EPA: “A massive coal ash spill near Knoxville, Tenn., in 2008 forever changed life for Janie Clark’s family and left her husband with crippling health problems. So Clark was astounded late last year when she heard what the Environmental Protection Agency had done.
In September, at the behest of power companies, the agency shelved a requirement that coal plants remove some of the most toxic chemicals from their wastewater. The infamous Kingston power plant that released millions of cubic yards of toxic coal ash into area rivers was among some 50 plants given a reprieve.
After the EPA’s action, the plant’s owners delayed new wastewater treatment technology for at least two years…
One year into the Trump administration’s unrelenting push to dilute and disable clean air and water policies, the impact is being felt in communities across the country. Power plants have been given expanded license to pollute, the dirtiest trucks are being allowed to remain on the roads and punishment of the biggest environmental scofflaws is on the decline.
The real-time impact of the most industry-friendly regulatory regime in decades is at times overshadowed by policy battles that are years from resolution. President Trump’s moves to shrink national monuments, return drilling to the waters off the West Coast and allow natural gas companies to release more methane into the air are destined to be tied up in court for the foreseeable future. The contentious Keystone XL pipeline may never get built as volatile oil prices threaten its profitability.
Yet the air and the water are already being affected as the administration tinkers with programs obscure to most Americans, with names like ‘Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for Steam Electric Power Plants’ and ‘Air Quality Designations for Ozone.’ “
-Evan Halper, “One year in, Trump’s environmental agenda is already taking a measurable toll,” he Los Angeles Times online, Jan. 18, 2018 03:00am