How Breathing Coal Ash is Hazardous to your Health

The report details how coal ash, particularly fly ash, contains toxic metals and radioactive materials that pose severe health risks when inhaled as fugitive dust. It highlights the lack of federal regulations for dust control at landfills and ponds, noting that state-level requirements are often inadequate. The document provides case studies of impacted communities, including the Moapa River Indian Reservation and Uniontown, Alabama, and calls for a transition to renewable energy and the establishment of enforceable federal standards to mitigate these hazards.

• Coal ash, especially fly ash, contains a wide array of toxic metals and pollutants including arsenic, mercury, chromium (specifically carcinogenic chromium VI), lead, uranium, selenium, molybdenum, antimony, nickel, boron, cadmium, thallium, cobalt, copper, manganese, strontium, thorium, and vanadium.
• Inhalation of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from coal-derived sources is linked to the four leading causes of death in the U.S.: stroke, cancer, heart disease, and respiratory diseases, with potential links to Type II diabetes mellitus and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Coal ash dust contains respirable crystalline silica which can cause silicosis (lung tissue scarring) and is classified as a human carcinogen by the IARC, NTP, and NIOSH.
• The burning of coal concentrates naturally occurring radioactive materials, such as uranium and thorium, by three to ten times the levels found in initial coal seams; when inhaled, these can decay into radon gas, a leading cause of lung cancer.
• Federal regulations for controlling fugitive toxic dust from coal ash disposal are non-existent, and a survey of 37 top coal ash-generating states found that less than half mandate dust controls at landfills and only one state requires them at ponds.
• The report identifies several communities disproportionately affected by coal ash dust, including the Moapa River Indian Reservation (Nevada), the Navajo Nation (New Mexico), and Uniontown (Alabama), where the latter was described as an act of environmental injustice due to the community being 90 percent African American.

APA

Lockwood, A. H., & Evans, L. (n.d.). How Breathing Coal Ash is Hazardous to your Health. Earthjustice. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/ash_in_lungs_1.pdf

Chicago

Lockwood, Alan H., and Lisa Evans. How Breathing Coal Ash is Hazardous to your Health. Earthjustice, n.d. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/ash_in_lungs_1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lockwood |first1=Alan H. |last2=Evans |first2=Lisa |title=How Breathing Coal Ash is Hazardous to your Health |publisher=Earthjustice |url=https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/ash_in_lungs_1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lockwoodndhow, author = {Lockwood, Alan H. and Evans, Lisa}, title = {{How Breathing Coal Ash is Hazardous to your Health}}, institution = {Earthjustice}, url = {https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/ash_in_lungs_1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }