In 2022, federal officials rebuked a major coal plant next to the Ohio River for letting coal waste — in a pile so big it could fill the Dallas Cowboys’ football stadium twice over — threaten groundwater with heavy metal pollution.
That coal ash, the waste from burning coal, was at risk of leaching into groundwater and spreading toxins, officials said. It was part of a broad crackdown by the Biden administration on coal ash aimed at keeping arsenic and lead out of well water, lowering cancer rates and avoiding disastrous spills.
In January, however, the coal industry including Ohio’s targeted Gen. James Gavin Power Plant wrote to President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency, ask