“Growing
Greener, and Smarter”
by J. Winston Porter
(As published in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on 12/28/99)
The signing of
the “Growing Greener” legislation by Gov. Ridge Dec. 15 is a graphic
example of how Pennsylvania and other enlightened states—not the federal
government—are now the sources for progressive environmental policies.
An excellent example of the state and local approach is this new Pennsylvania law, also called the “Environmental Stewardship Act,” which deals with one of the region’s most difficult environmental challenges: how to reclaim abandoned coal mines.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, there are more than a quarter million acres of abandoned coalmines in the commonwealth alone. The rowing Greener law encourages the continued cleanup of these abandoned mines by burning as a power plant fuel the waste coal left behind.
But a prospective federal regulation being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where I used to work, would economically rule out waste coal as a fuel. That’s because it would require the ash left over from combustion processes to be disposed of in landfills especially designed for hazardous wastes. If such a requirement were to become law, the coal reclamation program in Pennsylvania would grind to a halt.
That’s just one reason that several Pennsylvania environmental agencies and interest groups recognize the importance of continuing this successful reclamation effort. Among those that support the combustion of waste coal for reclamation are the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Stream Restoration, and the Ohio River Basin Commission.
It helps to think about what happens to the rain and melting snow that drains from these abandoned waste coal piles. That precipitation combines with sulfur in the coal to produce an acid that the Department of Environmental Protection considers a serious health risk in 43 of the state’s 67 counties. And that puts at risk aquatic ecosystems related to more than 2,000 miles of streams and rivers.
Also consider how Pennsylvanians benefit from the existing coal waste program. The ash left over is returned to the land to neutralize other acid-bearing materials. By backfilling, contouring and then planting wild grasses at these sites—at no taxpayer expense—these reclamation efforts eliminate many potential safety and health hazards, including accidental fires.
Without this reclamation effort, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection figures taxpayers would fork over about $20,000 to clean up every acre of every abandoned mine site. That adds up to a potential bill of $15 billion to eliminate their environmental and safety problems.
The way the power plant owners recycle the ash is heavily regulated through permits issued by the Department of Environmental Protection which are granted under state and federal environmental laws. One of these laws requires the testing of the ash and monitoring of the groundwater around it. More than a decade of monitoring has found no adverse health or environmental impact from the beneficial uses of ash.
When I was an EPA assistant administrator in the late 1980s, I decided to let the states determine how they would reach an EPA national goal of recycling 25 percent of the nation’s trash. States and localities then went out and used their own methods—not the federal government’s—to achieve the current national recycling rate of about 29 percent. Similarly, Pennsylvania has taken a giant step toward solving the modern-day dilemma of coalmine reclamation. Kudos should go to Gov. Ridge, his staff and the lawmakers for making the Growing Greener law a reality.
What this new law helps to illustrate is how we are approaching a crossroads in our choices about environmental programs. Do we continue piling up paperwork in Washington DC or do we increasingly empower states and localities to attack their most important environmental problems? Maybe this is something for the presidential candidates to discuss in the coming months
©J. Winston Porter 2001