Two sessions on Tuesday at Danville Area Community College will give local residents the chance to tell the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency what they want from new rules regulating coal ash, a toxic substance produced by coal-fired power plants.
Illinois environmental agencies will create new rules for the storage and disposal of toxic coal ash from power plants, under a new law signed today by Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Each year thousands of families boat down the Middle Fork branch of the Illinois Vermilion River below an embankment that holds back 3.3 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash sludge stored in three large ponds. Coal ash pollution is leaching into the river, and the riverbank is eroding under the ponds. We examine what's a stake in this investigative report.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has issued a violation notice to Vistra Energy Corporation for alleged violations of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act at the Vermilion Power Station near Oakwood, Illinois. In May the Illinois EPA conducted a stream survey of the Middle Fork Vermilion River near three coal ash ponds owned by Vistra, and found water with “heavily stained reddish-brown discoloration” seeping from the riverbank. The violation notice says the seeps were discharging into the river, staining sediment and rocks, and creating “offensive conditions in the Middle Fork.”
A clean water advocacy group says two thirds of water bodies in Illinois are unsafe. Those water bodies include streams, lakes and rivers across the state.
