TVA Kingston environmental disaster was

9 just that, it was an environmental disaste r. It

10 was preventable, it was a civil engineering

11 failure. Recycling and beneficial reuse are good.

12 And then public health and safety should not be

13 compromised for economic gain.

14 And I think if we look at each one of

15 these and what's happened since then and the

16 impact of your regulations, since TVA Kingston,

17 TVA has been very clear on first of all puttin g

18 their money out. So, they're going to spend over

19 a billion dollars to try to mitigate the situation

20 at Kingston. I mean that doesn't make it any less

21 disastrous, what occurred, and its impact is

22 serious. The EPA has gone out and done site394

1 assessments for those critical impoundments.

2 And TVA has said that they are moving

3 away from wet disposal of all byproducts. So,

4 they are already getting there. And you know,

5 we're reacting to a situation that was a civil

6 engineering f ailure. And when I look at your

7 comparison of the key differences between Subtitle

8 C and Subtitle D proposals, when you get down to

9 surface impoundments, landfills, they're basically

10 the same. So, we're getting away from the wet

11 disposal to the dry, monitored, controlled

12 disposal of these products.

13 What we are seeing now, and this isn't

14 if it goes C or D , but what we are seeing now is

15 because of the uncertainty of the environment.

16 You have utilities and end users that are not

17 using synthetic gypsum which is by any definition

18 a non

- haz ardous product. So, we have projects

19 that are not going forward, so you have material

20 that would have been beneficially reused that is

21 now having to go into landfills.

22 So, w e strongly support regulation under395

1 Subtitle D. The stigma is real. It's happening

2 now. And basically, you're risking 12 million

3 tons of synthetic gypsum or FGD gypsum that is

4 currently being beneficially reused that will then

5 have to go into landfills. So, thank you for your

6 opportunity to speak.

7 MR. BEHAN: 168?

8 MR. VUKAS: Thank you and good

9 afternoon. My name is Jason Vukas and I represent

10 US Minerals. We're one of eight companies in the

11 United States, many of which are small businesses

12 engaged in the processing of boiler slag for

13 beneficial reuse in a variety of industrial and

14 commercial applications.

15 There are eight different categories of

16 coal combustion byproducts. Boiler slag

17 represents the smallest of these categories in

18 terms of the volume generated. It's about one

19 percent of the 135 million tons of CCBs generated

20 annually. However, it has the highest percentage

21 of reuse historically. Virtually 100 percent of

22 boiler slag generated goes into beneficial reuse396

1 applications. Why is this and what does it mean

2 as it pertains to the proposed regulations on coal

3 combustion byproducts?

4 First, boi ler slag is non

- hazardous by

5 any definition. It has no hazardous properties

6 and it has no hazardous characteristics. It is

7 generated through a process called vitrification

8 which crea tes a hard angular granule with a smooth

9 glassy surface. The granules are non

- leaching

10 and chemically inert. The chemical properties do

11 not change as the material breaks down.

12 These characteristics make the granules

13 suitable for a wide variety of applications and

14 products. Again, this means that virtually 100

15 percent of boiler slag is currently beneficially

1 6 reused. There is no long

- term storage of this

17 material which means there is no need for

18 impoundments.

19 Uses of boiler slag include air blast

20 abrasive products used in s urface preparation.

21 Coal slag abrasives meet the stringent

22 requirements of the US Navy, the California Air397

1 Resources Board, and several other certifying

2 bodies. Contrary to statements made at this

3 public meeting and others by a company with a

4 competing product, the chemical properties of

5 boiler slag do no t change as the material breaks

6 down. They are among the cleanest, safest and

7 most cost effective abrasives on the market. This

8 is a fact and it has been for over 70 years.

9 Also, 80 percent of all asphalt

10 residential roofing shingles in the United States

11 currently contain coal slag granules on at least

12 one portion of the shingle. Other uses for boiler

13 s lag includes snow and ice control on roadways.

14 It's an ingredient in glass bottle manufacturing,

15 water filtration media, seal coating, anti

- skid

16 and non

- slip surfaces, aquarium rock, and other

17 products and uses are currently in development.

18 Further regulation could severely

19 minimize the historical levels of beneficial reuse

20 or even eliminate it all together. Many states

21 strictly prohibit materials classified as Subtitle

22 C waste from their beneficial reuse programs. As398

1 I stated earlier, compet ing companies are eager to

2 seize on the stigma associated with Subtitle C

3 regulation. No known information exists to

4 support classification of boiler slag as a

5 hazardous waste. And t here are no known damage

6 cases or any adverse environmental impacts

7 associated with boiler slag.

8 We ask EPA to consider the science and

9 the facts, and allow for continued unr estricted

10 use of boiler slag.

11 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 209?

12 MR. THIEM: Thank you. My name is Dave

13 Thiem and I am from the Cincinnati area. I'm a

14 retired electric utility employee. I spent 12

15 years in the ash handling area and ash management.

16 I want to talk a little bit today about

17 my association as I became educated in recycling

18 and reuse of coal combustion products. I was

19 asked to speak at that time 15 years ago to our

20 local city council because of my knowledge about

21 curbside recycling. And it was an easy out f or

22 the town council members to say it's easier to399

1 landfill the waste of general recycling. I

2 continued to speak to junior high school and

3 vocation school students at that time. And coal

4 combustion reuse was the most illustrative,

5 understood and accepted example that was used in

6 my presentations.

7 As we discuss today the possibility of

8 reclassifying CCPs, the term hazardous material

9 will no doubt cause all future potential

10 development to cease. And the term "special

11 waste" will not change the public view. It will

12 view it as hazardous also.

13 The young people today as far as

14 research and development want quick results. It

15 took ma ny years in research and development to get

16 where we are with CCP reuse and recycling, and

17 they do not want to put that kind of effort in.

18 In talking to these young people over the years,

19 they want quick returns financially.

20 And so, as we move down this path, I ask

21 you not to go backwards in our partnership of

22 reuse and recycling but to move forward. An easy400

1 way out for waste products is to landfill it,

2 whether it be hazardous waste fills or municipal

3 waste landfills, we only have so much spac e. We

4 see pictures today, not today but we have seen it

5 where there's barges of garbage out in the waters.

6 So, we know we have limited space to put this

7 product, so don't dampen the r euse and recycling

8 efforts. I ask you to consider that and don't

9 risk sending a message that would damage all other

10 recycling efforts. Thank you.

11 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Si r, what was

12 your number again? 202? Okay. You can come to

13 the podium.

14 MR. DAVIS: Hi, my name is Larry Davis.

15 I'm from Indiana, from Hebron, Indiana. I'm on

16 the board of directors for Save the Dunes Council.

17 I'm also on the executive committee of the Sierra

18 Club Hoosier Chapter. And I've been a steel

19 worker for 32 years.

20 An d I hear the talk here about please

21 don't regulate this under Subtitle C, that we need

22 to regulate it under Subtitle D. It ought to be401

1 very apparent to everyone by now that over the

2 last 30 years the state regulation in Subtitle D

3 has been a complete fiasco. I'd like to read my

4 written statement.

5 The United States Environmental

6 Protection Agency has an opportunity to correct a

7 grievous error concerning the exemption of toxic

8 coal combustion waste from regulation under

9 Subtit le C of the Resource Conservation and

10 Recovery Act (RCRA) which dates back to the Reagan

11 administration. In 1980, the so

- called Bevill

12 exemption in RCRA provided the mining industry

13 w hat was supposed to be a temporary exclusion for

14 certain large volume wastes from the extraction,

15 benefaction and processing of ores and minerals

16 including coal combustion waste, or as you call

17 them coal combustion residuals.

18 After 30 years of accumulating damage

19 from wastes exempt under the Bevill amendment, the

20 time has come to regulate toxic coal combustion

21 waste under RCRA Subtitle C as a hazardous waste

22 based on the long

- term impacts to human health and402

1 our environment. Under the new EPA leach test, it

2 is clear that many of these coal combustion wastes

3 do in fact test as hazardous constituents.

4 The USEPA must also consider RCRA

5 Subtitle C regulation on many o ther toxic Bevill

6 exempt wastes disposed in a similar fashion in

7 sensitive locations. For example, the millions of

8 tons of steel mill waste along the shores of Lake

9 Michigan that simi larly threaten additional

10 contamination of our fresh water supply with

11 dissolved solids and heavy metals. And heavy

12 metals are elements, they are neither created nor

13 destroyed and the y bio

- accumulate.

14 In Indiana, the deleterious impacts of

15 toxic coal combustion waste may readily be found

16 anywhere anyone seriously investigates the dumping

17 of these exempte d wastes. From residential yards,

18 town roads and landfills in Pines, Indiana to the

19 coal mines themselves in Southern Indiana, toxic

20 coal combustion waste disposal sites exist in some

21 of the worst situations you can find concerning

22 human health in our environment. Toxic coal403

1 combustion wastes have been discarded, disposed of

2 and dumped in bridge embankments, impoundments,

3 lagoons, landfills, mines both active and

4 abandoned, roads, piles, ponds, et cetera, and

5 locations that have little or no monitoring and

6 poor containment for the toxic elements and

7 radioactive constituents present in these wastes.

8 MR. BEHAN: Sir, can you wrap up your

9 comments?

10 MR. DAVIS: I'm sorry?

11 MR. BEHAN: Can you wrap up your

12 comments?

13 MR. DAVIS: Yes, I just have two more

14 paragraphs here.

15 As early as 19 78, the National Park

16 Service Scientists at the Indiana Dunes National

17 Lakeshore

--

18 MR. BEHAN: Excuse me, sir, you can take

19 your comments in the box and they'll be

20 considered.

21 MR. DAVIS: Okay. Can I finish this

22 last sentence here? At an Indiana Dunes National404

1 Lakes hore discovered the impact of one million

2 gallons per day of fly ash sluice water seeping

3 into the 8,000 year

- old National Natural Landmark

4 called Cowles Bog. And there's more.

5 MR. BEHAN: Thank you.

6 (Applause)

7 MR. BEHAN: Ma'am?

8 MS. SLONE: Good afternoon. Thank you

9 all for your patience. My name is Ricca Slone. I

10 am a resident of Chicago, I'm a former Illinois

11 legislator from downstate, however, and an

12 environmental attorney.

13 I apologize because I have not been here

14 mo st of the day so I hope I won't be repeating

15 things that other people have said, but just to

16 reemphasize, we have all seen just recently with

17 the BP oil spill the unintended consequences and

18 the incredible damage to the public, both the

19 economy and the health of the public and to the

20 environment. The Tennessee coal ash spill from

21 2008 similarly on a smaller scale has caused

22 tremendous damage that can't really fully be405

1 compensated for after the fact. Everybody pays

2 for these disasters when they occur an d it makes a

3 lot better sense to adopt something like Subtitle

4 D regulations that will have everyone pay a

5 smaller price up front to avoid these very, very

6 serious problems, and in thi s case to encourage

7 dry storage and prevent huge damage to human

8 health, the water supply and the environment later

9 on. Thank you very much.

10 (Applause)

11 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 133? Is there

12 anyone else in the room with a number that has not

13 spoken? 130? 193? Sir, when you're ready?

14 MR. REYES: Okay. My name is Hector

15 Reyes. I am a chemical engineer with a PhD from

16 the University of Wisconsin

- Madison. And I teach

17 chemistry at the Harold Washington College here in

18 Downtown Chicago.

19 I typically teach basic science courses

20 in which I tell my students that they need to, if

21 they never take any other science course again, at

22 least they need to take from my course that they406

1 need to be informed citizens, that they, even if

2 they are not experts they should have sufficient

3 science understanding to be able to look up what

4 are the issues that are being debated hotly in

5 society and be able to make an informed judgment

6 about whether or not what is currently happening

7 or what is contemplated to be changed is actually

8 beneficial or not to their health and to the

9 health of the planet.

10 So, today I am here to do as I tell

11 them. And today I am here to favor, to join the

12 big number of people that want actually to have

13 coal ash or coal residual after combustion to be

14 regulated as a hazardous material because the

15 truth is that the EPA has been sitti ng for years

16 on their huge amount of data that tells that it is

17 hazardous, that it is actually very harmful, that

18 coal ash has actually all sorts of heavy metals

19 inside of it. Seleniu m, it has manganese, it has

20 mercury. You can go through the whole list and

21 you'll realize that when you put these materials

22 especially in contact with water, those heavy407

1 metals are going to be leaching out of those

2 solids. And if they are not being contained by a

3 proper containment system that indicates that you

4 would have a synthetic lining as opposed to having

5 just clay, that you are going to have those heavy

6 metals leaching into the water tables.

7 So, the EPA has listed on its own 67

8 sites of groundwater that has been contaminated by

9 this means and there has been other groups that

10 have put together 137. The EPA knows that there

11 are 600 sites where, you know, coal ash is being

12 accumulated in this country. And the result of

13 all this is that unless the EPA acts to regulate

14 this thing as a hazardous material that it is, we

15 are just going to continue to perpetrate a crime,

16 a crime of poisoning the wells, of poisoning the

17 children, of poisoning the people and the

18 environment of this country. We cannot allow it.

19 The EPA has all the inf ormation; all it needs to

20 do is act against those economic interests that

21 want to prevent it from doing so. Thank you.

22 (Applause)408

1 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 130?

2 MR. DUBA: My name is Jason Duba. Thank

3 you, Environmental Protection Agency, for this

4 opportunity to share my testimony with you

5 regarding proposed plans to regulate coal ash. I

6 advocate for Subtitle C.

7 I am an organizer for Restoring Eden, a

8 national ministry that seeks to help Chr istians,

9 love, serve and protect God's creation. My wife

10 Emily and I just moved to Chicago from Spokane,

11 Washington. In the Pacific Northwest, most of our

12 electricity comes from hydr oelectric power plants

13 which have their own issues. But coal ash is not

14 something that we have to worry about there. In

15 fact, before moving here, I was rather ignorant

16 about all the problems associated with coal ash.

17 It was not something I had to think about, and no

18 one should.

19 As a citizen of the United States of

20 America, I am appalled that circumstance s of

21 geography can have such a profoundly negative

22 impact on our living conditions. I believe that409

1 everyone in our nation, no matter where they live,

2 should have equal access to safe drinking water,

3 clean air to breathe, and freedom from fear that a

4 coal ash dam could break and bury their home in

5 toxic sl udge.

6 My Lutheran Christian faith leads me to

7 believe that God's love, grace and care are for

8 all people, no exceptions. And if everyone is

9 endowed with dignity by the Creat or of the

10 Universe, everyone is most certainly worthy of

11 living conditions that make life possible, most

12 fundamentally, clean drinking water free of toxic

13 contaminants from coal ash. To say otherwise, to

14 say that some people must bear the burden of our

15 industrial society more than others is not only

16 unjust, it is in opposition to the gospel of Jesus

17 Christ. Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 193?

20 MS. BOOKWALTER: Thank you and good

21 afternoon. I'm very fortunate to be able to

22 follo w experts I cannot assume to be, a chemical410

1 engineer and a humanist and a believer. My name

2 is Mary Bookwalter, I am from Indianapolis and I 'm

3 here today to support the only regulation,

4 Subsection C, that can begin to establish equal

5 protection under the law for all citizens exposed

6 to the damages of improperly stored coal

7 combustion waste.

8 For 30 years, so

- called guidelines have

9 not worked. The power industry, the federal

10 government, and the states governments have billed

11 u s and taxed us and in turn given us electricity

12 and excessive toxicity. They have permitted us to

13 suffer the damages of cadmium, arsenic, molybdenum

14 and boron and so on and so on.

15 The State of Indiana which does no coal

16 ash dispersal site monitoring allows coal

17 operators to fill depleted mines with our own coal

18 ash waste and further invite it and profit from

19 the waste from other states in the Midwest, to

20 eight million more tons a year I've understood.

21 That's perhaps how we have earned the sobriquet

22 "Indiana: Paid Toilet of the Midwest" or "Ash411

1 Hole of America." These go often into karst

2 formations and there really is no bottom or any

3 ending to them.

4 If this is cheap energy and this is what

5 we need in Indiana and we would be driving away

6 business to earn it, I doubt that. I personally

7 would be happy to pay a few dollars more as should

8 my Indiana Power & Light and Duke Energy to

9 protect us adequately. We have had cheap energy,

10 so to speak, for 30 years. And without regulated

11 protection, that perhaps is why we rank 49th in

12 environmental quality among states in the union

13 according to a Harvard study.

14 We also, without regulated protection,

15 each of us as consumers also continue to be

1 6 perpetrators of iniquities and inequities on our

17 fellow Americans every time we turn on a switch.

18 Someone suffers somewhere. Protect us from our

19 spotty states industry. And I won't say the

20 federal government is a cure

- all, please don't

21 mistake that, but we don't enjoy the protections

22 that Wisconsin does, it's a relatively lovely412

1 place to live, ours is not.

2 I would gladly

-- I'm sorry, please

3 regulate this and enforce this hazardous waste and

4 call it that, that's what it is, coal combust ion

5 waste, as a byproduct under Section C and give us

6 all in America, as the other young man put it,

7 equal protection under the law. Thank you.

8 (Applause)

9 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. 361? Is there

10 anyone else in the room with a number that has not

11 spoken that would like to speak now? 196? Come

12 forward. If you could take a seat over along th e

13 wall there, that would be great, behind the

14 podium.

15 MS. HRILJAC: Thank you for giving us

16 the opportunity. My name is Donna Hriljac. I'm a

17 citizen who l ives in Niles, Illinois and who

18 drinks Chicago water from the tap.

19 I know that many experts have given

20 their advice on the ways to deal with fly ash.

21 Well, I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try

22 to. I have a list of constituents that may be413

1 included in fly ash that I don't want to eat and

2 dri nk.

3 I ask you, the Environmental Protection

4 Agency, to please protect our drinking water. I

5 know impoundments are usually safe, but with

6 floods getting stronger and more num erous, the

7 safety of impoundments are easily compromised. We

8 are all aware of many examples of this. And I ask

9 you again, please do not put down any coal ash any

10 place where it can l each into the water. Thank

11 you.

12 (Applause)

13 MR. BEHAN: 196?

14 MS. WASSERMAN

- NIETO: First, I'd like to

15 thank the USEPA's Office of R esource Conservation

16 and Recovery for creating several opportunities

17 across the public to comment on its proposed

18 rulemaking on the regulation of coal combustion

19 waste. I'd like to no te that I'm also a council

20 member on the EPA's National Environmental Justice

21 Advisory Council though I am not speaking in my

22 capacity as a NEJAC member today. I am speaking414

1 as the executive director of the Little Village

2 Environmental Justice Organization, and as a

3 member of the Little Village community on the

4 southwest side of Chicago.

5 Why I'm here today is because our

6 community sits in the shadow of one of two coal

7 power plants within the city limits of Chicago.

8 For the la st eight years, we have fought to clean

9 up these outdated plants, and in our struggle we

10 have learned a lot about coal and its byproducts.

11 From what we have verified with other partner

12 organizations as of yesterday is that the Illinois

13 EPA does not know where the coal ash of the two

14 plants in our communities goes. All they know and

15 all we know is that it's shipped offsite.

