The EPA’s Tuesday announcement that it will crack down on coal-ash ponds has an outsized impact on Midwestern coal plants.

The EPA proposed that three coal plants in the region stop dumping waste into unlined ash ponds and denied the facilities extensions of an April 2021 deadline to initiate the ponds’ closure. Affected plants include the Indiana Kentucky Electric Corp.’s 1.3-GW Clifty Creek Power Station in southern Indiana; American Electric Power’s 2.6-GW Gavin Power Plant in southern Ohio; and Interstate Power and Light’s 726-MW Ottumwa Generating Station in southeastern Iowa.

The agency opened a 30-day comment period on its proposed determinations. It also said East Kentucky Power Cooperative’s 1.3-GW H.L. Spurlock Power Station might receive an extension until Nov. 30, provided it fixes groundwater monitoring problems.

The EPA’s actions represent the Biden administration’s first steps to enforce coal-ash disposal regulations enacted in 2015. The EPA’s Coal Combustion Residuals Rule required most of the country’s 500 unlined ash pits to stop receiving waste and to begin closure activities by April 2021.

Coal ash contains toxic materials that can seep into groundwater, including mercury, cadmium and arsenic.

“I’ve seen firsthand how coal-ash contamination can hurt people and communities. Coal ash surface impoundments and landfills must operate and close in a manner that protects public health and the environment,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a Tuesday press release. “For too long, communities already disproportionately impacted by high levels of pollution have been burdened by improper coal ash disposal.”

4 MISO Plants Deemed Incomplete

The EPA also said four coal plants in MISO’s footprint submitted incomplete applications to postpone the closures of their ash ponds.

The agency said Ameren Missouri’s 1-GW Meramec Energy Center in St. Louis and its 1-GW Sioux Energy Center in West Alton, Mo., submitted inadequate information in their extension requests. It also singled out the City of Springfield, Ill.-owned 200-MW Dallman Power Station and the Lansing Board of Water & Light’s Erickson Power Plant in central Michigan for unfinished applications.

Ameren plans to retire the Meramec’s coal-fired units by the end of 2022 and to wind down operations at the Sioux Energy Center sometime in 2028.

The Lansing Board of Water & Light has said it will retire its Erickson Power Plant by 2025. Springfield retired an aging unit at Dallman last year following storm damage.

The EPA said it will make more decisions on extension applications for ash ponds or pit closure dates in the coming months. It said it has 48 more eligible applications to review from facilities that want to keep dumping waste into their unlined ash ponds.

The agency also said Tuesday that it will begin contacting facilities with coal ash ponds that have insufficient cleanup information or have poor monitoring records.

“As the transition from coal advances, it is also critical that we responsibly manage the legacy wastes that have been left from our historical reliance on coal,” Liesl Clark, director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, said in a statement. “We support EPA’s ongoing efforts to provide clarity around the coal combustion residuals rules and to ensure that our world-class freshwater resources and the drinking water they provide are not impacted by these legacy wastes.”