In 2022, federal officials rebuked a major coal plant next to the Ohio River for letting coal waste — in a pile so big it could fill the Dallas Cowboys' football stadium twice over — threaten groundwater with heavy metal pollution.
That coal ash, the waste from burning coal, was at risk of leaching into groundwater and spreading toxins, officials said. It was part of a broad crackdown by the Biden administration on coal ash aimed at keeping arsenic and lead out of well water, lowering cancer rates and avoiding disastrous spills.
