Legal Battle Over EPA’s Coal Ash Rules Could Impact Cleanup at Ohio Power Plant’s Groundwater Contamination.

A legal debate over the semantics of the U.S. EPA’s 2015 coal ash rules could determine if groundwater-soaked coal ash can remain in place next to an Ohio power plant. Power companies argue that the rules don’t specifically ban coal ash contact with groundwater and that as a result, the federal agency overstepped its mandate in 2022 when it ordered the closure and cleanup of a coal ash impoundment at the General James M. Gavin Power Plant in Cheshire, Ohio. Attorneys for the EPA and Earthjustice argued that preventing groundwater contamination is the point of the federal rules. Two federal lawsuits argue that EPA’s recent demands represent the unauthorized promulgation of a new rule, as they don’t believe that coal ash sitting in groundwater is explicitly identified as a violation of the 2015 federal coal ash rule.