The EPA on Wednesday proposed tighter restrictions on coal-fired power plants, aimed at limiting the spread of toxic wastewater.
Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets pollution standards to limit wastewater discharge from the power industry and other businesses.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan called the new limits the strongest limits the federal government has ever set for wastewater from coal plants. The proposed limits would prevent nearly 584 million tons of pollutants from being released through coal plant wastewater each year.
“Coal-fired power plants discharge large volumes of wastewater into waterways such as ponds, lakes, rivers, and streams,” the agency said, according to Barron’s, and that water contains toxic metals and other pollutants, including mercury and arsenic.
Regan also said the new standards would particularly benefit poor neighborhoods and communities of color that are disproportionately harmed by pollution, as well as provide “greater certainty for industry.”
The Washington Post is reporting that the EPA proposal also goes along with the president’s emphasis on fighting climate change, by potentially speeding the phase-out of coal, the single-biggest source of planet-warming carbon pollution.
According to the EPA proposal — which would replace an existing rule issued under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump — the new regulations would not apply to power plants that intend to phase out coal by 2028.