16 This means that none of our regulatory

17 agencies know where all this stuff goes. This is

18 a very scary thought, and even scarier when

19 accidents like the largest industrial waste spill

20 at the Kingston Power Plant in Rome County

21 Tennessee takes place. We are fortunate in

22 Chicago not to have dealt with an issue like that.415

1 But not knowing how, when and where the ash from

2 our plants is being stored is even worse to a

3 certain extent, especially given cases from around

4 the United States of co al combustion waste sites

5 contaminating drinking water and giving off

6 harmful clouds of airborne coal ash.

7 The myth with this rule is the belief

8 that you can beneficially reu se toxic ash and fill

9 cement asphalt and with this reuse the coal ash

10 doesn't need to be regulated under RCRA. However,

11 for all the reasons mentioned above, we need rules

12 keeping trac k of this toxic waste. Our

13 communities and the EPA have spent way too long

14 responding to spills and accidents. The reality

15 is coal ash is a hazardous substance which is why

16 this is n ot a green industry just because it

17 recycles and reuses.

18 Communities and the environment cannot

19 afford to have this hazardous substance

20 green

- washed. There is a link between adverse

21 impacts on EJ communities and proposed rules that

22 would only increase the disproportionate impact of416

1 pollution sou rces on environment justice and

2 low

- income communities. In NEJAC, we were tasked

3 to plan how to incorporate environmental justice

4 early and often into the EPA rulemaking processes.

5 Ho wever, rolling out rule after rule will not stem

6 environmental justice communities' exposures to

7 pollution sources or provide enhanced protection

8 from pollution.

9 For these re asons and so many more, coal

10 ash must be regulated under RCRA Subtitle C as

11 special waste by the USEPA with all attenuated

12 safeguards that it requires.

13 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. Could you state

14 your name for the record?

15 MS. WASSERMAN

- NIETO: Sure, I'm sorry.

16 It's Kimberly Wasserman

- Nieto.

17 MR. BEHAN: Great, thank you.

18 MS. WASSERMAN

- NIETO: Thank you.

19 (Applause)

20 MR. BEHAN: Sir, what number do you

21 have?

22 MR. NOWICKI: 242.417

1 MR. BEHAN: Okay, you can come to the

2 podium if you'd like to speak now.

3 MR. NOWICKI: My name is Mitch Nowicki,

4 I'm with Lafarge North America. As an

5 environmental scientist with 35 years experience

6 in the beneficial use and disposal of CCBs, I am

7 perhaps uniquely qualified to comment in this

8 proceedin g. I came to the CCB industry in 1975 as

9 an employee of Chicago Fly Ash Company, the

10 company that pioneered beneficial use beginning in

11 1946. I was privileged to purchase the company

12 from its founders and operated for 15 years

13 employing over 100 people. I address you today,

14 therefore, as an environmentalist, CCB

15 practitioner, and former small business owner.

16 I understand the need to protect

17 groundwater resources and support appropriate

18 regulation to that end. I have reviewed numerous

19 evaluations of CCBs and understand that these

20 mat erials are not inert, and hence require

21 appropriate management. I have always believed

22 that hydraulic placement into ponds was often418

1 unacceptable due to structural instability related

2 to any super saturated silt such as fly ash and

3 the potential for groundwater impact.

4 The USEPA draft appears to convey a bias

5 toward listing CCPs as hazardous or special wastes

6 and I find nothing appropriate in this bias. The

7 fact that CCBs are not inert is no basis for the

8 listing. Hazardous waste determinati ons are most

9 commonly made based on the measured toxicity of

10 leachable constituents. Laboratory tests have

11 been employed for decades to measure leaching

12 potentials and attendant envir onmental risk. As a

13 whole, CCB's test results demonstrate this risk to

14 be low.

15 While debate continues over test

16 methods, I call your attention to a real world

17 demonstration of CCB leaching characteristics at

18 Lafarge's Lewis University Airport project near

19 Romeoville, Illinois. This seven

- year project

20 utilized 1.6 million tons of CCBs to provide the

21 structure upon which a 6,300 foot runway has been

22 constructed. A double liner of leachate419

1 collection system were incorporated i nto the site

2 design. Leachate analyses from this facility

3 demonstrate compliance with Class 1 groundwater

4 standards for nearly all tested parameters with

5 the exceptions limited to bor on, dissolved solids

6 and sulfates. These are not reflective of

7 hazardous materials.

8 Without question, the greatest damage

9 from listing would be experienced in the dramatic

10 reduction in the beneficial use of CCBs. A

11 listing would convey to the public and business

12 communities that there are inherent environmental

13 and occupational risks related to CCB use. CCBs

14 are simply not essential ingredients to the

15 products in which they are used. The primary

16 drivers cost reduction. This, while significant,

17 will not justify the risk of long

- ter m

18 environmental or occupational liabilities that a

19 hazardous or a special listing would communicate

20 to the corporate boardrooms particularly when

21 production alternatives are abundant.

22 If the listing of CCBs is just one420

1 battlefront in the war on coal, I believe it is

2 misguided. I implore the USEP A to objectively

3 assess the risks based on the facts, to recognize

4 the adequacy of Subtitle D standards, and to avoid

5 destroying 64 years of technically and

6 environmentally successful CCB utilization. Thank

7 you for the opportunity to comment.

8 MR. BEHAN: Thank you. We're going to

9 be taking a 15

- minute break from 6:00 to 6:15. I

10 think we can get a couple more people in before

11 the break. Is there anyone in the room that has a

12 number that hasn't spoken today? 171. Anyone

13 else? Okay, we'll take the break after this

14 gentleman speaks.

15 MR. ESCOBAR: Hello, good afternoon.

16 I'm here to read a letter from Dr. George Everett

17 Lundgren. He'd like to say:

18 Dear Administrator Jackson: This short

19 note asks that you help prevent arsenic, cadmium

20 and other wastes from coal burning from harming

21 our people. As you know, the EPA has decreased

22 acceptable levels of arsenic from 50 parts per421

1 billion to 10 parts per billion in 2002 based on

2 the known increase in cancer risk from arsenic

3 poisoning. With no regulat ions, sudden and

4 gradual contamination of our waters would kill and

5 harm many of our people. There is no good

6 treatment for arsenic poisoning.

7 Please help prevent harm to ou r people.

8 Please support regulations to contain the poisons

9 in coal wastes. Thank you sincerely, Dr. George

10 Everett Lundgren, MD. Thank you.

11 MR. BEHAN: Sir, could you stat e your

12 name for the record?

13 MR. ESCOBAR: My name is Michael

14 Escobar.

15 MR. BEHAN: Great. Thank you, sir.

16 MR. ESCOBAR: Thank you.

17 (Applause)

18 MR. BEHAN: We're going to take a break

19 for about to 20 minutes. We will reconvene at

20 6:15. Thank you.

21 (Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., an

22 afternoon recess was taken.)422

1 E V E N I N G S E S S I O N

2 (6:15 p.m.)

3 MS. DEVLIN: Okay. I think we're going

4 to get started again. I am Betsy Devlin, the

5 Associate Director of the Materials Recovery and

6 Waste Managem ent Division in ORCR's Resource

7 Conservation and Recovery. I will chair this

8 evening's panel. And with me on the panel tonight

9 are Laurel Celeste, Susan Mooney and Jim Kohler.

10 All of us are from EPA.

11 I want to start very briefly by giving

12 an overview again of the logistics for how we're

13 going to conduct tonight's hearing just for those

14 of you who maybe w eren't here this morning.

15 Speakers, if you pre

- registered, you were given a

16 15

- minute slot when you were scheduled to give

17 your three minutes of testimony and we had asked

18 that you sig n in ten minutes before your 15

- minute

19 slot at the registration desk. All speakers,

20 those that pre

- registered and walk

- ins, were given

21 a number when you signed in today. That is the

22 order in which you will speak. I will call423

1 speakers to the front of the room by number four

2 or five at a time. And when your number is

3 called, I'm going to ask that you move to the

4 front of the room and then move to the microphone

5 or the podium when you are called.

6 Again, we are going to limit testimony

7 to three minutes and we'll be using an electronic

8 timekeeping system as well as hold up cards to let

9 you know when your time is getting low. When we

10 hold up the first card, it means you have two

11 minutes left. When we hold up the second card,

12 you have one minute left. When the third card is

13 held up, you have 30 seconds left. And when the

14 red card is held up, you are out of time and we

15 ask that you conclude your remarks.

16 And again, remember, you can provide any

17 written material to the court reporter and the

18 material will be entered into the r ulemaking

19 record and considered the same as if you had given

20 us your testimony orally. Again, if you have

21 brought a copy, a written copy of your testimony,

22 you can leave it in the box in front of our court424

1 reporter. And if you are only submitting written

2 comments, we ask you to put them in the box by the

3 registration desk. We welcome additional comments

4 so that if you have additional comments after

5 tonight, please follow the instructions on the

6 yellow handout and submit your comments to the

7 docket, but that would have to be by November

8 19th, 2010.

9 Again, our goal is to ensure that

10 everyone who has come today this evening to

11 present testimony is given an opportunity to

12 provide those comments. And we are going to do

13 our best to accommodate everyone. If you have any

14 questions or concerns, we ask that you consult our

15 staff out at the re gistration table. And again, I

16 may go out of order, again that's to accommodate

17 numbers and people who are here. So, don't worry

18 if all of a sudden we're jumping around. We're

19 just trying to get everybody covered.

20 Again, if you have a cell phone, we'd

21 appreciate it if you turned it off or turned it to

22 vibrate. And if you need to use your phone during425

1 the hearing, we'd ask that you move out into the

2 lobby. And again, I want to thank everybody for

3 coming and for participating in this hearing

.

4 And I'm going to get started. And with

5 that, numbers, I'm going to ask for numbers 127,

6 132, 138, 145 and 147. Are you here? If people

7 with those numbers would come to t he front of the

8 room? Number 127, will you go to the mic please?

9 All right, you're not here. Okay, of those

10 numbers, what number do you have? 138, why don't

11 you go ahead?

12 MR. BAROT: Do I have to press anything?

13 MS. DEVLIN: No, just go ahead. Just

14 state your name for the court reporter and start.

15 You're good.

16 MR. BAROT: Okay. My name is Suhail

17 Barot. I'm a graduate student from the University

18 of Illinois at Urbana

- Champaign. And at that

19 campus, I chair the committee that manages our

20 Studen t Greenpeace. One of the things that I

21 wanted to bring up about the regulations that are

22 being considered is that as far as I have read,426

1 both of them exempt wastes from college and

2 university power plants, and from similar small

3 scale sources. And I don't think that's right.

4 I know for our students that have bee n

5 working on getting our university to stop burning

6 coal for the past year, this is something

7 extremely important to us. We may be a small

8 campus coal fired power plant, but we do go

9 through 100,000 tons of coal every year. And our

10 stream of coal ash that is produced is more than

11 either the waste we landfill or the waste we

12 recycle. We produce a lot of this stuff

.

13 We have been unable to figure out where

14 it goes. We've tried to FOIA our campus and they

15 have claimed that the location of where our coal

16 ash goes is exempt for reasons be yond our

17 understanding. And this is something that we care

18 a great deal about.

19 We have worked for the past year to get

20 our campus to start burning natural gas and

21 substitute away from coal.

22 And one of the reasons that we have had427

1 difficulty doing that is because costs like these

2 are dealing with coal ash in a safe manner,

3 treating it as the hazardous material that it is

4 are not accounted for by the system, by the

5 regulatory system as it is right now. And we hope

6 to see EPA use strong Subtitle C regulations, to

7 extend them to cover small sources including all

8 colleges and universities which are at the

9 forefront today of moving beyond coal.

10 And we look forward to support from EPA

11 in achieving this on behalf of students from

12 dozens of campuses that are here, and that have

13 come here today that have worked to get their

14 campuses to commit to moving beyond coal, that

15 have worked to get their campuses to sign the

16 American colleges and universities presidents'

17 climate commitment. And we hope that you wil l

18 help us in this effort. Thank you.

19 (Applause)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 145?

21 Number 147?

22 MS. FASTNER: Hi, my name is Shir ley428

1 Fastner and I'm here for Sierra Club. First of

2 all, we applaud the EPA for recognizing these

3 health hazards. It seems that federal enforceable

4 laws are the only safeguards that work. These

5 patchwork state laws that are apparently in place

6 don't seem to be enough. We have two coal plants

7 here in Chi cago, Fisk and Crawford. And we don't

8 know where the coal ash is going, they won't tell

9 us. I myself own a great apartment near Fisk and

10 the air smelled so bad in the area and this

11 a partment was probably at least three

- quarters of

12 a mile away that there was no way I could live

13 there. So, it's really upsetting that they won't

14 tell us where it's going.

15 I think anything less than the Subtitle

16 C seems to be unacceptable. Living near coal ash,

17 we know it's significantly, I mean apparently

18 there is a study by the EPA that it's more

19 danger ous to live near a coal ash site than

20 smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. That's a

21 pretty strong statement to me. This is according,

22 I'm told, according to a risk assessment done by429

1 the EPA.

2 The toxins, I think you know the toxins

3 found in coal ash have been linked to organ

4 disease, cancer, res piratory illness, neurological

5 damage and developmental problems. And I'm

6 probably not telling anything that probably hasn't

7 already been said probably a hundred times today.

8 I feel very strongly about this. I'd do

9 everything in my power to be the healthiest person

10 I can be. I don't put any toxins in my body, but

11 I choose to live in Chicago and I would like to

12 remain here and, well, wherever else I might

13 choose to live. And I think that there is just

14 too much unknown, there's too much, you know, we

15 know that it's really toxic, we know that the

16 levels of pollution, the arsenic seeping from coal

17 ash were found to be significantly higher than

18 what is considered safe for drinking water. I

19 mean, recycling, it's not going to help. I t hink

20 we need to go for the Subtitle C and, you know, we

21 need to do a lot more for the environment as we

22 know, and I'm grateful that you are having this430

1 hearing for us. Thank you very much.

2 (Applause)

3 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, thank you. Can I

4 have numbers 130, 169, 192, 197 and 198? Nu mber

5 130, can you go to the podium? Okay, no number

6 130? 169?

7 MS. RICHART: That would be me. I just

8 walked in and I misplaced my number. Do you need

9 th at?

10 MS. DEVLIN: No, that's okay. As long

11 as

-- that's fine. Thank you.

12 MS. RICHART: Deep breath on my part.

13 Good evening. My name is Pam Richart, I'm a

14 co

- director of a non

- profit called Eco

- Justice

15 Collaborative. And over the past several years,

16 my organization has been raising awareness in

17 Chicago about the true cost of coal. And we've

18 done this through delegations to West Virginia and

19 the coal fields of Illinois.

20 We recently launched a campaign to clean

21 up the two old, polluting coal fired plants here

22 in Chicago. And in this process, we've learned431

1 that it's the people who live in the coal fields

2 or under the shadow of a coal fi red power plant

3 who bear the brunt of the impacts from coal

4 extraction, combustion and waste disposal. And

5 here in Chicago, the combustion of coal makes

6 children sick and claims over 40 lives each year.

7 But as we looked, and we looked really hard at the

8 life cycle of coal in our community, Chicago, we

9 learned that the Illinois EPA does not know what

10 happens to the coal ash generated from those two

11 coal fired power plants. All they know is that

12 it's shipped offsite.

13 We all know coal ash is toxic, and

14 because it's not regulated it's poi soning

15 families, entire communities and our environment.

16 And that's why I'm here to urge the EPA to do the

17 right thing, to adopt Subtitle C of the Resource

18 Conservation and Recovery Ac t. We need those

19 rules that keep track of and regulate toxic waste.

20 We need standards for generations, storage,

21 distribution, transport and disposal. And we need

22 to require every dis posal facility to obtain a432

1 permit. We need to phase out the coal ash ponds

2 and we need to require those operators to put cash

3 up front to assure effective cleanup in case there

4 is contamination.

5 But I'm here also to ask the EPA to

6 regulate the practice of mine filling, beneficial

7 use and coal as h generated from non

- utilities.

8 Coal gas companies are now dumping coal ash waste

9 into abandoned mines without liners or federal

10 oversight. And unless mine filling is regulated,

11 I thi nk EPA is allowing a loophole that will

12 actually encourage the dumping of coal ash into

13 abandoned mines as other options hopefully become

14 more regulated. And beneficial use represents

15 nearly 45 percent of all coal combustion waste

16 generated. And coal ash applied to crops may

17 increase yields, but it also produces high levels

18 of arsenic in our food.

19 So, wh at I'm really here to say again is

20 we want you to regulate all coal ash, not just

21 some of it. So, please, please, please, please

22 adopt Subtitle C. It's the right thing to do for433

1 our families, for our kids, for the future of this

2 planet. And thanks for giving me the opportunity

3 to speak.

4 ( Applause)

5 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 192?

6 MR. RICHART: Good evening. My name is

7 Lan Richart. I am also a co

- director of the

8 Eco

- Justice Collaborative in Chi cago. First, I

9 want to thank you for making this opportunity to

10 present this testimony.

11 I want to state my unequivocal support

12 for the USEPA's regulation of coal ash under

13 Subtitle C of their Resource Conservation and

14 Recovery Act. Numerous reports by the USEPA have

15 clearly documented that the toxic chemicals

16 inherently contained in coal ash can and ofte n do

17 pose a significant threat to human health and

18 natural environment. The enormous volumes of

19 these materials generated each year, their

20 potential environmental toxicity and their l argely

21 unregulated management disposal call for stricter

22 regulation.434

1 The USEPA's formally stated mission

2 statement is to protect human health and to

3 safeguard the natural environment, air, water and

4 land. This is from the website of the EPA. One

5 of its stated purposes is to ensure that all

6 Americans are protected from significant risk to

7 human health and the environment where they live,

8 learn and work.

9 I believe that by adopting the Subtitle

10 D opt ion, the USEPA would be abdicating its legal

11 responsibility to the people of the United States,

12 and that the management of these potentially toxic

13 materials would be left to the discretion of

14 states in a patchwork of inconsistent and largely

15 ineffective controls. For example, we recently

16 learned that for our own city where we have two of

17 the nation's oldest coal fired power plants, the

18 Illinois EPA does not have a record of the

19 ultimate destination of coal ash disposed of by

20 these facilities. I think this is unacceptable.

21 Secondly, I'd like to go on re cord of

22 supporting a strong program of monitoring and435

1 regulating the disposition of coal ash through

2 so

- called beneficial u ses. While certain uses may

3 offer pragmatic and even safe solutions to the

4 disposal of waste products, many others currently

5 in practice do not. Neither Subtitle C nor

6 Subtitle D wil l regulate the use of toxic coal ash

7 for purposes of agriculture, construction fill or

8 disposal in abandoned mines.

9 Specifically, where coal combustion

10 residuals remain unenc apsulated and/or are

11 transferred to beneficial uses, applications of

12 products that may return toxic chemicals to the

13 ambient environment, the disposition of these

14 wastes should be moni tored and regulated as the

15 hazardous chemicals that they are.

16 The generation of enormous volumes of

17 coal ash is a direct result of a reliance of on an

18 unsustainable source of fossil fuel energy. We

19 are told by those in the coal

- related industries

20 that the price of that energy will go up if we

21 regulate the hazardous byproducts of their

22 businesses. Yet ea ch day we are paying an436

1 enormous price, sacrificing the health and safety

2 of ourselves and those of future generations.

3 I urge you to regulate coal ash under

4 Subtitle C as well as expand the monitoring and

5 regulation of beneficial uses. Thank you.

6 (Applause)

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 197?

8 MR. AILEY: Good evening. My name is

9 John Ailey, A

- i

- l

- e

- y. I am also from Chicago.

