There could be a new destination for the chalky waste from coal-fired power plants—cropland. However, it turns out this has been a destination for this waste as part of US policy for the better part of the decade.The Associated Press is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are “encouraging farmers to spread chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.”
The waste comes from the coal scrubbers, which are designed to strip chemicals from coal emissions to prevent them from entering the atmosphere. One chemical, sulfur dioxide, is responsible for acid rain. The other materials reduced by the scrubbers are mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.
These materials sound toxic and causes one to wonder why, if the material are bad for the atmosphere, can they be harmless enough to spread on fields? The EPA, according to the AP, says the toxic metals are only found in tiny amounts “that pose no threat to crops, surface water or humans.” One metal, mercury, doesn’t “accumulate in crops or run off fields in surface water at ‘“significant”’ levels,” according to the agency. Mercury is particularly concerning because of its effect on the human nervous system.
Some environmentalists are not convinced, and argue that too little is known about the effects of this material on crop lands—e.g. what this will material do to the crops, what will be the long term affects on the soil, what will be the affects of humans consuming crops where the waste is spread?
‘"Basically this is a leap into the unknown,’ said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. ‘This stuff has materials in it that we're trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions."’
But is it really a leap into the unknown? The EPA and USDA has been promoting “beneficial uses” of this waste since the Bush Administration. The Obama administration has continued this policy by promoting synthetic gypsum (“a whitish, calcium-rich material known as flue gas desulfurization gypsum”) in farming while also pushing for a new coal waste rule in response to the spill from a coal ash pond near Knoxville, TN roughly a year ago, that is expected to result in $1 billion in clean-up costs.
The AP reports that since the partnership between the USDA and the EPA to promote beneficial uses began in 2001, the use of the material by farmers has tripled. In the South, synthetic gypsum has been used on fields to promote peanut growth due to the high calcium content of the gypsum for some time. It has been used for other crops to because it is a cheaper alternative to mined gypsum. So there is evidence in existence that could be examined to see what the effects of spreading the waste truly are?
There is a lot of waste that could be used as coal-fired power plants continue to produce half of the power this nation uses—which leaves a lot of waste like synthetic gypsum left as bi-products. Half this gypsum is used to make drywall, but what to do with the rest?
With the nation as reliant on coal as it is today, the ash will continue to accumulate, so sustainable uses of this bi-product are needed. Even if broad climate change legislation does eventually change the amount of the nation’s reliance on coal power, the infrastructural switch-over will take time and the waste will continue to be produced in some quantities, so safe disposal methods will be in need.
To read the Rick Callahan’s AP article click here.
Posted: 12/21/09
