OP-ED: Indiana has more coal ash than any other state. Hoosiers deserve better than a rubber stamp

Most people do not think about coal ash. In Southwest Indiana, we don’t have that luxury.

Coal ash is what is left after a power plant burns coal. It sits in ponds and pits across our state, and Indiana holds more it than anywhere else in the country. We are talking about more than 130 million cubic yards. Much of it sits in ponds with no liner between the waste and our groundwater underneath.

The waste is not harmless. Coal ash carries arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury. All of which are tied to cancer, heart disease, kidney and liver damage, respiratory illness and reproductive harm. Where the state has tested groundwater near these sites, it has found contamination above the federal safe drinking water limits. This is happening near our homes, wells and schools.

So, how did we get here?

First, the EPA set the first national standards for handling coal ash in 2015.

In 2016, Congress allowed states to run their own coal ash permit programs.

Later in 2020, a federal proposal to loosen that permitting process was floated and then later shelved.

In 2024, the EPA extended cleanup and monitoring rules to older dump sites that had been ignored for years.

Last year, Indiana’s Environmental Rules Board approved a state permit program for coal ash.

In May of this year, Washington revived the original 2020 proposal and reopened it for public comment. This window closes June 29.

As the federal government works to reverse the decline of coal, it is also working to make the leftover waste easier to leave in place. The EPA says its new approach will make permitting more “streamlined.” In plain terms, streamlined means fewer questions asked.

The plan leans on what are called general permits. A general permit is a one-size-fits-all approval. The same paperwork covers a site far from anyone and a site sitting right next to a neighborhood or Lake Michigan. There is no real case-by-case review of who lives nearby or what is leaking. Once a permit is granted, there is no expiration and no renewal, so no one is required to check back in.

Think about what that means. Your household trash gets more oversight, more public input and more transparency than waste full of arsenic and lead. That should bother all of us.

And what’s worse? Indiana law says the state cannot write environmental rules any stronger than the federal ones. So, when Washington lowers its standards, Indiana drops with them. A generic, blanket rule placed over these operators, with no look at each individual site, is insulting to the Hoosiers who live near them. It also undermines their health. And the legislature could change this if it wanted to.

This is where the messaging from the Statehouse falls apart for me. The current administration likes the phrase “Make Indiana Healthy Again.” But that effort begins and ends at the grocery store. It is food dyes and SNAP rules and what goes on a child’s lunch tray. Those are fine conversations to have. But they are not the whole picture. If we are serious about Hoosier health, it cannot stop at what is on the plate. It has to include what is in the water.

I do not raise this from the outside looking in. I sit on the committees that deal with energy and natural resources, and I went to the utility commission’s field hearing in Evansville to hear from people directly. I know how much Indiana still leans on coal. It has kept the lights on and run our factories for generations, and the plants in our corner of the state are part of that history. Coal is not disappearing overnight, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But how we manage coal, and what we do with the waste it leaves behind, is a choice we get to make. We can make a better one.

Now, I am not asking us to ignore our energy needs. Our state should embrace all forms of it. That means wind and solar, and it means exploring real innovation, including the potential of nuclear. It also means reevaluating tools like the TDSIC tracker that quietly raise utility bills. But none of that requires us to gamble with groundwater.

There are proven, safe ways to handle this waste. At the very least, we can line these ponds. Lining and fully covering them is better still. Other states already require utilities to dig up and properly store this waste.

We cannot keep straining Hoosier pocketbooks and our health care system for the sake of energy generation when measures that work already exist. Every dollar a family spends on cancer treatment or a hospital stay tied to contaminated water is a dollar that better rules could have saved them. Hoosiers have a right to know how this waste is being handled and what it means for their families. They have a right to transparency from the EPA, from the Braun administration and from Washington. A blanket permit handed out behind closed doors does not give them that. The public comment period closes June 29. I would encourage every Hoosier who drinks Indiana water to weigh in before it does. This is our water and our health. We should act like it.

The link to write a comment online on EPA-HQ-OLEM-2019-0361 can be found, here.

To submit a comment by mail to the EPA Docket Center, send to 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20460.

State Rep. Alex Burton (D-Evansville)