10 I'm a member of the Pilsen Environmental Rights

11 and Reform Orga nization as well as active in the

12 Green Party. By coincidence perhaps, I work

13 closely with Lan and Pam who just spoke on the

14 effort to force the two coal fired power plants in

15 the Cit y of Chicago to clean up. I happen to live

16 in the Little Village neighborhood which is close

17 to the Crawford coal fired power plant.

18 I consider that I would second the

19 comme nts that Pam and Lan just made. I am not an

20 expert on coal ash issue but it is clear that this

21 is another dangerous aspect of using coal for

22 producing electricity in this country, that the437

1 coal ash is quite toxic and needs to be

2 controlled, regulated.

3 It is clear that this Subtitle C that

4 people are suggesting is the way that we need to

5 go at a minimum. We definitely need to pay

6 attention to what happens to this material. It

7 has, as well documented, a lot of hazardous

8 compo nents to it and we don't want them getting

9 into our water and we don't want them getting into

10 our food supply, we don't want them poisoning

11 people.

12 These coal fired power pla nts in Chicago

13 poison people through the emissions that they put

14 out into the air. And they may not be poisoning

15 people in Chicago directly with the products of

16 their combustion, but as has been pointed out we

17 don't really know what happens to that material.

18 And it's quite possible that other people in other

19 parts of the country are being poisoned by this.

20 And as a matter of common human decency, we

21 shouldn't be doing this. We should be regulating

22 and controlling this hazardous substance.438

1 So, I thank you for your consideration

2 and I hope you will go as far as you can in

3 regulating this toxic product. Thank you.

4 (Applause)

5 MS. DEV LIN: Thank you. Number 198

6 please?

7 MR. ORRIS: Thank you. My name is Peter

8 Orris. I'm Chief of Occupational and

9 Environmental Medicine at the University of

10 Illinois Medical Center here in Chicago, but I

11 speak today as a private citizen. I'm presenting

12 testimony for the Chicago Chapter of Physicians

13 for Social Responsibility. We have delivered the

14 very brief written comments that we have, and

15 given the hour I'm going to make only two points.

16 One is that we believe clearly the coal

17 ash should be regulated under Subtitle C. We

18 believe that such regulation will allow the EPA to

19 intervene and reduce the XX cancers that the

20 literature already documents are occurring related

21 to this toxic exposure of people living in and

22 around these coal ash ponds.439

1 So, we support strongly that regulation

2 as a special waste, and we th ank you very much for

3 having us here today and for holding the hearings.

4 Thank you.

5 (Applause)

6 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Will numbers

7 145, 154 , 180 and 184 come up please? Number 148

8 also, if you're here please, if you would

--

9 MR. GREISCH: My name is Edward Greisch.

10 I'm not with any organization, just by myself.

11 Coal contains uranium, arsenic, lead, mercury,

12 antimony, cobalt, nickel, copper, selenium,

13 barium, fluorine, silver, beryllium, iron, sulfur,

14 boron, titanium, cadmium, magnesium, thorium,

15 calcium, manganese, vanadium, chlorine, aluminum,

16 chromium, molybdenum and zinc. And I'd like to

17 talk about two of those, one is the uranium and

18 the other is the thorium. Both are potential

19 fuels for nuclear power plants.

20 Average coal in this country contains

21 one or two parts per million uranium and about two

22 and a half times as much thorium. If you multiply440

1 one part per million by the four million tons of

2 coal that a 1,000 megawatt power plant burns, you

3 get four tons of uranium and tw o and a half times

4 as much thorium. Illinois coal contains up to 103

5 parts per million uranium, and if you multiply 103

6 by the four million tons, you get 412 tons of

7 uranium. Just th e one or two parts per million

8 uranium times the four million tons of coal is

9 sufficient to fuel a nuclear power plant the way

10 we do it these days once through fully for the

11 same amoun t of time and produce the same amount of

12 electricity.

13 There is no such thing as a beneficial

14 use of coal ash. It is low level radioactive

15 waste and it should be treated the same as low

16 level radioactive waste from a nuclear power

17 plant.

18 And I have uploaded to your website lots

19 of documentation. The paper I

-- here, I'll give

20 y ou these, the paper I have referenced in one of

21 these and also the paper for the url on the other

22 one, plus some other material. So, thank you.441

1 (Applause)

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much.

3 Number 148, are you up there?

4 MS. DUBA: My name is Mary Emily Duba.

5 I testify tod ay as a concerned citizen and as a

6 Lutheran Christian. In the Lutheran tradition,

7 there are a set of tenets by which we may guide

8 our ethical decision making. Two of these tenets

9 in particular compel me to testify today in

10 support of Subtitle C. The first is a radical

11 commitment to truth

- telling. In other words, we

12 must call a thing what it is. Since coal ash

13 l eaches toxic chemicals at hazardous levels, we

14 must call it a hazardous material and treat it as

15 such.

16 In the testimonies this morning, I heard

17 concerned farmers and producer s of so

- called

18 beneficial use products expressing concern that

19 labeling coal ash a hazardous material would

20 create a stigma around their products. The only

21 acceptable solution is to r emain radically

22 committed to truth

- telling. Since coal ash is442

1 hazardous, it is dishonest to intentionally avoid

2 the hazard ous material label in order to protect

3 business. It is true that we have limited

4 landfill space. The solution to this problem is

5 to produce less coal combustion waste, not to be

6 dish onest about its toxicity.

7 (Applause)

8 MS. DUBA: The second guiding tenet that

9 compels me to speak is a radical commitment to the

10 protection of the vulnerable. Subtitle D would

11 leave enforcement up to citizen lawsuits. This

12 means that the most vulnerable in our society, the

13 sick, the afflicted, children and the environment

14 are left to defen d themselves. My faith

15 commitment to the protection of the vulnerable

16 compels me to advocate for Subtitle C which gives

17 state and federal government the right and the

18 responsibility t o protect our fragile environment

19 and our vulnerable citizens.

20 In conclusion, I ask you, EPA, to speak

21 truthfully, to call a thing what it is, that is,

22 to name and treat coal ash as a hazardous material443

1 and to go out of your way to protect the

2 vulnerable, those living near coal plants and

3 disposa l sites. In short, I ask you to support

4 Subtitle C and I thank you.

5 (Applause)

6 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 154

7 please?

8 MR. RUS TICUS: Hello, my name is Jeremy

9 Rusticus and I work for Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete.

10 On behalf of Ozinga, I would like to thank the

11 USEPA for conducting this public hearing on this

12 very important issue.

13 Ozinga is a ready mix concrete company

14 with operations throughout Metropolitan Chicago,

15 Northwest Indiana, and Southwest Michigan. Our

16 company has been in existence for 82 years and we

17 employ over 650 people. We have learned that the

18 EPA is considering classifying coal combustion

19 products such as fly ash as a hazardous waste. We

20 use a significant amount of fly ash as a raw

21 material in our concrete production and wish to

22 offer our objections to classifying fly ash as a444

1 hazardous waste.

2 Fly ash has a fundamental relationship

3 with concrete. They can be used both as a cement

4 substitute and in addition to cement to enhance

5 concret e. Using fly ash in concrete produces a

6 higher performance and more durable product. It

7 improves concrete in both fresh and hardened

8 conditions. In the fresh state, fly ash improves

9 its workability, pumpability and finishability.

10 In the hardened state, it improves the durability

11 as it relates to sulfate attack and alkali

12 reactivity. Without fly ash, we cannot achieve

1 3 the ultimate strengths that our customers require.

14 In addition, the Green and LEED benefits

15 of utilizing CCPs are a key strategic lever for

16 our business. Fly ash is a cement substitute and

17 the use of one ton of fly ash replaces one ton of

18 cement. The Green and LEED benefits of fly ash

19 use are interrelated. Fly ash is a product that

20 is considered waste by the coal p ower industry.

21 By using it in concrete production, a party

22 eliminates the need for fly ash to be disposed of445

1 in a landfill, use of fly ash in concrete

2 production is a form of recycling. Because of

3 this, fly ash is considered a Green product that

4 can enable a user to achieve LEED points.

5 The clas sification of fly ash as a

6 hazardous waste would be very unfortunate since it

7 would most likely stop many if not most users of

8 CCPs from continuing to use them including Ozinga.

9 We wou ld have to seriously consider whether we

10 could take the risk of using a material that the

11 EPA had officially labeled a hazardous waste.

12 We suspect other users concerned about

13 its liabilities would have to do the same.

14 Without the use of fly ash, our concrete would not

15 be as durable or able to achieve high performance

16 standards. Such a classification may well impede

17 our ability to create and retain jobs due to the

18 higher production costs we would incur.

19 We understand the EPA is considering

20 language in proposed regulations stating that CCPs

21 used in certain applications would not be deemed a

22 hazardous waste. We do not think this would be446

1 helpful since the permitted uses of CCPs would be

2 the use of the very same material that would be

3 classified as a hazardous waste.

4 We urge you to seriously consider this

5 impact on our business and indus try. We trust

6 that the EPA can avoid this unfortunate result so

7 we can continue to beneficially use CCPs. Thank

8 you.

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 180?

10 MS. HILL: Hi, my name is Nancy Hill and

11 I am testifying here tonight as a private

12 concerned citizen, parent and neighbor. In

13 January 2009, I happened upon an article in the

14 Smithsonian by John McQuaid titled "Mining the

15 Mountains." I read with horror about how we are

16 permitting the decapitation of our Appalachian

17 Mountains, and the subsequent devastation of the

18 entire surrounding areas. Flooding, poisoning of

19 the water and air, all types of illnesses,

20 upsetting the most bio

- diverse hardwood forests we

21 have, it has kept me up at night.

22 How can this be true, I thought? What447

1 do we tell our children when they ask, "Mommy,

2 where are the mountains?" How can this ev en be

3 allowed here in the United States?

4 Well, this summer, I had to go with a

5 group to see the devastation for myself and meet

6 the people that live there. I spent time with

7 widows, veterans, grandfathers and mothers whose

8 lives have been turned into a living hell by the

9 coal companies. They now spend their time

10 fighting to gain back clean air and water and

11 protect what is left of their home.

12 Is this what Choice D would leave us to

13 look forward to? The aftermath of toxic coal ash

14 ruining where we live and making us sick? C oal,

15 oil, the energy companies cannot be trusted to do

16 the right thing. They will do the cheap thing now

17 and we will all pay for the mess in one way or

18 another later.

19 We know coal ash is toxic. Therefore, I

20 am 100 percent in favor of Subtitle C. By passing

21 this, at least you can know you've done something

22 to help protect us. If D passes and we are left448

1 on our own to police these companies, we will pay

2 with our health, our time and energy, and

3 potentially our lives.

4 It was just published in the Chicago

5 Tribune that Chicago is number three in the nation

6 in pollution. We are all becoming more aware. We

7 are not a small discrete population. Not even one

8 of us is. So, I am counting on you to please

9 adopt Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and

10 Recovery Act. Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 184

13 please?

14 MR. DICK: Hi, my name is Joe Dick. I'm

15 a concerned citizen and neighbor, too. I'm here

16 actually going to testify for our neigh bors down

17 in Southern Illinois.

18 In the heart of the coal mining country

19 in Randolph County at Peabody's Gateway

20 Coulterville mine. Coal combustion waste is being

21 trucked in from a power plant from Southern

22 Illinois University. It's placed in an open pit449

1 with the coal mine waste. The locals in the

2 Coulterville area have a rate of breast cancer and

3 neurological disease that is three times the

4 national average.

5 Gretchen, a photographer and journalist

6 there has MS. Carol Lind has breast cancer and

7 MS. Laura and Tony have small children and worry

8 about their health and future. Suzanne has

9 serious health issues. And Leonard and Jeanette

10 are farmers that had to move their cattle off

11 their land because their pastures are next to a

12 leaking gob and ash pile of coal ash waste. And

13 Mike is a farmer down there, he's concerned about

14 the coal ash and wants to know if it's gotten into

15 his well. And an elderly couple has already moved

16 away from there because their well was

17 contaminated.

18 T hank you.

19 (Applause)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. May I have

21 numbers 146, 149, 150, 151 and 152 please?

22 MS. SITKO: Shall I go ahead and start?450

1 MS. DEVLIN: Yes, please. Thank you.

2 Number 146, thank you.

3 MS. SITKO: Thanks. My name is Edyta

4 Sitko. I work as the Midwest organizer for

5 Greenpeace based here in Chicago. Thank you so

6 much for being here this evening.

7 Over the past six years, I have worked

8 with coal affected communities in Maryland,

9 Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky,

10 Indiana, and now Illinois. I had just started

11 working in Tennessee in December of 2008 when I

12 hea rd the report that one billion gallons of coal

13 ash sludge had broken out of the TVA Kingston

14 plant in Eastern Tennessee and covered over 400

15 acres of countryside and homes. From colleagues

1 6 and partner organizations, I heard the horrific

17 stories of families scrambling to recover their

18 earthly possessions three days before Christmas

19 under three to five feet of toxic coal ash sludge.

20 Even more worrying were the reports of coughing up

21 blood, other lung irritations, and skin burns from

22 workers working to clean up and contain the spill.451

1 They weren't wearing their protective gear or

2 masks because the coal industry claimed that the

3 sludge wasn't toxic. And also, there was no

4 enforcement to force them to have their workers

5 wear the gear.

6 And that brings me to my point.

7 Throughout today, I have listened to excuse after

8 excuse from coal industry officials claiming that

9 they need to be able to do business. Well, for

10 years, the coal industry has reaped record

-

11 breaking profits providing "cheap" energy at the

12 expense of the communities they destr oy. There is

13 nothing cheap about toxic drinking water or cancer

14 clusters caused by coal ash contamination. The

15 cost is simply borne by the communities,

16 individuals and state agencies rather than the

17 companies that are producing this toxic substance.

18 I urge you today to do the right thing

19 and protect our communities and our future

20 generations by passing S ubtitle C. Thank you.

21 (Applause)

22 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 149452

1 please?

2 MS. BARNARD: Hi, my name is Sandy

3 Barnard. I am a high school student at Kenwood

4 Academy. I have lived on the south side of

5 Chicago for my entire life. And as a young

6 perso n, the issue of coal ash is of course

7 important to me. This is a problem for my

8 generation. I'm likely to live another good 70

9 years whereas the people trying to stop regulation

10 on c oal ash maybe not.

11 I don't have cancer or MS or any of the

12 other health problems caused by coal. But I

13 easily could. I'm sure you've heard many stories

14 this evening about p eople with health problems

15 because of coal ash and I don't want that to be my

16 future. The best way to accomplish that is to end

17 our reliance on coal and to regulate coal ash with

18 Subt itle C. That regulation is exactly what I'm

19 asking for tonight. Thank you.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 150?

22 MR. DIMEO: Hi, my name is Dan Dimeo.453

1 I'm a student at Roosevelt University and an

2 active member of the Sierra Club.

3 I'm here to voice my support for the

4 EPA's regulation of coal combustion waste under

5 Subtitle C of RCRA. Again, the EPA has a duty

6 under the Clean Water Act to ensure safe drinking

7 water and that include s all Americans. Merely

8 offering suggestions or suggested guidelines for

9 disposal of coal combustion waste does not

10 sufficiently accomplish this.

11 In addition, I hope the EPA will review

12 its definition of beneficial use in regards to the

13 repurposing of coal combustion waste, particularly

14 for soil amendment which can be more detrimental

15 to the soil than ben eficial, and mine filling

16 which is essentially the dumping of coal in low

17 elevations close to groundwater. Repurposing is

18 good, if it is done in a responsible manner, and

19 again if the products being repurposed are not

20 toxic to our health.

21 I thank the panel for hearing and I

22 applaud the steps being taken by Administrator454

1 Jackson and the EPA working towards a clean energy

2 future. Thank you.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 151

5 please? 151. Okay, number 152.

6 MR. DEAL: My name is Brian Deal. I am

7 a professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the

8 University of Illinois in Champaign. And I have a

9 couple of questions.

10 First, clearly Subtitle C is the only

11 real choice to consider. When communities in our

12 state and in our country start to plan for the

13 future, they ha ve several assumptions that they

14 start with. One is that they have access to clean

15 air, clean water and other generally, into

16 generally a healthy environment. And we should

17 all start from that first basic assumption.

18 And whose responsibility would it be to

19 ensure those assumptions, whose responsibility

20 would it be to make sure that we're protected from

21 s ingle

- minded economic interests such as we've

22 heard already this evening? Clearly, these are455

1 federal regulatory assignments. These are

2 necessary for the federal government to ensure

3 these environments.

4 How long can we continue to subsidize

5 ancient and archaic energy technology and continue

6 to s uppress cleaner and newer technologies as we

7 do now? What are the true costs of extraction, of

8 inefficient burning, and of disposal of these

9 ancient technologies? And how can they be

10 replaced in short order?

11 It really seems to be a little question

12 but isn't it the explicit role of the EPA to

13 protect us from ourselves and from economic

14 interests in genera l? Thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. At this time,

17 I'd like to ask if there is anyone with a number

18 below 150 in the audience who has not spoken and

19 would like to speak. Could you please come

20 forward? And also, the numbers 153 and 154.

21 MS. ALLEN: Good evening, ladies and

22 gentlemen. My name is Amy Allen and I'm a s tudent456

1 at the University of Illinois. I thank you for

2 the opportunity to speak tonight.

3 I am here because I want power plants to

4 be held responsible for the toxic consequences of

5 burning coal. Events of the past several years

6 have highlighted the many disastrous consequences

7 of our fossil fuel addiction from the mining

8 tragedy in Virginia to the BP oil spill to the

9 coal ash disaster in Tennessee. Coal ash is a

10 silent and stealthy threat. No authority in

11 Illinois is keeping track of the dumping sites

12 where power plants send coal ash.

13 This toxic waste can contain hundreds of

14 times the levels of contaminants that set the

15 threshold for being hazar dous by the EPA. Coal

16 ash presents over ten times the health risk that

17 the EPA considers acceptable. There is no doubt

18 that coal ash presents a serious hazard to all

19 health and commu nities.

20 Coal companies have benefited from

21 billions of dollars of government subsidies, all

22 while escaping the cost of pollution, healthcare,457

1 and disposal of coal combustion waste that they

2 produce. The Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash

3 disaster is now expected to cost over $1.2 billion

4 to rem ediate while it would have cost less than

5 five percent of that to properly secure the waste

6 in the first place. Government policies until

7 this point have made coal inexpensive for power

8 plants to burn. However, coal is extremely costly

9 to taxpayers and our society in terms of

10 healthcare, pollution and human lives.

11 Power plants should be responsible for

12 p aying those costs. And that starts with

13 regulation of coal combustion waste under Subtitle

14 C.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 153?

17 154? 132? 144 is fine. Again, let me, anyone

18 with a number of under 150 who wishes to speak, if

19 you would come forward? Whenever you're ready,

20 sir. Thank you.

21 MR. FULL ER: Sure, thank you. Good

22 evening. My name is Tony Fuller. I'm a volunteer458

1 with the Sierra Club. And I'm here tonight

2 because I want the Environmental Protection Agency

3 to do its job. And its job is to protect us from

4 the hazards of coal ash waste.

5 Coal ash waste is toxic. If I took a

6 bott le of arsenic and took it over to the Chicago

7 River and just threw it in, I think that would be

8 seen as wrong. And why, you know, coal companies

9 can just do that and not even say what they've

10 done with the ash is definitely wrong, especially

11 when you're talking about the tons and tons of

12 waste that's going out there.

