A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency delay will affect coal ash sites nationwide, including two in Northwest Indiana.
On Feb. 6, the EPA issued a rule that would give Coal Combustion Residual Management Units an additional three years to file groundwater reports, which environmental advocates said is the first step in coal ash cleanup. Now, CCRMUs have until January 2032 to file the reports.
NIPSCO’s Michigan City Generating Station and Schahfer Generating Station in Wheatfield were both included in the cleanup delays.
“NIPSCO is committed to meeting all (coal combustion residual) requirements and maintaining focus on safely providing reliable energy for our customers today and in the future,” a NIPSCO Communications Manager Jessica Cantarelli said in an email.
CCRMUs were exempted from cleanup requirements in the 2015 federal rule on coal ash, according to the Hoosier Environmental Council. Sites included in the 2015 rule issued first groundwater reports in March 2018.
In 2024, when the EPA issued a rule that would include CCRMUs, they were given until January 2029 to report groundwater testing.
An EPA spokesperson explained the coal ash delay in a Thursday statement.
“The action supports grid reliability and unleashes American energy potential while maintaining strong protections for human health and the environment,” the statement said. “EPA granted the extensions for coal combustion residual management units to give facilities the time needed to complete thorough facility evaluations and properly identify and precisely describe the extent of these units. This rule also grants additional time for facilities to better design and install groundwater monitoring networks to better assess groundwater quality. Facilities require adequate time to design and install the groundwater monitoring system, collect eight independent samples, and conduct statistical analysis. In addition, this rule finalizes some of the amendments that were proposed on January 16, 2025, to fix incorrect regulatory text citations as well as clarify and add provisions in the regulatory text to match the language included in the preamble. These essential changes will provide much needed clarity that will help industry to better comply with the CCR regulations, unleash American Energy Dominance, and lower the cost of living for Americans while protecting human health and the environment.”
Coal ash is a byproduct that is primarily created from burning coal in power plants, according to the EPA.
Indiana produces about 5 million tons of coal ash each year, according to the Hoosier Environmental Council, and it contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, boron, lithium, molybdenum and radium. Those metals can interfere with child development and cause cancer.
Indra Frank, coal ash advisor for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the delay is a significant change. Groundwater reports require coal ash sites to test the groundwater around coal ash to see if it’s contaminated, and then they have to do additional tests to see how far the contamination spreads.
“Groundwater reports are the start of the whole cleanup process,” Frank said. “Without those, you can’t start the cleanup.”
Because of the delays, Frank expects that communities will see more toxic metals in their groundwater, which she believes will take longer to clean up in the long run, Frank said.
Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, responded to the delay in a Thursday email. Williams is also a Michigan City resident and a standing declarant in an EarthJustice lawsuit that led to the establishment of the Legacy CCR Rule.
She believes that the delay could mean disaster for affected communities, such as Michigan City.
“Three more years of waiting means three more years of pollutants, metals, carcinogens, and neurotoxins poisoning our waters. We will not begin to know the full impact of this new rule until 2032, but our communities are already experiencing it,” Williams said in her email. “In Michigan City, unlined coal ash at the nearly century-old NIPSCO Michigan City Generating Station, on the city’s shoreline, continues to seep into groundwater, endangering Lake Michigan, the finite watershed we all love and depend on. With this dangerous precedent, we are watching the plant’s 2028 closure approach with deep unease and uncertainty about what comes next under an administration that is continually propping up polluters.”
Lisa Evans, senior counsel at EarthJustice, said the Michigan City site is “an excellent example” of an older waste deposit that causes harm to bodies of water around its plant’s borders. In addition to the water flowing into Lake Michigan, it’s flowing into Trail Creek, which is a popular place for fishing, Evans said.
“Each day you delay, more toxic contaminants leak into the underlying groundwater,” Evans said. “These heavy metals can accumulate in the sediment, and they can accumulate in fish.”
Williams believes that the coal ash rule delay leaves the Wheatfield community near the Schahfer Generating Station in limbo, and she encourages everyone who’s concerned to continue fighting for coal ash cleanup.
“There, a federal emergency order is in effect, keeping its coal-fired plant operational, and a massive new development is underway: a proposed data center, a combined-cycle gas plant, and a peaker plant,” Williams said. “This layered threat risks worsening coal ash pollution that is already out of control and endangering neighboring farmland and private water wells.”
In Michigan City, the contaminated groundwater flows into Lake Michigan, Frank said, and at the Schahfer Generating Station, it flows into the Kankakee River.
“If anyone is using well water that has been contaminated by coal ash, there are significant risks to health because heavy metals that are in coal ash cause a variety of health impacts,” Frank said. “It’s also possible that if the coal ash isn’t covered, and it’s open to the air and dries out on top, it can blow in the wind, and it’s unhealthy to inhale the dust from coal ash.”
Evans is not surprised the coal ash actions were taken, she said.
“From day one, EPA has been touting the benefits of coal burning and characterizing safe disposal of coal ash as an activity that harms or restricts future coal burning. Those two concepts are not logically linked. A power plant can burn coal and dispose of its waste safely and also provide power to the grid.”
