Electric cooperatives are keeping a close watch on the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to develop coal combustion by-product (CCB) regulations. We support the agency’s stated objective, to protect public health while protecting the ability to use coal ash for beneficial purposes.

Enabling the beneficial re-use of coal ash is sound economic, environmental, and energy policy. Currently, more than 42 percent of CCBs are reused to produce roofing granules, blasting abrasives, and as structural fill. CCBs can serve as a replacement for Portland cement in concrete. Several co-ops, including Great River Energy in Minn., have incorporated fly ash into the construction of new co-op buildings.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association holds that EPA can best maintain a responsible, balanced approach to CCB regulation by strengthening impoundment safety standards while retaining the current non-hazardous waste designation for CCBs under federal law.

In the course of normal business operations, rural electric cooperatives manage and dispose of a variety of materials that are regulated by environmental statutes. In keeping with the cooperative principle of concern for community, electric cooperatives support solid waste, toxic and hazardous material laws and regulations that strike a reasonable balance between consumer interests and environmental protection.

We will be examining the details of EPA’s proposal and developing detailed comments to submit to the Agency in the coming months in an effort to ensure that the final regulations meet our nation’s economic, environmental, and energy needs.