13 So, this is about doing what's right.

14 Wrong is not right. There is just no, I guess no

15 way to mix up between the two.

16 I do not want arsenic in my drinking

17 water or anyone else's drinking water. Why should

18 the c oal companies be able to do that? They

19 should be responsible for that waste. They are

20 getting paid to basically create that waste, they

21 should be responsible for maintaining the waste's

22 safe disposal.459

1 Regulations that treat the waste as

2 hazardous waste under Subtitle C is a great first

3 step. B asically, we need the Environmental

4 Protection Agency to represent those that can't

5 protect themselves, people who live by coal power

6 plants especially, and we have two in Chicago, are

7 especially vulnerable and they cannot do this on

8 their own. That is why we have the Agency.

9 And so, I ask you to protect us and

10 regulate this waste as hazardous waste or special

1 1 waste and to protect the environment. Thank you.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

14 MR. STANT: Hello, I'm Jeff Stant with

15 the Environmental I ntegrity Project. And we've

16 already testified that we strongly favor a C

17 regulation for coal combustion waste so I won't

18 belabor that point.

19 I want to respond to some of the

20 statements that were made today assailing the

21 statements made by citizens from Joliet about the

22 contamination at that site, first of all. We,460

1 Environmental Integrity Project, did a report

2 which I'll turn in on that site as part of its "In

3 Harm's Way" report, we examined that site.

4 There is no q uestion that there were 18

5 wells at that site that were contaminated with

6 boron. They were offsite drinking water wells.

7 The concentrations were between 1 and 2 parts per

8 million in t hose wells. To Midwest Generation's

9 credit, they either bought those people out or

10 took them off their wells, but they were

11 contaminated with boron.

12 The natural background f or the shallow

13 carbon rock aquifer in that area for boron is

14 around 0.3. The boron was between 1 and 2 at all

15 of those wells. The claim they made that the

16 offsite groundwater is not moving into the Smiley

17 Subdivision is a claim that we were just repeating

18 from the consultant of Midwest Energy that was

19 simply saying that if you allow the quarries

20 neighboring the si te to be pumped down to the

21 east, you'll have groundwater moving into the

22 Smiley Subdivision within a period of time at that461

1 1 to 2 parts per million level. So, they are the

2 ones, we got that from their documents.

3 The enforcement action they said was

4 never taken. Look, we can't help it if we FOIA

5 IEPA and IEPA finally sends us a notice of

6 violation dated August 31, 2009 citing 50

7 violations of the groundwater standard at the

8 site, and then when we call them to get them to

9 ex plain it further, they never respond to repeated

10 phone calls. We have this NOV. And if their

11 defense about how they're doing a good job is,

12 hey, we've never taken any actions at that site so

13 don't accuse us of having done so, I find that a

14 funny defense for arguing that they're doing their

15 job at a site where 22 offsite wells have been

16 contaminated.

17 And finally, I just point out that the

18 boundary monitoring wells, the ones closest to the

19 wells which are south and southeast of the site,

20 not in the Smiley Subdivision but the drinking

21 wa ter wells to the south, those have arsenic in

22 them at up to 10 times over the drinking water462

1 standard, molybdenum 72 times over the health

2 standard, boron up to 5 times over the Illinois

3 standard. So, they know they have a problem,

4 Illinois EPA does, at the boundary of that site.

5 Their documents indicate they can see there 's a

6 problem. It's not our fault that IEPA hasn't even

7 seen fit to do one bit of sampling then farther

8 offsite, and it's a statement that they're not

9 doing their job there.

10 Thank you very much. I'll turn in the

11 Joliet report here and save my response on the

12 structural fills and the gypsum until the next

13 hearing. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 137, I

16 believe you're in the room. Let me try again.

17 151, 153? Okay.

18 MS. PASTIN: Hi, my name is Sue Pastin.

19 I'm just here as an individual American citizen.

20 We need to trust our government to protect our

21 public health, to protect the public. It seems

22 like the government has just been eviscerated b y463

1 corporate lobbyists, by corporate control. It's

2 like corporations have way too much power. You're

3 endangering public he alth. We count on the EPA to

4 protect the environment.

5 I'm a federal employee. I try and do my

6 job. I try and serve my customers which are the

7 public, okay? Your customers are the public, too.

8 You balance obviously but the public health has to

9 take precedence. And if there is arsenic in

10 wells, then you've got to go with the strict

11 standard and you've g ot to regulate coal ash as

12 hazardous waste. Thanks.

13 (Applause)

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Can I have

15 numbers 362, 363, 364, 365 and 366 please? Okay,

16 number 362?

17 MS. OEHLSEN: Hi, I'm 365 as we're

18 waiting for people to come up.

19 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, that's fine.

20 MS. OEHLEN: My name is Nadia Oehls en.

21 I'm unaffiliated, just a concerned citizen. And

22 when I heard about the coal ash hearings and the464

1 fact that something t hat contains mercury, cadmium

2 and so on isn't really regulated in my state or in

3 many other states, I was like, huh, that sounds

4 kind of 19th century to me or modern China to me.

5 And I 'm not an expert on this stuff but it just, I

6 agree, I expect the EPA to protect me. And I know

7 that the EPA faces a lot of cost

- cutting, a lot of

8 politics from whatever administration is in

9 charge.

10 But I think that this is an important,

11 an important opportunity for the EPA to take

12 charge. I support Subtitle C. As a consumer, I

13 know people often mention cost, that we can't do

14 this because it might cost more. I understand.

15 Every time I turn on the lights, I know there is a

16 cost to that. And if protecting the environment,

17 protecting human health means that I have to pay

18 more as a consumer, that's okay with me. That's

19 my responsibility as well. Thanks.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 362, are

22 you here? No. 63?465

1 MS. KURTZ: My name is Molly Kurtz, and

2 I want to share with you what my neig hbors in

3 Marion, Illinois are facing. At the Southern

4 Illinois Power Cooperative Lake of Egypt plant

5 near Marion, Illinois, toxic coal ash and sludge

6 have been placed in six unlined p onds, one unlined

7 landfill, and one lined pond since 1963. The

8 landfill was built in the floodplain between the

9 confluence of Saline Creek and South Fork Saline

10 Creek. Groundwater mo nitoring has been required

11 in the vicinity of the landfill and ponds only

12 since 1994. And high concentrations of the toxic

13 heavy metal cadmium were first detected in 1997.

14 I n the wake of the 2008 Kingston,

15 Tennessee disaster, Illinois conducted a statewide

16 review of ash impoundments. Illinois EPA found

17 elevated boron, cadmium, and iron above Illinois

18 Cla ss 1 groundwater standards at the Marion site.

19 The little Saline Creek is now contaminated.

20 Does this affect people? Gene who is a

21 farmer worries about the leachate from this dump

22 contaminating his cattle pasture. Sue who works466

1 at a nearby federal prison worries about the

2 groundwater pollution and the high rate of cancer

3 among her co

- workers. Other people are worried,

4 too, but they're afraid to speak up. Those that

5 live at the Lake of Egypt feel intimidated by

6 Southern Illinois Power becaus e the company owns

7 the lake they live on.

8 (Applause)

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 364?

10 MS. FARRY: Good evening. I'm Sister

11 Gwe n Farry from 8th Day Center for Justice. And I

12 am here today to speak for those who are not able

13 to speak for themselves.

14 Earlier this summer, I was privileged to

15 accompany the Eco

- Justice Collaborative delegation

16 to West Virginia where we met people and spoke

17 with people who are most affected by the

18 mountaintop removal there. Last year, I had the

19 opport unity to participate in a toxic tour of

20 Little Village and saw people whose families are

21 affected by asthma and many other health issues.

22 I also want to speak for people in467

1 Southern Illinois on the Ohio River where there is

2 Electric Energy, Incorporated in Joppa, Illinois.

3 Conveniently located right next door is L afarge

4 Cement which uses coal waste in the production of

5 cement. When Lafarge has more fly ash than they

6 need, they have been known to get rid of it by

7 giving it to the nearby countie s to spread onto

8 gravel county roads. Dilbert and his sister and

9 brother

- in

- law lived on such a road, and with each

10 passing vehicle clouds of toxic dust permeated

11 their lives. They a ll eventually developed

12 cancer. Dilbert's brother

- in

- law has since died.

13 So, I'm here to speak in the stead of

14 all of these folks and just beg you to have more

15 regulations.

16 (Applause)

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Thank you.

18 Number 366 please?

19 MS. FINKEL: Hi, my name is Sarah

20 Finkel. Thank you for having t his public hearing.

21 I am a resident of Chicago. I live in Pilsen and

22 I'm a volunteer member of the Pilsen Environmental468

1 Ri ghts and Reform Organization which means that

2 this issue means so much to me that I volunteer my

3 time outside of work to come and really hope that

4 at least the EPA could do their part in regulating

5 whatever toxins the coal companies are putting

6 into our drinking water and into our environment.

7 You know, I'm not an expert either, but

8 if the evidence is there that this coal a sh is

9 this toxic, causing cancer, asthma, and other

10 respiratory and health problems, then the first

11 thing to do is to just regulate it. I mean that's

12 all that we're asking is to regul ate it. You

13 know, ultimately, hopefully we can go beyond that

14 to conservation, and that is, you know, my goal.

15 But this is the first step, you know. And I don't

16 think it's that much to ask. Thanks.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Numbers 156,

19 163, 344, 367 and 368.

20 MS. CONRAD: I'm Geraldine Conrad. I'm

21 a public policy person since graduate school. I

22 do consulting and I call myself policy and469

1 persuasion. And I hope I'm successful in

2 persuading you to regulate coal ash as hazardous

3 waste.

4 Coal is dirty, ash is dirty. Put them

5 together, you have double dirty. I find it

6 reprehensible that compani es come before you and

7 tell you they cannot afford to do their duty, to

8 do what they are paid to do. They are supposed to

9 put out a product and do it cleanly and safely and

10 not do har m to other people. I find their

11 attitude reprehensible, immature, selfish, and

12 they want us to pay for their salaries, their

13 benefits, and let them take the success and leave

14 us with the coal ash.

15 And I think it's about time, again, that

16 we have government step up to the plate and do for

17 the entire country what individuals are not able

18 to do themselves. That in fact is the role of

19 government. We can't individually build bridges

20 or tunnels or pass out polio vaccine when there is

21 an epidemic. This is the responsibility of the

22 governme nt. It's the responsibility of EPA and I470

1 applaud you for taking this seriously. And I hope

2 you stick it to them. Thank you.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 163?

5 MS. RICHARDSON: Thank you, EPA, for

6 having this hearing for us all today. And my name

7 is Erin R ichardson. I am here from the University

8 of Missouri

- Columbia as a concerned youth. I am

9 part of the campus' Beyond Coal Campaign sponsored

10 by the Sierra Club.

11 I'm here to say that the main concern

12 here is not the regurgitating of a bunch of facts

13 to you. I mean, I'm not an expert, I'm a

14 sociology major. I'm here to tell you that I'm

15 worried and concer ned about the health of me, my

16 friends, my family, my planet and our future.

17 I don't know how we could have gone this

18 long without any sort of regulation on something

19 as know ingly dangerous and toxic as coal ash. We

20 are maybe not purposely causing harm to people,

21 but without action we are doing harm. Why would

22 we not just regulate something as dangerous as471

1 coal ash when we can regulate things like being

2 too loud in our own home (sound pollution) or even

3 running around naked in the streets (in decent

4 exposure). Yes, this is humorous examples. They

5 do not actually cause any physical harm or death

6 like coal ash, yet they are regulated and coal ash

7 is not.

8 We need Subtitle C. We are asking you

9 to help us. We need you to protect all of us and

10 our future. Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. N umber 344?

13 Thank you.

14 DR. CHAMBERLAIN: My name is Dr. Lora

15 Chamberlain and I am here in support of the

16 regulation of coal ash under Subtitle C. And I'm

17 a family physician here in Chicago and coal ash,

18 even a brief cursory discovery on the internet and

19 other periodicals, has been proven to be a

20 hazardous waste. The toxins include mercury, a

21 known neural toxin causing developmental defects

22 and decreased intellectual functioning; chromium,472

1 the ingestion of which causes multipl e

2 gastrointestinal cancers, the inhalation which

3 causes asthma or respiratory disease, lung cancer;

4 selenium causes neurological effects; lead causing

5 effects really on every system in the body;

6 arsenic, also almost every system in the body; and

7 on and on and on.

8 Now, I am here to talk to you about the

9 so

- called beneficial uses of coal ash. I'm

10 really, really concerned. I was going to actually

11 testify about something else but I was in the

12 audience and I was listening to all of this talk

13 about putting coal ash or gypsum on our crops.

14 And so, I ran down to FedEx and I did a, you know,

15 research on what has been investigated with the

16 use of gypsums. And there has been very, very few

17 studies done on the post

- applicatio n of gypsum. I

18 looked up one of your own reports, the

19 characterization of coal combustion residues from

20 electric utilities leaching and characterization

21 data, and even your own report shows that there

22 are vast toxicities, toxic levels with the use of473

1 FGD gypsums. And I am really concerned that we're

2 not investigating this in a post

- application

3 basis a little bit more.

4 Just an example on one issue, and that

5 is selenium was found to have, in some of your

6 studies, in some of y our samples, was found to

7 have 16 times the hazard level to human health in

8 the gypsum samples. So, if gypsum is okay for our

9 crops and it is not toxic, I want to encourage

10 everyone t o do what the doctor who testified in

11 the congressional, Dr. Donald McGraw, and that is

12 to put coal ash on your morning cereal. You don't

13 have to do it if you don't want to but, you know,

14 unless we study it, we really don't know the

15 effects of it.

16 (Applause)

17 DR. CHAMBERLAIN: Do some further study.

18 Thank you. And pass the Subtitle C. Than k you.

19 (Applause)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Numbers 367 and

21 368, are you in the room? Okay. Number 159, 203,

22 and 369 please? Please come forward.474

1 DR. SKVUKRUD: That was quick. I just

2 walked into the room and I was thinking I would be

3 able to listen to what folks had t o say for a

4 while, but happy to have a chance to speak.

5 I'm Dr. Cindy Skvukrud. I'm the clean

6 water advocate for the Illinois Chapter of the

7 Sierra Club. And so, I work wit h folks throughout

8 Illinois who are concerned about the impacts of

9 coal ash on their communities. They want clean

10 water, they want clean streams, they want clean

11 groundwater.

12 So, as I'm sure you've probably heard

13 from many other Sierra Club members today that we

14 support the strong option Subtitle C. And I've

15 heard from my colleagues that were here earlie r in

16 the day that there has been a lot of concerns

17 raised by folks who use coal combustion products

18 for what are called beneficial uses, and they were

19 worried that by classifying coal ash as hazardous

20 it would put a stigma on their beneficial use of

21 those materials.

22 I think people, you know, certainly as475

1 you just heard, people are concerned about what

2 we're putting on our farm fields, what goes into

3 our walls. But I think people would feel

4 comfortable if those uses were requi red to have

5 good testing. So, I think that's the key thing is

6 if we're going to use these materials for

7 beneficial use, then we need to properly test

8 them.

9 And so, I wanted to just stress that I

10 know that the EPA has recently released some

11 recommendations for new improved testing methods

12 that better measure how coal combustion products

13 w ill potentially leach in the environment. So,

14 those that are tested at different pH's, it would

15 just better reflect and give people more

16 assurances that if something is going to be used

17 for "beneficial use" that truly the water will be

18 protected, people's home will be protected and

19 their health.

20 So, thank you for the chance to speak

21 and thank you for toda y.

22 (Applause)476

1 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 159

2 please?

3 MS. STOJAN

- R UCCOLO: Good evening.

4 Thank you for holding this hearing today and for

5 being here late into the evening to hear what the

6 public has to say about this important issue. I

7 am Erin Stoja n

- Ruccolo, senior policy associate

8 with Fresh Energy in St. Paul, Minnesota.

9 Fresh Energy is a 20

- year

- old non

- profit

10 energy policy advocacy organization that works for

11 adopt ion and implementation of clean energy policy

12 on the state, regional and national levels. I am

13 here today to urge you to adopt the rule to govern

14 coal combustion residuals that clearly reflects

15 the extreme potential for serious damage to human

16 health and the environment from these wastes. I

17 urge you to regulate coal combustion residues

18 under Subtitle C of RCRA.

19 Perhaps more than 30 years ago when RCRA

20 was adopted and implemented, it might have been

21 okay to apply Subtitle D solid waste regulations

22 to coal ash as an experiment until more was known,477

1 and to see if a complete network of state

2 regulations and enforcement would have been

3 developed. It's too late for that.

4 We have another 30 years of knowledge

5 about the potential for harm from coal ash, about

6 how the present extremely scattered and seriously

7 incomplete patchwork of state regulations and

8 enforcement are letting us down across the

9 country, and about how to develop and implement

10 economically efficient waste regulation. In

11 addition, we have too much knowledge about l arge

12 and small disasters caused by poor coal ash

13 management.

14 Nothing prevented the states from

15 adopting adequate coal waste regulations over the

16 past 30 yea rs. They simply did not do so, or at

17 least not enough of them did. Waiting more years

18 for states to step up while more impoundments fail

19 and hazardous and toxic substances continue to

20 leach or flood into rivers, lakes and groundwater

21 is untenable.

22 Every other industry as well as every478

1 individua l waste generator in this room and

2 elsewhere in every household must manage its waste

3 responsibly under a complete network of federal

4 and state waste regulation. There is no reason to

5 continue the unconscionable exception for coal ash

6 which increasingly contains truly hazardous and

7 toxic substances and to which best management

8 practices are not uniformly applied.

9 If in fact reasonably responsible

10 management of coal ash makes some coal fired power

11 plants economically infeasible, those coal plants

12 should be retired and probably should have been

13 retired many years ago. We have better

14 alternatives for generating electricity that do

15 not threaten our air, land, water and our climate.

16 This is especially critical in the

17 Midwest where we are so heavily reliant on coal to

18 make electricity and generate huge amounts of coal

19 ash usually near or even in the midst of

20 waterways.

21 In addition, please carefully craft any

22 beneficial use exceptions to ensure we stop479

1 producing materials using coal ash from which

2 hazar dous and toxic substances may leach into our

3 homes, schools, businesses and the natural

4 environment.

5 Please adopt coal combustion residue

6 regulations under Subtitle C of RCRA . Thank you

7 for your attention.

8 (Applause)

9 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 203

10 please?

11 MR. SZOLLOSI: Good evening. My name is

12 Frank Szollosi, I'm an energy policy analyst with

13 the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes

14 office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. On behalf of NWF,

15 our 47 state affiliates and our four mi llion

16 members coast to coast, we thank you for the

17 opportunity to provide comments tonight. And we

18 urge you very strongly to determine that coal ash

19 should be classified as a special waste under

20 Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and

21 Recovery Act (RCRA).

22 Although I work in Michigan, I live in4 80

1 Toledo, Ohio. Ohio was one of 29 states that do

2 not require coal ash landfills and wet ponds to be

3 monitored. This is unacceptable. Despite the

4 litany of documented impacts of co al ash

5 contamination on human health, water and wildlife,

6 currently there is no meaningful federal

7 regulation of this waste. Although the industry

8 claims that state regulations are ad equate and

9 coal ash disposal landfills and ponds are safe,

10 the reality is that every year hundreds of

11 thousands of gallons of toxic substances leak into

12 the ground and surface water an d leach into the

13 soil.

