EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash

The report documents the presence of hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen, in leachate from coal ash disposal sites and groundwater across the United States. It highlights a discrepancy between the EPA's recognition of the chemical's toxicity in drinking water and its failure to account for ingestion risks in its coal ash risk assessments. The document provides evidence from EPA, DOE, and EPRI studies showing that chromium leaching from coal ash is nearly 100% hexavalent and often exceeds safety standards by thousands of times. It concludes that the EPA must designate coal ash as a hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to protect public health.

• Research from the EPA and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) indicates that chromium leaching from coal ash is almost entirely composed of the highly toxic hexavalent form.
• The EPA's 2010 draft risk assessment for coal combustion wastes failed to consider the cancer risk associated with the ingestion of hexavalent chromium, treating it as a carcinogen only when inhaled.
• Field data from 28 coal ash disposal sites across 17 U.S. states show groundwater chromium levels exceeding federal or state standards, often by thousands of times the California proposed public health goal of 0.02 ppb.
• Laboratory tests conducted by the EPA on waste from operating power plants found that leachate can contain extremely high levels of chromium, such as 7,370 ppb at the TVA’s Widows Creek Plant.
• The implementation of pollution controls like flue gas desulfurization (FGD) to reduce air emissions is expected to increase the volume of hexavalent chromium found in FGD sludge, potentially increasing the threat to drinking water.

APA

Evans, L., Gottlieb, B., Widawsky, L., Stant, J., Russ, A., & Dawes, J. (2011). EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash. Earthjustice. https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/CoalAshChromeReport.pdf

Chicago

Evans, Lisa, Barb Gottlieb, Lisa Widawsky, Jeff Stant, Abel Russ, and John Dawes. EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash. Earthjustice, 2011. https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/CoalAshChromeReport.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Evans |first1=Lisa |last2=Gottlieb |first2=Barb |last3=Widawsky |first3=Lisa |last4=Stant |first4=Jeff |last5=Russ |first5=Abel |last6=Dawes |first6=John |title=EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash |publisher=Earthjustice |date=1 February 2011 |url=https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/CoalAshChromeReport.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{evans2011epas, author = {Evans, Lisa and Gottlieb, Barb and Widawsky, Lisa and Stant, Jeff and Russ, Abel and Dawes, John}, title = {{EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash}}, institution = {Earthjustice}, year = {2011}, month = feb, url = {https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/CoalAshChromeReport.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }