“EPA is, under this administration, pulling every possible lever when it comes to every possible environmental rule to try to keep coal plants running for as long as possible,” Cmar said.
Could the state step in?
While effluent from coal plants has been subject to regulation for decades, the Trump administration’s proposed rule change governing coal ash would significantly alter federal standards that took effect in 2015 and were updated during the Biden administration.
Indra Frank, coal ash adviser for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the change would mean at least half the coal ash units in Indiana would face no federal regulation at all.
Indiana is believed to have millions of tons of ash that was scattered or dumped on or near coal plant sites with little recordkeeping or oversight.
Such ash repositories — known as “legacy ash” or coal combustion residual management units — were exempt from the 2015 federal coal ash rule, and faced federal oversight only thanks to 2024 updates adopted in response to legal action by environmental groups. An analysis by Earthjustice found more than 70 specific sites at 22 closed or operating power plants in Indiana that potentially have such coal ash.
“To remove requirements from those units is just unthinkable,” Frank said.
As she sees it, the proposed rule change “really sets us back” to the days when coal ash was dumped in the state with little accountability or transparency — to the benefit of coal power producers.
In addition to removing oversight of coal ash dumped before the federal rules took effect, the EPA proposal weakens requirements for more recent coal ash repositories. It allows companies to leave coal ash in contact with groundwater, loosens monitoring requirements, and removes restrictions on the use of coal ash as fill material.
While states can demand stricter standards than the federal government through their permitting processes, environmental advocates say they are not hopeful Indiana will do so, given its history of favoring industry.
“It’s a total punt to the states because [the EPA is] saying, ‘We’re not mandating anything,’” Cmar said. “There’s a risk a state like Indiana would not require significant cleanup.”
A cautionary tale
The Town of Pines, on Indiana’s Lake Michigan shore, was declared a Superfund site and underwent a massive, expensive cleanup after the 2002 discovery that ash was causing dangerous pollution in drinking water wells.
A few miles away, about 2 million tons of coal ash are held back by aging metal seawalls that environmental and health advocates fear could eventually fail and release the toxic mixture into Lake Michigan — the source of drinking water for millions of people in the Chicago area. The 2024 updated rule would have forced the utility Northern Indiana Public Service Co., which owns the Michigan City coal plant, to monitor and clean up the ash; the revamped rule would relieve the utility of that responsibility.
The proposal “opens the floodgates for more Town of Pines situations across the country,” said Ashley Williams, executive director of the community organization Just Transition Northwest Indiana and a resident of Michigan City.
“It’s a dagger in the heart on an issue we as JTNWI have worked so hard on. It’s the reason I launched JTNWI, to bring visibility to what we saw as this invisible crisis,” she said.
“It’s just mind-boggling what EPA is proposing with the stroke of a pen,” she added. “That’s how residents have been treated. We’re sacrificed time and time again because corporations see us as disposable, history continuing to repeat itself.”
