December 12, 2024 - The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a utility’s attempt to block protections against pollution from old coal ash dumps at inactive power plants, which leak arsenic, mercury, lead, and many other pollutants into nearby rivers, lakes, and groundwater that many neighbors rely on for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering challenges to the Biden administration’s rule from utilities, industry trade groups, and 17 states. SELC, along with Earthjustice, the Environmental Integrity Project, and Sierra Club, represented local conservation groups who intervened in the case to defend the rule. After the D.C. Circuit declined to block the rule while the case is pending, one utility asked the Supreme Court to do the same.

The following statement is from SELC Senior Attorney Nick Torrey:

“Today’s ruling ensures that the vital protections of EPA’s coal ash rule, which prohibits leaving coal ash sitting in water and leaking pollutants from unlined pits, and which requires utilities to clean up the pollution they have caused for decades, will remain in effect for now. That is good news for the families and communities whose drinking water is threatened by coal ash pollution throughout the country. We will keep fighting to protect and enforce these common-sense requirements.”

About Southern Environmental Law Center

The Southern Environmental Law Center is one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment, rooted in the South. With a long track record, SELC takes on the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and people. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the organization has a staff of 200, including more than 120 legal and policy experts, and is headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., with offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, and Washington, D.C. southernenvironment.org