14 No community in America should have its

15 drinking water threatened by arsenic, lead,

16 mercury or other toxic substances. Yet Ohio has

17 several high hazard potential coal ash storage

18 sites identified by the USEPA, threatening

19 wildlife and habitat along the Ohio River, and 695

20 families in a town called Brilliant, Ohio, 93

21 families in Cheshire, Ohio, and almost 4,000

22 people in Waterford. USEPA has identified threats481

1 to communities from coal ash across the Mi dwest

2 including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky,

3 Indiana and Illinois, totaling 67 across the

4 country. An independent study has identified 39

5 additional coal ash disposal sites in 21 states,

6 and documents leaks of toxic substances that raise

7 water pollution to levels in excess of federal

8 law.

9 Impacts of coal ash contamination on

10 co mmunities, water and wildlife, and the failure

11 of states to adopt and implement effective

12 regulations underscores the need for the USEPA to

13 regulate coal ash under Subtitle C of RCRA. Under

14 Subtitle D, there would be little change in how

15 states handle these problems. Think of the

16 families in Brilliant. Think of the families in

17 Cheshire. They deserve the same safe drinking

18 water that we're all enjoying tonight here in

19 Chicago. Thank you very much.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Before I call

22 the next speakers, we 're going to have a482

1 one

- member change on the panel. Ms. Susan Mooney

2 is leaving and is being replaced by Mr. Frank

3 Behan, also from EPA. So, thank you.

4 With that, may I have speakers numbers

5 164, 167, 225, 370 and 371? 225? Thank you,

6 please go ahead.

7 MR. JORDISON: Hello, everyone. My name

8 is Graham Jordison, and I drove here from Ames,

9 Iowa today. I'm really, really excited to see

10 that the EPA is finally doing something about coal

11 combustion waste.

12 I work for the Sierra Student Coalition

13 in Iowa. And before I knew about the Sierra

14 Student Coalition or the Beyond Coal Campaign, I

15 actually knew about coal waste. I was involved

16 with an environmental group on my campus and one

17 of the members said, hey, Graham, you know there's

18 a coal plant on campus? And I said yes, and she

19 said to me, well, do you know where t hey're

20 dumping the waste? And I said no, I'm not sure

21 where they are dumping the waste.

22 Well, we did a little research and we483

1 found out that in the 80's and 90's they were

2 dumping the waste in the Des Moines River. And we

3 actually met some people that lived right next to

4 the dump site and they weren't too happy with

5 that. But now, in the last decade, they are

6 actually dumping the coal waste in an unlined

7 quarry in Waterloo, Iowa. BMC Aggregates owns

8 that quarry. And it wa s unmonitored until a group

9 of students went outside of the library the first

10 day of school a year ago, and they held signs and

11 they actually forced the school to install a water

12 monit oring station near the site.

13 And the reason it wasn't being monitored

14 is because the DNR actually gave the schools a

15 beneficial use waiver. And apparently they were

16 doing th is quite often. They're destroying the

17 ground, mining materials out of it and they're

18 filling it up with toxic coal ash. And we haven't

19 found out the results of that groundwater

20 moni toring station that they put in there. But

21 the schools decided to wait and they decided to

22 wait on the EPA to come out with regulations that484

1 will force them to do something about that site.

2 This was a year and a half ago when we

3 met with them, and they finally, they said this to

4 me. But you know, on behalf of th e students in

5 Iowa, for the health of the Iowans, we ask that

6 you do something as soon as possible because just

7 recently in the Des Moines register there were

8 three dumpsites that were labeled hazardous. And

9 again we have this dumpsite in Iowa, we don't know

10 what's going on there. We don't know if it's

11 leaching in the groundwater or not. And the DNR

12 is not regula ting this stuff enough.

13 So, we're really happy that you're here

14 today. And we really hope you take, you know,

15 what's going on in Iowa into consideration and I

16 ask that you p lease consider Subtitle 3, you make

17 that a priority and you do something for Iowans.

18 So, thank you very much.

19 (Applause)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 164?

21 164? 167?

22 MR. MILLER: Good evening. My name is485

1 Nathan Miller and I work for the Midwest Regional

2 Office of the National Parks Conservation

3 Association. Thank you for the opportunity to

4 speak today.

5 Since 1919, the nonpartisan National

6 Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been the

7 leading voice of the American people in protecting

8 our national parks. Our mission is to protect and

9 enhance our national parks today for our children

10 and grandchi ldren tomorrow. With 325,000 members

11 and supporters, NPCA is the largest independent

12 membership based organization dedicated to

13 protecting the natural, cultural and historic

14 treasures of our national park system. NPCA's

15 members live, work and recreate in all the

16 national parks, including several that we are

17 concerned have been or will be negatively impacted

18 by coa l combustion waste. We are likewise

19 concerned that most of the impacts of coal waste

20 have yet to be known or felt by national park

21 resources.

22 In the absence of strong federa l486

1 regulation, these natural resources, they suffer

2 irreparable damage. In order to avoid future harm

3 and mitigate existing harm to national park

4 resources, the disposal of coal combustion

5 residuals from electric utilities must be

6 regulated as special waste under Subtitle C of

7 RCRA. Regulating coal waste under Subtitle C will

8 provide the technological safeguards and

9 regulatory structure necessary to ensure much

10 needed transparency and industry and agency

11 accountability. Such regulatio n would include

12 requirements for disposal permits, groundwater

13 monitoring systems, liners and leachate collection

14 systems necessary to protect people and their

15 parks.

16 Without permits and monitoring systems,

17 we will not be able to identify those areas most

18 threatened by coal waste exposure, nor will we be

19 able to protect national park resources from

20 related risks. We are concerned that coal waste

21 sites adjacent to national parks across the

22 country have or will suffer impacts from coal487

1 waste contamination. These include nearby Indiana

2 Dunes National Lakeshore, Congaree National Park

3 in South Carolina, and Lake Mead in Nevada. In

4 order for the National Park Service and advocacy

5 groups like ours to determine risk and options for

6 mitigation or avoidance of harm, this information

7 is critical.

8 In the absence of mandated, installed

9 liners and leachate collection systems, toxins in

10 coal waste have the ability to seep from landfills

11 and waste ponds, thereby contaminating or

12 threatening to contaminate rivers, lakes and

13 streams that fish and other wildlife depend on.

14 An example of this is selenium. This and other

15 toxins prevalent in coal combustion waste threaten

16 the health of aquatic and terrest rial animal,

17 plants and their ecosystems. These toxins make

18 fish, for example, unsafe for people to consume.

19 To further our mission, NPCA works to

20 strengthen and enforce law s that protect the

21 national pars and their wildlife, resources and

22 visitors. We are here today to urge EPA to488

1 regulate coa l combustion waste as special waste

2 under Subtitle C, and to issue a finalized rule as

3 soon as possible to protect our country's

4 treasured park resources and the people that enjoy

5 them . Thank you.

6 (Applause)

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 370?

8 MS. HARTNELL: Hello, and thank you very

9 much for this opportunity. You can tell by my

10 lovely T

- shirt which direction I'm leaning on

11 this. I'm Emily Hartnell, member of Sierra Club,

12 citizen of Illinois, citizen of the United States,

13 citizen and child of the earth. I w holeheartedly

14 support Option C of the proposed regulations

15 regarding coal ash management.

16 I believe it is incumbent on each and

17 every one of us to care and enjoy all aspects of

18 the earth. It was and is a gift to us. It is not

19 a plaything. It supports, thrills, energizes and

20 calls upon us to relate responsibly.

21 It has power over us and we over it. We

22 need to have faith and fully employ our489

1 considerable creativity and skills to develop and

2 employ alternatives to de facing and poisoning the

3 only home we have. Thank you.

4 (Applause)

5 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 371

6 please?

7 MS. SIPIORA: Hi, I' m Alexandra Sipiora

8 and I'm from El Paso, Texas. It was really

9 heavily polluted. So, my medical background

10 includes lead and mercury poisoning, so I think

11 eventually coal should be p hased out all together.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. I'd like to ask

14 at this point, is there anybody in the room who

15 has a number below 170 that I have not called that

16 would like to speak? Okay.

17 Is there any

-- okay, number 172 I am

18 told is in the room? Thank you.

19 MS. MARTY: Hi, my name is Elsa Marty

20 and I am a student at the University of

21 Chicago

- Divinity School. I'm also a member of

22 Augustana and Lutheran Church of Hyde Park. And I490

1 am seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran

2 Church in America and I hope to be a pastor

3 someday.

4 I am here to testify in favor of

5 Subtitle C. I'm not a scientist but I can easily

6 understand the clear evidence that coal ash has

7 harmful effects on the health of our communities

8 and our environment. Thus, as a future faith

9 leader, I feel that it is my duty to speak out on

10 this issue and call us to reflect on our values

11 and our moral responsibilities.

12 I want to read a passage from scripture

13 from the pr ophet Ezekiel. "Is it not enough for

14 you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also

15 trample the rest of your pasture with your feet?

16 Is it not enough for you to drink clear water?

17 Mu st you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must

18 my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink

19 what you have muddled with your feet?" The

20 prophet Ezekiel here is talking about the powerful

21 few who ruin the earth for everyone else. And

22 coal companies are doing much more than just491

1 muddying the water. They are dumping t oxic waste

2 in sites where it can leach into our drinking

3 water and cause cancer, organ disease, respiratory

4 illnesses, and neurological and other

5 developmental problems, especially in children.

6 I speak as a Christian, but I know that

7 people of other religious traditions feel the

8 same. We have a responsibility, a moral

9 responsibility to put the interests of the most

10 vulnerable first. I encourage you to adopt

11 Subtitle C. Thank you.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. At this time, I

14 am going to ask, is there anyone in the room who

15 has a number whom I have not called who would like

16 to speak? Please, number 368, please come

17 forward. I'm sorry, sir, yes, you, sorry, number

18 18 7? Thank you, if you would come forward? 350,

19 okay, 3

- 5

- 0, please come forward. 188? Thank

20 you, if you would please come forward, that would

21 be great. 210, please come forward. That gives

22 us five. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.492

1 MR. JONES: Thank you. My name is Boise

2 Jones. I'm from Minneapolis, Mi nnesota. I am the

3 former chair of the Environmental Justice

4 Advocates of Minnesota. I serve on multiple

5 environmental policy commissions and was appointed

6 by the governor of the stat e to serve on the

7 Climate Change Advisory Group. I currently work

8 as a renewable energy specialist, and it is from

9 this perspective that I offer my comments today.

10 Firstly, I would like to express my

11 gratitude to the EPA for holding these hearings.

12 Only a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting

13 Administrator Jackson in Minneapolis. It was

14 there that I heard her express her commitment to

15 Executive Order 12898, and my confidence in this

16 Agency has been restored.

17 It seems I was just here not long ago

18 testifying on the ills of mercury. At that time,

19 there was an obvious hostility the former

20 administration held for my and my cohorts' views.

21 I feel there is a window of opportunity to have

22 heard our concern s on coal ash. There are and493

1 have been many people interestingly weighing in on

2 this topic. I fear there is very little I can say

3 relative to the science or the adverse social and

4 environmental impact that you have not already

5 heard.

6 Therefore, I will spend my remaining

7 time urging and implorin g you to consider the

8 following. The EPA should adopt federally

9 enforceable regulations governing coal ash

10 disposal. Remembering Kingston, Tennessee and

11 Wilsonville, Alabama, try not to continue this

12 policy of catastrophic concern and only responding

13 when calamity befalls us. Barium, selenium,

14 arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other byproducts of

15 coal residue produce for poor people some very

16 serious problems, and we would like for you to be

17 mindful of that.

18 Some have asked the question, "How much

19 longer can we continue to have crisis ma nagement

20 determine our energy and environmental policies?"

21 Today, I, too, ask that question.

22 Coal ash impacts our water, soil and494

1 food. Coal ash contaminated wet ponds should be

2 labeled hazardous waste and regulated by the EPA

3 accordingly. In short, I ask that the EPA adopt

4 Subtitle C designati ng coal ash as a hazardous

5 waste and proceed to reduce adverse impacts on our

6 community. There is an old Hebrew saying that

7 says "In the struggle of the two elephants, it is

8 the grass that suffers." We hope that between

9 these policies and harm, that you guys will make a

10 good decision. Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. I kind of lost

13 track of your number, so if you could come up and

14 tell me your number, it would be helpful.

15 MR. SWANSEN: I'm number 188.

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

17 MR. SWANSEN: My name is Christopher

18 Swansen. I'd really like to thank you for hosting

19 this, I guess comment period. I drove in from

20 Minneapolis also, seven hours away. I'm a junior

21 at the University of Minnesota, studying

22 Environmental Policy and Law. And again, I495

1 really, really want to push the suppo rt for

2 Subtitle C. You've already seen how, if we leave

3 it to the states, how they react and how they

4 regulate coal ash. And I do not want that in the

5 future.

6 I'm also here on account of there's two

7 elderly people that sent us a letter and I'm here

8 to read it for them.

9 Dear Administrators: Thank you for

10 recognizing the seriou s problem posed by toxic

11 coal ash left from the burning of coal. I'd like

12 to share with you how We Energy expansion has

13 affected me, my wife and my family's life. We

14 Energy has been testing our water for years. In

15 August 2009, report from the DNR showed an

16 increase in some unsafe metals. Within one month,

17 We Energy has purchased two of our neighbors'

18 homes and o ne family relocated immediately. It

19 just so happened those were the very vocal

20 neighbors from the community.

21 Shortly thereafter, we spoke with the We

22 Energy's representative and were told they were496

1 coming up with a plan for the remainder of the

2 homeowners but they were getting rid of the people

3 with children first. Some months later, we were

4 told that they were not purchasing homes any more

5 and they never bought out the two other

6 homeowners. Instead, we were given, free of

7 charge, a water cooler and free water until We

8 Energy could come up with a more sustainable

9 solution.

10 At that time, we were told of the

11 possibilities of getting city water. I'll come

12 back to that later. We were told not to drink our

13 well water or to use the water and that they would

14 provide water for everything from drinking and to

15 cooking. My wife and I are elderly and we both

16 have physical conditions. It is extremely

17 difficult for my wife and I to put the water up on

18 the unit. We opted for the three

- gallon container

19 as it was the smallest one we could get, and still

20 it was a very hard struggle.

21 Our only concern is using our well water

22 to shower and brush our teeth. It is not safe to497

1 drink, it is certainly not safe to clean ourselves

2 with. Also, we've had our own garden for many,

3 many years, and we no longer believe it is safe to

4 eat the vegetables and anything from it. We also

5 had a swimming pool for over 20 years but we had

6 it removed because we were afraid of the dangers

7 that it posed to us and our families.

8 Our home has depreciated in value, not

9 to mention we will be unable to sell it. Who

10 would buy a house that doesn't have water? From

11 the expansion, our house has a lot of dust on it.

12 I don't know if it's from burning coal ash,

13 construction dust or both, but there's a lot of

14 dust on it.

15 My grandchildren used to come over all

16 the time overnight. It was such a joy for me and

17 my wife. We are no longer comfortable having them

18 over. They may shower, they may brush their

19 teeth, they may use the water. They are not

20 t oddlers but when they come to visit we have to

21 keep our eyes on them to make sure they don't open

22 the tap.498

1 We Ene rgy advised that they were looking

2 into long

- term solutions of having the homeowners

3 go to the city water. Are you kidding me? We

4 have never had a water bill. Now, not only do

5 they want the homeowners to have plumbing

6 installed but they want us to pay for the water

7 that they screwed up. And it's all because they

8 contaminated the water in the first place.

9 Please protect our family and our

10 communities. Please support Subtitle C. Thank

11 you very much.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. May I have the

14 next speaker please?

15 MS. BLAINE: I'm number 210.

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

17 MS. BLAINE: My name is Sue Blaine, I'm

18 a resident of River Forest, Il linois. I'm also a

19 chemical engineer with over 30 years experience in

20 various manufacturing industries. My mother and

21 two of my sisters are currently the third and

22 fourth generations of our family living on the499

1 family farm, part of which was acquired by

2 AmerenUE in the 1960's to construct the power

3 plant in Labadie, Missouri.

4 I would encourage the EPA to adopt the

5 Subtitle C option regarding coal combustion

6 residues for several reasons. First, while I

7 strongly support recyc ling CCRs when they are

8 encapsulated, it is well documented that they pose

9 a threat to both air and water quality when in

10 powder or liquid form. Monitoring as proposed in

11 the Subtitle C option is essential to assure that

12 these materials do not contaminate the air we

13 breathe and the water we drink. Concentration

14 limits must be established with stiff penalties to

15 di scourage noncompliance as a cost saving

16 strategy.

17 Second, specifying storage requirements

18 for CCRs will help assure that the solution

19 adopted today works both now and in the future.

20 We don't want to create an environmental problem

21 for future generations to clean up.

22 Managing CCRs effectively requires500

1 capturing the materials as they are generated and

2 maintaining control until they are finally either

3 recycled or permanently stored. In keeping with

4 this concept, I woul d suggest two restrictions.

5 One, after seeing the Labadie plant

6 totally surrounded by water when the Missouri

7 River flooded in 1993, I would strongly encourage

8 prohibiting co nstruction of landfills containing

9 CCRs within a floodplain. Levees and berms can

10 and do fail as observed in both Tennessee and New

11 Orleans. Building a levee to create an island

12 with in a floodplain should not remove floodplain

13 classification.

14 Two, transporting CCRs in either liquid

15 or powder form should be regulated and minimized.

16 Coal ash was illegally dumped on a Labadie

17 neighbor's property, killing bushes and trees

18 within the first year, and fish in adjacent ponds

19 several years later. The Missouri Department of

20 Conservation confir med that the dumped material

21 was coal ash and was also responsible for the

22 environmental damage.501

1 In closing, I wo uld like to relate a

2 conversation my mother had with one of Ameren's

3 representatives at an open forum earlier this year

4 regarding their proposed landfill at the Labadie

5 plant in the fl oodplain. She asked if the Ameren

6 representative would be willing to live with his

7 family in the Labadie community given what he knew

8 about the proposed landfill. His response, I

9 don 't think so. If Ameren's representatives do

10 not feel safe living next door to the landfill

11 they are creating, it is not safe and should not

12 be allowed. Clearly, specific regulations are

13 needed from the EPA to maximize responsible reuse

14 while also ensuring that CCRs that are not

15 recycled are safely disposed of and that people,

16 plants and animals everywhere in the country are

17 protected. Thank you very much.

18 (Applause)

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

20 MS. HAWKINS: Hi, thank you for coming

21 and spending the time listening to us. My name is

22 Savannah Hawkins and I'm voting for Subtitle C502

1 because all the companies who came up here to

2 speak spok e only about short

- term profits and

3 short

- term employee employment. They are not

4 thinking seven generations down even about their

5 own children. I don't think it matters what my

6 affi liations are, I'm just a person.

7 My health is affected because I use

8 energy through mountaintop removal. So, it seems

9 to me, I've always been curious, why do all these

10 compa nies spend thousands and millions of dollars

11 fighting their customers instead of listening to

12 them and having them have a long life, full of

13 health, and then having more business than they'd

14 know what to do with. So, I'm confused. Why

15 would they do the opposite?

16 And I've been part of mountaintop

17 removal. The EPA is an agency to protect the

18 environment. How could 500 mountaintops be blown

19 off if you're protecting the environment? Those

20 are dead zones. Nothing will grow there, nothing

21 can live there. That water impacts me, it's in my

22 food, it's in my air, it impacts me. And now I503

1 understand you've given a number of permits for

2 people to pack up after they destroyed App alachia

3 and come and destroy Illinois into dead zones.

4 You're supposed to protect the resources

5 of every citizen in this country, not just a few

6 people who think about short

- term profits. There

7 have been many, many scandals where business and

8 people have denied what was going on, and 30 or 40

9 years later admitted it. Why should we pay for

10 that? We shoul dn't have to pay for that. These

11 people should be out of business. Thank you.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

14 MR. HORVAT: I'm number 368.

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

16 MR. HORVAT: My name is Sabi Horvat and

17 I would like to offer my perspective on jobs

18 affected by Subtitle C or D. I'm a Chicago

19 resident and a US citizen. This May, I graduated

20 with a Master's degree in Engineering from a top

21 engineering school. But more importantly, I have

22 a respect for the environment, our environment.504

1 I have a job but I'm still looking to

2 make my career. I would very much be excited to

3 work in renewable energies, but coal and other

4 fossil fuels are subsidized and the true costs are

5 hidden, making it unfairly cheaper. The

6 communities absorb the costs because companies do

7 not have to pay many of the environmental costs

8 themselves.

9 This is hindering me and many others

10 from this competitive field. I can tell you my

11 experience, that I have seen more dirty jobs

12 available to me than renewable ones. Passing

13 Subtitle C would not only be better for our

14 environment, but it would also help enable the

15 jobs that my generation wants and needs. Please

16 consider Subtitle C to level the business playing

17 field. Thank you.

18 (Applause)

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. May I have

20 numbers 173, 174, 175 and 230 please? Okay. You

21 are

-- okay.

22 MR. REYNOLDS: Thank you. I'm number505

1 230.

2 MS. DEVLI N: That's fine, thank you.

3 MR. REYNOLDS: My name is Will Reynolds,

4 I'm from Springfield, Illinois. I would like to

5 talk a little bit about the legacy of the coal

6 industry. I hear about the legacy of the coal

7 industry in Illinois often in Central Illinois

8 because there are so many so

- called clean coal

9 projects proposed there. And I think there is an

10 ex isting clean coal project somewhere already

11 built next to Santa's workshop, somewhere in Never

12 Never Land. Of course, Santa had to move from the

13 North Pole because it's melting.

14 Now, I hear these proponents talk about

15 the legacy of coal in Illinois, to talk about

16 jobs, but I often think of another part of coal's

17 deep legacy in Illinois. I think about my great,

18 great, great grandfather Michael Gleason who died

19 in an Illinois coal mine explosion in 1893. And

20 like many similar accidents, it could have been

21 prevented with better safety regulations. And y ou

22 know, back in that time, it was more common to506

1 blame all accidents on the miners themselves

2 rather than the company taki ng responsibility for

3 it. And that still does happen today, especially

4 if you listen to Don Blakenship talk about what's

5 happening in West Virginia, there is always that

6 blame game go ing on.

7 Now, tens of thousands of more miners

8 would have to die in Illinois because strong

9 regulations were passed at the federal level. The

10 legacy of coal is needless death and illness

11 because the industry refused to accept

12 responsibility for their actions and state

13 government refused to act decisively. The legacy

14 of coal is weak regulation, watered dow n by

15 subservient politicians and state agencies filled

16 with industry insiders. And we see that legacy

17 continue to this day.

18 You'll hear arguments today and you have

19 heard arguments that this should be left up to the

20 states. And we've all heard states rights

21 arguments before, I think I know what that means

22 and I think I know how that will turn out. I kno w507

1 that there are members of Congress who have signed

2 on to a congressional letter with falsehoods

3 questioning the need to h ave coal ash regulation.

4 Now, if I can't trust politicians in my state to

5 refute industry propaganda, then how can I trust

6 them to regulate coal ash? Do some states deserve

7 to be less safe because they're managed by

8 political cronies of King Coal?

9 I believe all people have an equal right

10 to clean air and water that doesn't give them

11 cancer. I urge the EP A to take a stand for strong

12 regulation that's national, that protects all

13 Americans equally. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 174

16 please?

17 MR. NEELY: Hello, my name is Todd

18 Neely. I'm President of Nano Improved. There is

19 a lot of coal ash, and recycling it or the stuff

20 that isn't, 50 perce nt, is disposed. Disposal has

21 to be done as hazardous waste.

22 There's four other things in the part of508

1 the EPA ru ling that I think have to be addressed.

2 You're by law prevented from a couple of them, you

3 have to get this close to regulating as possible.

4 One is the loose coal ash being dumped into

5 abandoned coal mines, that's very dangerous.

6 You're not allowed to stop that but you can stop

7 it at the gate to prevent the trucks from getting

8 in. That is very bad.

9 You ar e not taking extreme weather on

10 the surface impoundment dams. That was the

11 problem with TVA and the way they did the cleanup.

12 They put the people at risk. There was extreme

13 weather.

14 Number three is there's a lot of power

15 stations that are not addressed in the rule. One

16 is the TVA itself that caused the uproar right now

17 as well as small utilities, small producers. And

18 the other is that the surface impoundment dams

19 that under both things are allowed to stay too

20 long. Those are not being regulated. Those are

21 where the major problems are coming, especially

22 when you get to the 44 that are hazardous. Those509

1 should be phased out immediately.

2 The ot her thing is that the accelerated

3 particle technology that the utilities have tested

4 and have shown that that can be used to turn the

5 loose granular fly ash into new rock, that should

6 be forced on them in the disposal because it locks

7 the toxins and heavy metals into the new rock.

8 Thank you.

9 (Applause)

10 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 175?

11 Number 176?

12 MS. GOLDSTEIN: Hello, my name is Rachel

13 Goldstein. I'm a resident of Chicago. I'm here

14 to testify today as a private citizen because we

15 already know that coal ash is very hazardous waste

16 indeed. We need to act on this knowledge now to

17 protect our communities and environment from

18 further coal ash contamination.

19 I've been concerned about toxic

20 contaminants in our environment for a long time,

21 but I became a lot more concerned when I was

22 diagnosed with a rare malignancy of the bone510

1 marrow two months ago. An awful lot of people in

2 this country have cancer, and usually we don't

3 know why. Yet we are all taking part in a sort of

4 experiment in which we ingest or inhale a large

5 variety of toxins in our daily lives which

6 accumulate and combine in our bodies with possibly

7 deadly results. We don't really know. Do we want

8 to continue this experiment on our country's

9 children?

10 We have thousands of coal ash dumps and

11 we have seen that most current storage methods for

12 coal ash do n't work too well. Unlined ponds and

13 landfills allow toxic metals such as arsenic,

14 mercury and selenium to leach from the ash into

15 groundwater supplies. They also contaminate

16 rivers and streams and make the fish poisonous to

17 eat. Dry ash in surface impoundments can become

18 airborne and people and animals can inhale it and

19 become ill that way. These unsafe disposal

20 practices must end.

21 I urge the EPA to regulate coal ash as a

22 special waste under Subtitle C of the Resource511

1 Con servation and Recovery Act. Coal ash is

2 unquestionably hazardous for both human health and

3 wildlife. The toxins in coal ash have been linked

4 to cancer, neurological damage, respiratory

5 illness, reproductive problems and more. Failing

6 to designate coal ash as a special waste will

7 allow polluters to save time and money, but the

8 rest of us will pay with our health and possibly

9 with our lives.

10 The December 2008 disaster in Tennessee

11 along with the continuing leaching from dumpsites

12 have proved that we cannot simply trust the coal

13 industr y to dispose of coal ash safely. We need

14 strong regulations with vigorous federal

15 enforcement to keep us safe and healthy. Thank

16 you.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Sir, you're

19 number 173? Thank you. Sorry I skipped over you.

20 MR. KANFER: Oh, I thought I might have

21 been tardy.

22 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.512

1 MR. KANFER: Well, my name is Nahi

2 Kanfer, I'm from the State of Ohio. I usually say

3 the Great State of Oh io, but in this case I'm not

4 going to say the Great State of Ohio, and that's

5 because we have a problem in Ohio. We have a

6 problem of certain state agencies who have very

7 primitive wa ys of looking at the world. Sometimes

8 I think that if the USEPA were to promulgate a

9 rule prohibiting the combustion of kittens in

10 power plants, the Ohio EPA would submit comments

11 abo ut why that was, you know, bad for industry.

12 For the record, I would support a rule prohibiting

13 the combustion of kittens in power plants.

14 But you know, there is an Aesop's fable

15 that I like a lot. I'm going to tell it very

16 briefly because I don't have that much time. But

17 you know, there was a man and a boy who went to

18 market to buy a donkey, an ass. And they walked

19 back from the market and the boy was riding on the

20 donkey and a man said, well, you know, why are you

21 making your old father walk? You know, you should

22 let him ride. So, the man got on t he donkey and513

1 the boy walked. Another passerby said, look at

2 that poor boy you're mistreating there, you know,

3 so both of them got off and they both got on the

4 donkey. And an animal rights activist came and

5 said, that poor donkey, you're overloading the

6 donkey. So, what ended up happening is the man

7 and the boy carried the ass over their heads.

8 And sometimes I think that this is what

9 the USEPA is trying to do with asses like the Ohio

10 EPA. They're trying to hold them over their heads

11 in some misguided perception, this is the way they

12 need to be treated, they need to be treated with

13 kid gloves. And it's because Ohio is a

14 politically important state. Ohio is a state

15 that's struggling right now with the economy.

16 But the fact is that the science is

17 clear on this issue. People in Ohio are living

18 near coal ash impoundments. They are living with

19 wells that have been impacted by coal ash

20 impoundments. And the Ohio EPA has no freaking

21 clue where the coal ash impoundments are, how bad

22 the contamination is, or even if they want to do514

1 anything about it. And they're telling the USEPA,

2 we're doing a good job, just leave it to the

3 states, and if citize ns are concerned, they can go

4 find a lawyer and sue.

5 That's not really what the USEPA is

6 about, right? You guys do a good job. There are

7 coal plants in Ohio that are cleani ng up their SOx

8 emissions and their NOx emissions have been

9 reduced 90 percent because of NSR cases that you

10 guys have enforced, that you guys have litigated

11 in Ohio, that the Ohio EPA has not paid attention

12 to. And I want you guys protecting the citizens

13 of Ohio from coal ash, not the Ohio EPA. Thanks.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Is there anyone

16 in the audience with a number below 180 that I

17 haven't called? Okay. Is there anyone in the

18 audience who has a number who would like to speak

19 at this point? Could yo u please come forward?

20 Thank you.

21 MS. KOLLES: Hello, my number is 353.

22 Hello, my name is Samantha Kolles. I am from515

1 Shore View, Minnesota. In Minnesota, we have 18

2 coal ash ponds. Two of these ponds have been

3 rated significantly hazardous. We know these

4 ponds are being polluted and polluting our

5 groundwater.

6 The time has come for stronger coal ash

7 regulations. Close to 1,000 Minnesotans have

8 signed postcards demanding stronger regulations on

9 c oal and coal ash disposal. On behalf of all of

10 these residents, I urge you to protect our

11 communities and adopt enforceable safeguards for

12 toxic coal ash. Thank you.

13 ( Applause)

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

15 MR. WROBEL: Hi, everyone. My name is

16 Nick Wrobel. I am a senior at Luther Colleges

17 here in Northern Iowa and I'm originally fro m

18 Minnesota.

19 I'm here supporting strong regulation

20 for coal ash under Subtitle C, but I was

21 approached earlier to deliver a testimony for a

22 very energetic a nd passionate elderly woman who is516

1 unable to be here to deliver her own testimony.

2 So, I will be doing that for her. Her name is Jan

3 Nona and she is from the Town of Pines in Indiana

4 and she is the founder of People in Need of

5 Environmental Safety. And this is what she had to

6 say:

7 This is a dol lar bill. Think about it.

8 I'm from the Town of Pines, Indiana. Many years

9 ago, our local utility spent a whole bunch of

10 these dollar bills dumping coal combustion waste

11 into a very l arge wetland. Whoops, bad move!

12 Leachate from the CCW landfill started

13 getting into our groundwater. So, the Indiana

14 Department of Environmental Management and the EPA

15 sent many of these dollar bills to find out, yep,

16 our groundwater was being contaminated. Another

17 whoops! It's getting into our private wells.

18 So, eventually, after spending many more

19 of these dollar bills looking around and testing,

20 the responsible party spent more of them to

21 provide municipal water to some of the residents.

22 Then we were declared an alternative superfund517

1 site. This alternative designation meant the

2 responsible parties would pay for a feasibility

3 study and risk assessment. Well , since they were

4 paying so many of these dollar bills for this,

5 they could call the shots. The shots were not too

6 great, a lot of misinformation being supplied,

7 which we as a small g rassroots organization

8 couldn't begin to understand.

9 You understand where I'm going here?

10 Hey, EPA, about five to seven million of these

11 dollar bills have been spent on one l ittle town of

12 approximately 325 homes and 900 people. How many

13 more of these towns are out there? Almost weekly,

14 I'm getting information telling me of a new site

15 being located. It i s being made known by finding

16 contaminated private wells.

17 Groundwater is being contaminated.

18 Ponds, rivers and lakes are being contaminated.

19 What is the EPA protecting? Amer ican citizens or

20 the coal and utility industries?

21 Unfortunately, coal combustion waste is

22 not a nice byproduct of the utility industry as518

1 they would have you believe. Usually using the

2 term beneficial use, the industry is getting rid

3 of millions of tons of this CCW. Somewhere down

4 the road, we are all going to be paying a hefty

5 price for this stuff. Many of the utility and

6 coal industry is spending so much money on

7 lobbyists and public relations. Why not spend it

8 to find a solution for the safe, responsible

9 disposal of this CCW?

10 With the technology we have today,

11 surely there must be something out there that will

12 work. Let's find a responsibl e solution. Thank

13 you.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

16 MR. HAWES: Hi, my name is Philip Hawes

17 and I'm from Minneapolis, Minnes ota. I don't have

18 a whole lot to say but I think because it's

19 obvious that currently the states are not doing a

20 good job of regulating coal ash, so I think it's

21 unrealistic to expect them to do that going

22 forward. And it's also unrealistic to expect us519

1 people as private citizens to be able to enforce

2 thi s through lawsuits because people just simply

3 don't have the time or money to be able to do

4 that. And also, when you rely on that, then

5 you're waiting for a problem to happen before you

6 react to it instead of eliminating the problem

7 from the beginning. So, I think it's a bad idea

8 to rely on lawsuits to regulate this.

9 So, I think that Subtitle C is the best

10 option. And I think, you know, I'm not going to

11 talk about, you know, the problems with coal ash.

12 I think a lot of people have already talked about

13 that. And I think it's obvious, I mean when you

14 find out what's in coal ash, it's impossible to

15 think that that would be good for you. I mean, we

16 know scientifically that those things are bad for

17 you.

18 And the argument that many people seem

19 to be making is that it may hurt industry profits

20 and that sort of thing. And I think that you've

21 seen a lot of people here today that are directly

22 impacted by this in their lives and their health520

1 is impacted and their safety. And there are

2 thousands of more people out there in the coun try

3 whose safety is at risk because of coal ash. And

4 it's the duty of the EPA and the federal

5 government to protect those people and give them a

6 safe environment to live in. And it's not the

7 EPA's job to make sure that companies are making

8 money, it's your job to protect people's health.

9 So, please pass the Subtitle C option.

10 Thank you.

11 (Applause)

12 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. With that,

13 again, is there anyone in the room who has been

14 assigned a number who would like to speak? Thank

15 you. You are number 373? Thank you. Number 201,

16 please come

-- that's fine, 199. Go ahead.

17 MR. DeRITA: Good evening. Thank you

18 for staying so late to hear so many of us speak.

19 I, li ke you, have been here since 9:00 in the

20 morning and I've heard almost every testimony all

21 in this room. And I would just like to say that

22 we've been keeping track and now there has been521

1 over twice as many people speaking in favor of

2 Regulation C as D.

3 I'll add my vote to Regulation C because

4 I think it's the clear choice for the future of

5 America. I mean, I've been talking to people all

6 day from all over the country and so many stories

7 of suffering, and it's just, it's really hard to

8 imagine that this has taken so long to get this

9 much attention, that it took a tragedy like the

10 TVA disaster in December 2008 to get the EPA's

11 attention to this.

12 C oal ash is the second largest

13 industrial waste stream in the country, and these

14 companies are being paid for the waste. I spoke

15 to the man from Duke Energy earlier and he said

16 the dif ference between recycling coal ash and

17 throwing it away is spending $12 a ton and $15 a

18 ton. That's not a whole lot of money for these

19 companies who reap billions of dollars in profits

20 every year.

21 And honestly, they're running scared

22 because they know that they're going to end up522

1 having to pay f or their trash eventually. They

2 know that people are paying more attention to the

3 issues and the damages that this waste causes.

4 And honestly, I really don't think that it's so

5 unreas onable that people have to throw away what

6 they produce. I mean, I pay to throw out my trash

7 in San Francisco every week. It costs money to

8 throw stuff away. That's just how this works.

9 And the fact that it's taken, you know,

10 something like the TVA disaster to get the EPA's

11 attention to this I think says a lot about the

12 power of industry in our government. And I think

13 it's a big step forward for the EPA to really be

14 taking on this challenge because it is a

15 nationwide challenge. There's thousands of these

16 sites. These are some of the richest compani es in

17 the company and they don't want to, you know, they

18 play hardball and they really don't want to be

19 told what to do. And I really, I'm very

20 encouraged by the steps that the EPA ha s taken to

21 address this issue and I hope that you'll

22 eventually make the right choice and support523

1 Subtitle C and stronger r egulations to get America

2 off coal. Thank you.

3 (Applause)

4 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 199?

5 I'm trying to read your number, sorry. Thank you,

6 sir.

7 MR. MULCAHY: Hi, my name is Dion

8 Mulcahy. I'm plant superintendent for Harsco

9 Minerals, a division of the Harsco Corporation. I

10 work at the Harsco's Gary boiler slag processing

11 facility. I've been working in boiler slag

12 processing for eight years now. The plant I

13 manage employs 22 workers and many of them have

14 been there for over 30 years. We produce mainly

15 abrasives and granules for roofing from boiler

16 slag. Boiler slag is one of the four listed coal

17 combustion byproducts included in the proposed

18 regulation.

19 I support Subtitle D. We take employee

20 health and safety very seriously. We participate

21 in industrial hygiene surveys. We conduct regular

22 safety meetings. And I'm not aware of any health524

1 issues from any of my employees that work for us.

2 As I said earlier, some of them have been there

3 over 30 years. I have five that have been there

4 for 35 years plus. So, environmental permit

5 compliance is also an important part of the way we

6 conduct our business. In our many years of

7 operation, I do not know of any environmental

8 issues caused by the boiler slag process at the

9 facility I work at. Some facts demonstrate that

10 there is no reasonable basis for subjecting boiler

11 sl ag under Subtitle C. When extremely hot molten

12 coal ash is quenched with coal water, the coal ash

13 is vitrified and becomes a glassy solid known as

14 boiler slag.

15 When boiler s lag is vitrified, it's very

16 durable, environmentally stable material that

17 effectively immobilizes its chemical constituents

18 by transforming any metals into inert metal

19 silicates. Hist orically, boiler slag has always

20 passed the TCLP testing and has never exhibited

21 any hazardous waste characteristics. I recognize

22 the need for proper and environmentally sound525

1 standards for regulating the two percent of boiler

2 slag that is discarded rather than beneficially

3 reused. However, I feel that the associated

4 stigma that will be associated with Subtitle C

5 will adversely impact my business. Thank you for

6 your time.

7 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 201

8 please?

9 MR. CARR: Good evening. My name is

10 Galen Carr. I am employed by Harsco Minerals

11 formerly known as Reed Minerals. I'm a regional

12 manager over several facilities. I've been

13 working in the boiler slag processing field for 25

14 years. Many of the employees that I also manage

15 have been in the industry for 30 years or more.

16 We produce abrasive media and roofing gran ules for

17 shingles.

18 Boiler slag is one of the four listed

19 coal combustion byproducts included in the

20 proposed legislation. I am in support of

21 regulating boi ler slag under RCRA Subtitle D.

22 Prior to becoming a regional manager, I526

1 was the director of research and development and

2 quality control. An important part of this

3 position was to evaluate new sources of boiler

4 slag. In my entire experience evaluating new

5 boiler slag sources, I've never had any boiler

6 slag fail the TCLP test. And I'm not aware of any

7 groundwater issues associated with the

8 mismanagement of boiler slag.

9 Boiler slag makes up only two percent of

10 total coal combustion byproducts and over 90

11 percent of that is recycled into valuable,

12 reusable products. Boiler slag has been

13 beneficially used since the 1930's as an abrasive.

14 We are al ways looking for new sources of boiler

15 slag and looking for new opportunities to

16 beneficially reuse this wonderful inert product.

17 The markets for boiler slag are strong and

18 continue to grow. That will change if boiler slag

19 is regulated under Subpart C.

20 The beneficial use of boiler slag

21 reduces the carbon footprint of mining and

22 processing of virgin materi als. Regulating boiler527

1 slag destined for disposal as a special waste

2 under Subtitle C would unfairly stigmatize

3 beneficial ly reused boiler slag that I've been

4 processing for many years. My customers will be

5 confused and concerned about purchasing products

6 that seem to be essentially the same as a Subtitle

7 C waste. This confusion can slow down development

8 of new recycling opportunities.

9 I recognize the need for proper

10 environmentally sound standards for regulating the

11 coal s lag. Thank you for the opportunity and the

12 time to comment.

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. May I have

14 number 182 and numbers 372, 374 and 375 please?

15 MS. SANCHEZ: I'm n umber 375. My name

16 is Andrea Sanchez and I'm here to support Subtitle

17 C. I'm actually originally from California and I

18 count myself very lucky to come from a state that

19 doesn't have any coal plants, doesn't have any

20 coal ash ponds. But today I'm living in Minnesota

21 and I hear all these stories about people getting

22 sick and losing their homes to contamination.528

1 I consider myself a very healthy person.

2 I try to eat the right foods. I stay away from

3 soda. But none of these habits are going to keep

4 me healthy if the water that I drink every single

5 day is contaminated.

6 Is it too much to ask for liners on

7 these coal ash ponds in order to protect not just

8 my health but the healthy of my family and of the

9 kids I'm going to have someday? Maybe if the coal

10 industry actually paid the health bills of all the

11 people that do get sick, they would rethink their

12 position on Subtitle D. Thank you very much.

13 (Applause)

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. I'm going to

15 ask one more time, is there anyone in the room

16 with a number who would like to speak? Come

17 forward. And let's see, are you number 372?

18 MR. HARLAN

- MARKS: 377.

19 MS. DEVLIN: 7, okay, fine. If you

20 could

- -

21 MR. HARLAN

- MARKS: Excellent. Thank you

22 so much. Again, everyone has been saying it but529

1 thank you so much for having this hearing and

2 taking the time to hear from people about this

3 really important issue.

4 My name is Tim Harlan

- Marks. I as well

5 drove in today from Minneapolis, Minne sota and I'm

6 exhausted. I was just writing down notes for what

7 I was going to say but I appreciate having the

8 opportunity to speak so I'm just going to wing it.

9 So, we've he ard a lot from many industry

10 representatives who are concerned about the

11 challenges of moving away from business as usual.

12 And I understand that making change is difficult.

13 It was diff icult for me to decide to start biking

14 to work sometimes and to really institute that

15 change in my life. And so, I understand that.

16 But as we've heard from a lot of other people, the

17 facts are really clear and that coal ash is

18 dangerous and that it is irresponsible and we

19 can't continue to dispose of it, transport it and

20 handle it the way that we have been.

21 And what I've been thinking about a lot

22 recently is while these changes are difficult to530

1 make, we have a history of recognizing when a

2 problem is created that we can't continue with

3 business as usual. We don't put lead in paint

4 anymore. We don't put asbestos in homes anymore.

5 Coca Cola used to have cocaine in it. It di d,

6 right? But these choices are irresponsible and we

7 know better. And we also know better about toxic

8 coal ash. And so, I would urge you to support a

9 regulation on Subtitle C. Than k you.

10 (Applause)

11 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. If there are no

12 other speakers in the audience, we will take about

13 a ten

- minute break at this point. So, we will

14 reconvene, by my watch, at about 25 minutes to

15 9:00. Thank you.

16 (Whereupon, at 9:15 p.m., an

17 evening recess was taken.)

18

19

20

21

22531

1 N I G H T S E S S I O N

2 (9:25 p.m.)

3 MS. DEVLIN: I'd like to get started

4 again. And we've had a couple of changes on the

5 panel, so I'd like to reintroduce the panel. I am

6 Betsy Devlin. Also on the panel with me, we have

7 Laurel Celeste, Alex Livnat and Jesse Miller. And

8 again, all of us are from EPA.

9 I'd like to begin by calling folks

10 number 187, 188, 192? Okay, you guys aren't here.

11 How about walk

- in numbers 378, 379, 376? Come

12 forward please.

13 MS. MELTON: Is this close enough? Can

14 everyone hear me? All right. Good evening

15 everyone, and thank you for giving me the

16 opportunity to speak on behalf of myself and my

17 company who couldn't be here this evening.

18 My name is Caroline Melton and I work

19 for Rock Solid Stabili zation and Reclamation.

20 We're a local contractor. We also travel across

21 the country.

22 I'm here today to talk about the532

1 benefits and my experiences with fly ash. As a

2 stabilization contractor, we rely on its

3 availability. It is used in the stabilization

4 process designed by civil engineers for bu ilding

5 the sub

- base for highways, roadways, parking

6 lots, building pads for municipalities, retail

7 centers, hospitals. It's also used for building

8 airport runways, inter

- modal facili ties and the

9 access roads to wind farms.

10 Some of the benefits are the cost

11 savings to our customers. We use it to dry down

12 soils to keep the construction projects going. It

13 is used in remediation projects for oil spills

14 much like the one that we have in the Romeoville

15 area. Because it is a byproduct, it is an

16 approved material for obtaining LEED credits

.

17 Contractors like ourselves keep this byproduct

18 from ending up in landfills or worse.

19 I like to think that by utilizing this

20 byproduct, we are helping to stimulate the econo my

21 by providing jobs and keeping the costs of these

22 construction projects down. If our company and533

1 other companies like ou rselves could not use fly

2 ash, this would be detrimental to our livelihood,

3 forcing layoffs, increasing the unemployment rate.

4 And then, how do I tell over 100

5 individuals th at their years of services would no

6 longer be needed? I hope I never have to do that.

7 Thank you.

8 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 378

9 please? Thank you.

10 MS. TATRO: Hi, my name is Jessica Tatro

11 and I drove over from Minnesota this morning very

12 early. And I just wanted to show my support for

13 Subtitle C. I have been working with folks across

14 the State of Minnesota for the last year or so,

15 working in the communities to address the

16 pollution from coal. Overall, I think one of the

17 most challenging parts, thanks to the work that

18 the EPA has done, we now know a lot about the

19 waste ponds in our communities, and in many cases

20 especially at the larger public utilities, the

21 landfills, but especially the smaller mu nicipal

22 plants. We really, folks in the communities don't534

1 really know what is happening there.

2 And part of that, you know, even in

3 Minnesota we have a pretty good track record of

4 testing our waters and putting liners in most of

5 our landfills. And so, you know, I think we're

6 luckier than many st ates. But finding out the

7 information of which waterways are being tested or

8 what groundwater is being tested, what that

9 information is, is very hard to find for an

10 average citizen, a nd again, especially when you're

11 talking about the smaller municipal coal plants.

12 And that is something that I think would be easier

13 to find, easier and manageable if there were

14 federa lly enforceable standards because there

15 would have to be some sort of federal record of

16 what is happening. In particular, I think that

17 it's very important that we make sure to be

18 test ing the groundwater around the storage

19 facilities to make sure that our communities are

20 protected.

21 So, thank so much for your time and have

22 a good night.535

1 (Applause)

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Okay, I'm going

3 to try again. Can I have numbers 187, 188, 192,

4 195, 199? Okay, 195 please.

5 MR. MEAD

- LUCERO: Hi, my name is Jerry

6 Mead

- Lucero. I'm with the organization called

7 PERRO, Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform

8 Organization . And we're from the Pilsen

9 neighborhood in Chicago which is basically an

10 immigrant neighborhood, a working class

11 neighborhood of mostly Mexican immigrants. Like a

12 lot of communities unfortunately around the States

13 that are working class communities of color, we

14 are impacted by a variety of pollution sources.

15 For years, we've been working on trying

16 to cl ean up the Fisk and Crawford coal fired power

17 plants in Chicago.

18 Fisk is located right in my

19 neighborhood, right next to a school, right next

20 to a park and so on. So, we've been working on

21 this issue for a long time. Sad to say, we were

22 not aware even of the coal ash issue up until536

1 really this year. Even though we've been working

2 since 2003 on trying to clean up Fisk and

3 Crawford, we weren't even aware of the coal ash

4 problem until it was brought to our attention this

5 year. So, this has added a whole another level of

6 dimension to our concern.

7 Once we were made aware that there was

8 this issue of coal ash, one of the first questions

9 we had was h ow is it being dealt with or stored in

10 regards to Fisk and Crawford? We inquired with

11 the EPA about that and the only response we've

12 gotten so far is, well, you know, we know that

13 Cra wford keeps them onsite, we know that it's a

14 transfer from those facilities somewhere but we

15 really don't know where it goes and that kind of

16 thing. So, that's not a very satisfactory answer

17 to know what's going on with this coal ash. So,

18 number one would be we'd like to have a better

19 handle of that.

20 But certainly we'd like the toughest

21 regulations possi ble on coal ash as well. Both

22 these plants are located in dense urban areas.537

1 Obviously if it's being stored onsite, that's a

2 serious concern. Both plants are accessed by the

3 Chicago River. We know that's where they bring in

4 the coal supplies in Fisk plant and I'm assuming

5 that's probably where they're transferred out. I n

6 some cases there's two which is a concern.

7 So, obviously for the health and safety

8 of the community residents, it's bad enough that

9 we have two plants that are located righ t next to

10 residential buildings, right next to schools,

11 right next to parks, but now to find out they also

12 may be storing large amounts of toxic waste

13 materials as well is a very big c oncern. So,

14 thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Numbers 379,

17 380, 381 and 382 please?

18 MS. IRVIN: Hi, I'm 379. My name is

19 Elizabeth Irvin. I'm originally from Cleveland,

20 Ohio and I am now located in Washington, DC with

21 the Sierra Club. And I have been sitting in the

22 corner tallying all the

-- thank you again for538

1 being here all day and then listening to all this

2 testimony.

3 I really don't think I can say much th at

4 hasn't already been covered by someone here. But

5 I just wanted you to know you all have my support

6 for a strong coal ash regulation as

-- Subtitle C.

7 You've heard from university p eople all day long,

8 students, doctors, engineers, business owners,

9 mothers, grandparents, all these people coming and

10 asking the EPA to do their job to regulate coal

11 ash. And every ti me someone from

-- it's the same

12 arguments over and over again.

13 I think it's time that we've moved past

14 these desperate attempts to retain this polluting

15 status quo. It's ti me to move past coal.

16 (Applause)

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 380

18 please?

19 MS. ANCEL: Hi, my name is Sari Ancel

20 and I flew in fr om

-- we really appreciate you

21 listening to all of our comments. And so, I just

22 graduated from college and I majored in539

1 en vironmental engineering. And I took a class

2 last semester called Solving Hazardous Waste

3 Management and we had a day when

-- from the EPA

-

4 and healthcare to protect US citizens and our land

5 from pollution and hazardous materials. And I

6 really have a lot of faith in the organization.

7 And sitting here all day and hearing all these

8 people from different communities come in and tell

9 us how their families and all their friends are

10 dying from cancers and other lung diseases because

11 their water is polluted and their air is polluted

12 from coal ash really is hard to take

.

13 And so, it's really apparent to me that

14 the EPA needs to create stronger regulations and

15 adopt Subtitle C so this doesn't happen anymore.

16 Thank you.

17 (Applause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 381

19 please?

20 MS. KORDICK: Hi, my name is Jenny

21 Kordick and I'm just going to be brief because I

22 know you've been here a long time. But I am540

1 originally from St. Charles, Iowa and I just

2 graduated from College of Law and now I work for

3 the

-- And one thing when I graduated there, I

4 wanted to work in the environmental field helping

5 to protect our lands and wildlife. And that's

6 something that I really prided myself o n and

7 actually I think that's one thing the

8 Environmental Protection Agency should pride

9 themselves on too is the fact that they can make a

10 difference in this country. And I do have f aith

11 in the organization, too, that they will.

12 So, I just hope that you'll make the

13 right decision and support strong regulation of

14 coal ash and adopt Subtitle C. Thank you.

15 (Applause)

16 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 382

17 please?

18 MR. WOJTASZEK: Hello, my name is Luke

19 Wojtaszek. Thank you again for bein g here so

20 long. I actually just came here not that long

21 ago, so I wasn't here for the whole day but I'm

22 sure it was a long day.541

1 I just heard about this actually not

2 that long ago on the whole coal ash issue and

3 about all the things surrounding it. And I guess

4 to me it seems obvious that it shou ld be

5 classified under Subtitle C because of the, you

6 know, mercury, arsenic, selenium, cadmium,

7 chromium and all that stuff that's in there. And

8 the disaster that happened in Tenness ee, it's

9 pretty clear that it is poisonous to the water and

10 to the people around that have to live around it.

11 So, I'm not going to take too much of

12 your time. I do support S ubtitle C and I hope you

13 guys make the right decision. Thank you.

14 (Applause)

15 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much. Okay.

16 Do I have any pre

- registered speaker who has a

17 number of 200 or below? Do I have any

18 pre

- registered speaker who has a number of 200 or

19 above who would like to speak? Do I have any

20 other speaker who has signed in who has a number

21 who would like to speak at this point?

22 All right. Okay.542

1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I've been driving

2 around out there trying to find a place to park

3 and about ten minutes ago

-- she's not here and I

4 know she wanted to speak, and her family did want

5 to relay this but she's not able to spe ak, so at

6 this point I don't know what else to do.

7 MS. DEVLIN: We're here. If she gets

8 here, we will be here. So, we will hear her

9 testify. It's okay.

10 Well, again, at this moment since there

11 are no speakers, we will again take about a

12 ten

- minute break.

13 AUDIENCE MEMBER:

-- she's just coming

14 here.

15 MS. DEVLIN: Fine, thank you. Thank

16 you. Yes, please take your time.

17 (Slight pause)

18 MS. DEVLIN: While we're waiting, number

19 383 if you would like to speak?

20 MR. HARRIS: Hi, my name is Robert

21 Harris and I'm an architect here in Chicago. I

22 also live in the Pilsen neighborhood near the Fisk543

1 coal plant. And I wasn't planning on speaking so

2 I don't really have anything prepared other that

3 I'd just like to say that I support the increased

4 regu lation of the waste proposed in Article C.

5 And I'd also, I've been here and I've heard a

6 couple of comments from industry supporters that

7 claim that it will somehow negatively affect their

8 ability to recycle materials and coal ash. As an

9 architect, I recognize that it's a building

10 material that is widely used, but reading through

11 your own documentation here, I'd just like to

12 point out that this wouldn't affect recycled

13 materials, and as such their arguments seem

14 baseless.

15 And I think that in terms of waste

16 management, that's something that won't affect,

17 won't cause hundreds of people to lose their jobs.

18 It's just requiring higher standards of disposal

19 and storage and landfills. And I don't see any

20 argument against that.

21 And again, I support the article. Thank

22 you.544

1 (Applause)

2 MS. DEV LIN: Thank you very much.

3 MS. GOMEZ: Hi, my name is Rose Gomez

4 and I'm here in order to support Article C despite

5 the fact that earlier today someone broke into my

6 mother's house. And my mother right now, she was

7 left startled and they broke in and they got in

8 through the window. And so, now the window has to

9 be replaced and in the meantime during the night,

10 that's going to be some sort of issue because it's

11 accessible if somebody maybe wants to consider

12 coming back.

13 But despite that fact, I'm here because

14 this is importan t enough for me to be here,

15 specifically because I have an investment in the

16 future which is my son and, as everyone here,

17 we're here to say that the time to act is now. We

18 have the k nowledge, we have the technology to move

19 forward and work towards using energy that is

20 more, in which these companies can be held

21 accountable for all the toxic wastes that they

22 create. And I'm here for that reason because I545

1 would give all my worldly possessions if my son

2 can inherit clean air, clean water to drink.

3 There is nothing that is more important

4 than that. Why would you want to have anything

5 else to compensate knowing that you had the

6 ability to act today to make a difference in our

7 children's future? And unfortunately, we're

8 paying the cost now with all the tragedies that

9 are happening like the flooding and I want to say

10 that I of course support Article C. And I hope

11 that we do the right thing and not wait any

12 longer.

13 (Applause)

14 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Is number 383

15 in the room? That was, okay, go od. Well, thank

16 you. Is there anyone else in the room right now

17 with a number who would like to speak?

18 Okay. With that, we will take about

19 another ten

- minute break and re sume about 9:10.

20 Thank you.

21 (Short recess)

22 MS. DEVLIN: Number 384? 206? 206 and546

1 384 please. You can go to speak

-- oh, I'm sorry.

2 MR. CARROLL: Good evening, and thank

3 you for allowing me the opportunity to speak this

4 evening. My name is Kevin Carroll and I live here

5 in Chicago. Actually, what I'd like to speak

6 about today is where I grew up in Western

7 Pennsylvania. It's in the Allegheny Valley right

8 next to about 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh.

9 There was a power plant there when I was growing

10 up in the 1960's. It was Duchesne Light Power

11 Company in Cheswick, Pennsylvania. It's now run

12 by Reliant Energy. And I just want to come and

13 talk about the experiences I had as a child

14 growing up there.

15 I can't say exactly when the year was

16 but I was in grade school so it would have

17 pro bably been in the early to mid 60's they began

18 dumping coal ash pretty much right next door to

19 where I grew up. I have a Google map here of my

20 house and where the field is now. And what

21 happened then was they used to take the coal ash

22 and open their dump trucks and then haul it up the547

1 hill. Just to give you an idea, the power plant

2 was sitting on the Allegheny River. We lived up

3 on top of the hill in the Allegheny River Valley.

