KY Waterways Alliance Critical of New Coal Ash Ponds

A Kentucky environmental group tried to intervene in a case before the state’s utility regulators but was denied.  Kentucky Waterways Alliance spokesman Jason Flickner says the group wanted the Public Service Commission to reconsider allowing LG&E and Kentucky Utilities to pass along to customers the cost of adding and enlarging coal ash storage basins.  Flickner says the coal ash spill in Tennessee a year ago prompted their involvement.“The reason for us intervening in the case was to provide more information to the Public Service Commission as to what actually caused the failure in Tennessee and to give them more information about wet coal ash and where EPA is going to go in their classification of coal ash as a hazardous material in the future, before they were to make a decision to allow these companies to expand wet coal ash impoundment," says Flickner.The Environmental Protection Agency has announced its intentions to re-examine the way it regulates coal ash ponds.  But the agency has delayed announcing the specifics.