"Environment Groups Cite Lansing Power Plant for Coal Ash Pollution"

"Near one power plant in New Mexico, sheep and cattle ranchers have reported losing hundreds of livestock who drank polluted groundwater. In a Montana town, people have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with high levels of sulfate and boron, the same metals discharged into groundwater by a nearby plant.

And in McAdoo, Pa., federal health officials have confirmed a rare bone marrow cancer cluster in a town near several plants and a waste dump, though federal officials haven't either confirmed or denied a link between the cancers and the plants. ...

One Tompkins County coal-based power plant, AES Cayuga in Lansing, was among 39 across the country cited by three national environmental groups in a new report on groundwater pollution caused by coal ash.

No one downhill of AES Cayuga drinks the water -- the power plant installed a municipal water line for nearby lakefront homes, and they purchased one property where plant activities polluted the well, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

The environmental groups, the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice, assert AES Cayuga is among the sites the federal Environmental Protection Agency should keep in mind as it considers -- for the first time ever -- regulating disposal of coal ash, fly ash and other wastes generated by coal-fired power plants."

Krisy Gashler reports for the Ithaca Journal September 9, 2010.

SEE ALSO:

"EPA Backed Off 'Hazardous' Label for Coal Ash After White House Review" (Greenwire)