4 They used to haul that ash up, again in open

- bed

5 dump trucks. The dust w as blown everywhere, and

6 they dumped that probably a couple of hundred

7 yards from my house and the houses of a lot of

8 people there.

9 For the record, I lived and my mother

10 still lives at, the address is 409 Marion Avenue,

11 it's in Springdale, Pennsylvania. Ironically,

12 that's the same street where Rachel Carson lived.

13 So, anyway, there was no regulation there . We

14 used to go out and play in that ash, in that coal

15 ash. We had no idea and I don't think anybody

16 ever said anything. And the only reason I think

17 they ever covered that up, I'm n ot really sure why

18 they did but eventually they put in, they covered

19 the coal ash. But when they used to dump it in

20 the field, it would just sit out there in the

21 open. We lived to th e east of it and the west

22 wind would blow that dust over the whole548

1 neighborhood.

2 I'm just arguing in favor of Tit le C

3 because, you know, I'm sure nothing like that can

4 happen again, but you know, if there's no strong

5 regulations, really what is to prevent that from

6 going on? So, thank you.

7 (Applause)

8 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much.

9 Number 384 please?

10 MS. NGUYEN: Hi, my name is Tudeyen

11 Nguyen, I live in Chicago and partic ularly in

12 Pilsen. So, I know about the coal plants there

13 and I can see it from my house and know the

14 dangers of having a coal plant. But I did not

15 know that coal ash is as dangerous as it is as

16 well as toxic and hazardous. So, I'm here to say

17 to support Title C and hope that EPA can do its

18 job in protecting families, waterways, and mostly

19 people. Thank you.

20 (Applause)

21 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much. Is

22 there anyone in the audience with a speaker number549

1 of 210 or below that hasn't spoken that would like

2 to speak? Is there anyone in the audience who is

3 registered who has a number who would like to

4 speak at this moment? 221. Thank you.

5 MR. BOROWSKI: Hi, my name is Brian

6 Borowski. I'm a technical service engineer for

7 Lafarge North America. I'm very grateful for the

8 opportunity to speak to you regarding t he EPA

9 proposal for disposal of coal combustion products.

10 I've been involved with beneficial reuse

11 of coal combustion products for the past 25 years.

12 During those 25 years, I have always viewed the

13 use of these products like Portland cement to be

14 beneficial to the environment. I view any

15 proposal that would restrict or eliminate the

16 beneficial use of coal combustion products as

17 unwarranted and not in the best interest of the

18 American public.

19 It is appropriate that the EPA hold one

20 of their hearings for the proposal here in

21 Chicago. Beginning in the 1940's, fly ash was

22 shipped from the City of Chicago to Montana for550

1 use in the production of the c oncrete use on the

2 Hungry Horse Dam. The fly ash from Chicago was

3 crucial to that project and was used based on

4 research done by the Army Corps of Engineers. In

5 the 1970's, fly ash p layed a key role in the

6 development use of high strength concrete here in

7 Chicago.

8 Unfortunately, the EPA proposal has put

9 forward an option that will decimate the

10 beneficial reuse of fly ash that has been a great

11 benefit to the American public for more than 60

12 years. If coal combustion products are listed and

13 regulated under Subtitle C of RCRA, I am conv inced

14 that the beneficial use of coal combustion

15 products will cease. Let me give three reasons

16 for my belief. 1. The Portland cement concrete

17 industry does not have to use fly ash to make

18 their products. There are alternatives. 2.

19 Under Subtitle C, it will never be sufficiently

20 clear when coal combustion products must be

21 handled as hazardous waste and when ben eficial

22 reuse is not bound by Subtitle C requirements. 3.551

1 EPA has, without any rational basis, suspended the

2 Coal Combusti on Products Partnership, thereby

3 sending a powerful false and damaging signal to

4 the American public that coal combustion products

5 are hazardous.

6 The creation of a hazardous stigma

7 blanketing all beneficial uses of coal combustion

8 products is all too real and will decimate uses

9 that are demonstrably and verifiably beneficial to

10 the environment. Beneficial reuse of these

11 products reduces disposal by tens of millions of

12 tons every year. Fly ash used in the manufacture

13 of Portland cement reduces CO2 emissions by

14 millions of tons every ye ar. Fly ash is also

15 crucial to the production of concrete that is

16 sustainable by increasing the life cycle of

17 concrete.

18 I hope that it is clear to the EPA that

19 listing and regulating coal combustion products

20 under Subtitle C would be damaging to our

21 environment, damaging to the beneficial reuse

22 industry, and damaging to the interests of the552

1 American public. Thank you very much.

2 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Will numbers

3 385 and 386 come forward please? Yes, please,

4 thank you.

5 MR. HEADINGTON: Hello, my number is

6 385. I am Vince Headington, a resident of Burr

7 Ridge, Illinois. I live in the western suburbs.

8 By profession I'm a healthcare attorney focusing

9 on a lot of regulatory and transactional contract

10 work. However, the town that I live in has been

11 affected by air and water pollution from coal

12 fire d power plants which brings me to this

13 hearing. And while I can't comment on the science

14 of coal ash, I do know that it is dangerously

15 toxic and I can't imagine how a substance that

16 c ontains heavy metals can be permitted to affect

17 our groundwater and our air.

18 I think that as with any kind of

19 byproduct of burning coal, that it needs to be

20 disposed of in a safe way and that there is a cost

21 to everything. And I am sure that today you've

22 heard about the costs of dealing with this from553

1 the coal and electricity industry, and I am not

2 anti

- industry, on the other hand industry has to

3 be responsible. And in my view, this cost that

4 I'm talking about, the cost to industry is one

5 thing and the cost that they would pass on to the

6 consumer is another thing, too.

7 On the other hand, who is going to pay

8 the cost? Who is going to pay the healthcare

9 costs? Who is going to pay the cost of the

10 employers who lose their employees to days off

11 because of illness? Who is going to pay for the

12 cost and the aggravation and the hurt to the

13 families that endure the illness that is caused by

14 this kind of pollution?

15 So, I really thank you for this

16 opportunity to give you my view of these things

17 and I hop e that something can be done that is

18 beneficial to the public. Thank you.

19 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you. Number 386

20 please.

21 MS. HEADINGTON: My name is Maureen

22 Headington, Vince's wife. Most people know me as554

1 Mo. Moving to the western suburbs was our dream

2 to our dream home that we had sav ed years for. I

3 had no idea that I should have checked EPA's score

4 card and put in the zip code before we moved.

5 What I set myself up for were a litany of sinus

6 infections that I disc overed that my neighbors

7 suffered from as well. I became involved in

8 environmental issues.

9 I had retired from 20 years of teaching

10 in the Chicago public schools inner city a nd

11 decided something had to be done about it and

12 started working on a number of different projects

13 that I felt were of impact; toxic waste

14 incinerators, hospital incinerators, and the coal

15 fired power plants. I ended up on the board of

16 the Illinois Environmental Council and I created

17 an organization called the Stand Up Save Lives

18 Campaign of which I'm the president

-- unpaid

19 volunteer work.

20 We are willing to pay for electricity

21 but not with our lives. It's been said that the

22 greatness of a nation is measured by how it treats555

1 its most vulnerable. In 1996, EPA Administrator

2 Carol Browner emphasized the heightened impact on

3 children and seniors of air pollu tion and water

4 pollution. This nation's children are being

5 destined in record numbers to lives of disease,

6 dismay and despair. That is deplorable.

7 These youngest members of our society

8 cannot vote. They can only breathe the air and

9 drink the water that is given them by you. What

10 can you tell these youngest of victims? That they

11 have the misfortune of having been born in a

12 village, a city, a town, a county, a state, a

13 country where their lives are less important than

14 polluter profits?

15 I started in doing the Stand Up Save

16 Lives Campaign of doing presentations before these

17 very entities, towns, villages, county boards,

18 and, in so doing, accumulated resolutions on

19 behalf of their residents. And I am submi tting

20 for the record the list of resolutions that are

21 seeking to end the toxins that are associated with

22 coal fired power plants. The list includes556

1 Addison, Antioch, Aurora, Barrington,

2 Bloomingdale, Bridgeview, Brookfield, Burbank,

3 Burr Ridge, Carpentersville, Cary, Chicago

4 Heights, Chicago Ridge, Cicero , Clarendon Hills,

5 Countryside, Darien, Deerfield, Des Plains,

6 Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Elmwood Park, Evanston,

7 Evergreen Park, Flossmoor, Forest Park, Glen

8 Ellyn, Glendale Heights, Gl enview, Grayslake,

9 Hanover Park, Harvey, Harwood Heights, Hawthorn

10 Woods, Hickory Hills, Highland Park, Hinsdale,

11 Homewood, Hometown, Indian Head Park, Justice,

12 LaGrange

-- whoops, we' re halfway through the

13 list. Pardon?

14 We'll say and many others as well as

15 five county boards, three townships. May I

16 conclude by just saying that when will the public

17 stop taking a backseat to corporate greed in this

18 nation? This public is tired, sick and tired.

19 It's high time, past time to seek demand, receive

20 justice. Call it environmental justice be cause in

21 most cases that's precisely what it is, and

22 prohibit the highly toxic coal ash from being557

1 disposed of in any way s hape or form that will

2 come in contact with our land and our water and

3 our air. Thank you.

4 (Applause)

5 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you.

6 MS. HEADINGTON: I can submit this list.

7 Nine years of my work.

8 MS. DEVLIN: Yes. Please do, yes.

9 Thank you. Do we have numbers 213, 215, 216 and

10 217? Okay. Do I have any reg istered speaker with

11 a number of under 220 whom I have not called? Do

12 I have any person in the audience who would like

13 to speak, who has a number and would like to

14 speak? I'll just m ake you number, what number are

15 we on? You're number 387. We'll take care of it

16 afterwards. We'll work that out.

17 MR. ROSENSTEIN: My name is Bob

18 Rosenstein. I'm a member of the Sierra Club and

19 the Union of Concerned Scientists. I didn't come

20 here planning to speak, but as I listen to this

21 testimony I recalled that the Supreme Court gave

22 the EPA a righ t to regulate coal on the grounds of558

1 the greenhouse gas emissions CO2. As bad as this

2 coal ash is and I respect what our previous

3 speaker said, the release of the greenhouse gas

4 CO2 in the coal combustion is the worst I think

5 offender of all. And the Supreme Court gave the

6 EPA power to regulate coal under this.

7 We know that the climate crisis is

8 terribly serious. I don't need to necessarily

9 repeat what has been said by Jim Hansen or other

10 people. But I think civilization is in danger and

11 I think the EPA should, in a supplemental way, use

12 its authority by the Supreme Court to regulate

13 very stringently coal combustion on the grounds

14 that it really is decimating the resilie ncy of the

15 climate and will cause terrible havocs in the next

16 generation.

17 I have a son and I do not want to see

18 him and his generation have to grow up in an epic

1 9 of unstable climate. So, I think the EPA can help

20 us move forward by invoking its right to regulate

21 coal combustion and facilitate the necessary

22 transition in this country from a fossil fuel559

1 economy to one predicated on carbon neutral

2 renewables. So, I think this can be a valuable

3 tool that can be used in conjunctio n with the

4 regulation of a particulate matter which has

5 certainly been documented to cause terrible

6 environmental impact. But the environmental

7 impact of the greenhouse gas emissions will be

8 even far more severe.

9 So, let's move forward to this

10 transition, which we need to, to renewables and

11 leave King Coal in the ground where it belongs.

12 (Applause)

13 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much. Do we

14 have any other registered speakers in the

15 audience?

16 Okay. With that, we will take another,

17 say 10, 15

- minute break and we will reconvene at

18 that point. Thank you.

19 (Short recess)

20 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, good evening,

21 everyone. We'd like to get started. Again, will

22 number 238 come to the podium please?560

1 MR. STUCKEY: Are you ready?

2 MS. DEVLIN : We are, thank you.

3 MR. STUCKEY: Good evening, everybody.

4 My name is Richard Stuckey. I'm a member of the

5 Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and several

6 other environmenta l organizations. I strongly

7 what they said to you earlier on today, I was here

8 a long time ago and heard a lot of that. However,

9 I do want to point out that I'm here now strictly

10 as a private citizen on behalf of myself and my

11 family and the interest of my friends and

12 neighbors.

13 I commend the EPA very much indeed for

14 holding these important hearings, and admire the

15 seriousness with which you have approached the

16 subject as evidenced by the fact that you are

17 still here and it's almost midnight. I appreciate

18 that. And I appreciate also that I'm probably the

19 last thing standing between you and a good night's

20 sleep so I shall be as brief as possible.

21 You're considering two alternatives

22 regulating coal ash. One of these known as561

1 Subtitle C: * designates coal ash as a "special

2 waste," a subset of hazardous waste * provides

3 a ppropriate regulations, as you know, that are

4 federally enforceable * requires phase out of

5 waste ponds * establishes minimum federal

6 regulations for coal ash disposal and allows

7 s tates to adopt them or develop ever more

8 stringent regulations * requires monitoring of

9 all existing coal ash dumps whether active or

10 inactive, to determine if the dumps are leaking *

11 requires permits for all coal ash dumps and lets

12 the host communities have a say in the siting and

13 operation of these disposal units * provides

14 cradle to grave management of coal ash.

15 The other alternative, known as Subtitle

16 D, has none of these protections. It has been

17 supported by every industry group you've heard

18 from today as far as I know. It's essentially a

19 continuation of the status quo or laissez faire.

20 It relies upon the goodwill and common sense of

21 industry to manage coal waste safely.

22 However, scientific evidence shows562

1 beyond a shadow of doubt that coal waste is

2 extremely toxic. You heard today from

3 representatives of Pines, from Joliet and other

4 towns near to coal ash impoundments how their

5 lives and their health have been destroyed by the

6 toxicity of coal ash and its leachings.

7 And scientific evidence shows us that

8 coal ash contains many toxic substances that have

9 the potential to affect all the major organ

10 systems, damage physical health and development

11 and contribute to increased mortality. Re cent

12 evidences show

-- okay, I will get right to the

13 point.

14 If you do accept the fact that coal ash

15 is toxic, I believe you have no choice but to go

16 with th e Subtitle C solution. And once you accept

17 that it is a toxic substance, then you have again

18 no choice but to enforce the other parts that go

19 with Subtitle C. They're absolutely essential

2 0 given that the stuff is toxic waste and I believe

21 we absolutely have to do that. Okay? Thank you

22 very much.563

1 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much. Do we

2 have any other speakers in the room? Okay. With

3 that, we will take another about 15

- minute break

4 or so. Thank you.

5 (Short recess)

6 MS. DEVLIN: We're resuming the public

7 hearing. And so, if you would please continue?

8 State your name for the court reporter.

9 MR. LIVELY: Sure. James Liv ely.

10 MS. DEVLIN: Okay, whenever you're

11 ready.

12 MR. LIVELY: Okay. As I said, my name

13 is James Lively and I have worked for the last 15

14 years for a firm which supplies various types of

15 reagents to stabilize a wide range of industrial

16 waste streams that contain heavy metals. And

17 because of that experience, I feel like I'm

18 speaki ng from a credible platform when it comes to

19 the mobility of inorganic constituents, namely,

20 heavy metals. And since the early 90's, our firm

21 has successfully stabilized over a million tons of

22 heavy metal waste.564

1 The reason for my presence here today is

2 to provide probably a different perspective than

3 perhaps what you guys have heard from some of the

4 other stakeholders on the constituents found on

5 boiler slag specifically which is one type of CCP.

6 It's important to understand from my perspectiv e

7 how boiler slag is produced. Boiler slag is a

8 byproduct of burning coal to produce energy where

9 the particulate that is produced encounters very

10 high temperatures. These elevated t emperatures

11 create a molten coal ash matrix that is quenched

12 with water for cooling. This quenching transforms

13 the molten waste into a vitrified mass with

14 limited permeability.

15 Vitrification as a successful waste

16 treatment process for heavy metals is well

17 supported by EPA. EPA has published many

18 documents on this, two of which, "Vitrification

19 Technologies for Treatment of Hazardous Waste," as

20 well as SITE Emerging Technologies Project. These

21 documents chronicle the history of successful use

22 of this approach to immobilize heavy metals inside565

1 a vitrified matrix, like we have for boiler slag.

2 Because of the general acceptance of

3 this EPA endorsed technology in immobilizing heavy

4 metals, it seems in my opinion wholly logical that

5 a waste which is vitrified, as is the case for

6 boiler slag, should not require onerous Subtitle C

7 re gulation when it consistently complies with

8 mandated leaching tests. Further, if these

9 materials were classified as Subtitle C, the

10 materials would be shipped to a hazardous waste

11 tre atment facility at a significant additional

12 cost where an encapsulation or chemical fixation

13 reagent would be added to the material to limit

14 the permeability of the boiler slag. This seems

1 5 to be redundant and unnecessary for the following

16 reasons: the metals that are present are "locked

17 up" in the vitrified matrix that has no or very

18 low permeability.

19 Add itionally, regulating boiler slag

20 that is not destined for beneficial reuse under

21 Subtitle C will only create additional confusion.

22 Consumers will place a hazardous stigma of the566

1 Subtitle C regulations for the portions of boiler

2 slag not reused on all of the CCP waste including

3 boiler slag used as an abrasive. This will cr eate

4 a negative perception and potentially decrease the

5 safe, beneficial reuse of boiler slag as an

6 abrasive product. This would cost the power

7 industry, the painting industry, and th e supply

8 industry significant sums of money as the negative

9 perception may cause more boiler slag not to be

10 reused which would force more boiler slag under

11 the unnecessary Subtitle C r egulations.

12 As a result, I strongly encourage you to

13 consider regulating boiler slag destined for

14 disposal as Subtitle D and retain the exemption

15 for boiler slag that is dest ined for reuse. Thank

16 you.

17 MS. DEVLIN: Thank you very much.

18 That's it, thank you. If you want to leave your

19 written comments, you can leave them in the box.

20 Thank you for coming.

21 Seeing no more speakers, we will again

22 take a break.567

1 (Short recess)

2 MR. KOHLER: My name is Jim Kohler with

3 the EPA ORCR. The date is September 16th,

4 Thursday, 2010. The time is 11:04. And as we

5 have no speakers, we are officially closing the

6 public hearing on the Coal Combustion Residual

7 Proposed Rulemaking. I now officially close this

8 hearing. Thank you and good night.

9 (Whereupon, at 11:04 p.m., the

10 PROCEEDINGS were adjourned)

11

12 * * * * *

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22568

1 CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC

2 I, Carleton J. Anderson, III do hereby

3 certify that the witness whose testimony appears

4 in the foregoing hearing was duly sworn by me;

5 that the testimony of said witness was taken by me

6 and thereafter reduced to print under my

7 direction; that said deposi tion is a true record

8 of the testimony given by said witness; that I am

9 neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by

10 any of the parties to the action in which these

11 proceedings wer e taken; and, furthermore, that I

12 am neither a relative or employee of any attorney

13 or counsel employed by the parties hereto, nor

14 financially or otherwise interested in the outcome

15 of this action.

16 /s/Carleton J. Anderson, III

17

18

19 Notary Public in and for the

20 Commonwealth of Virginia

21 Commission No. 351998

22 Expi res: November 30, 2012 )