Coal-ash free dams by 2030?

If you live in top-end suburbs of the Central Coast, north of Wyong, take a deep breath – but not too deep if you live near a coal ash dump site, because the air pollution from coal ash dust can be dangerous. This insidious reaper continues to gather its victims - irritation of the nose and throat, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath for short-term contact to liver damage, kidney damage, cardiac arrhythmia, and a variety of cancers for long-term exposure.

9 August 2023

ALAN HAYES

 

AS previously reported by the Grapevine, many people are still unaware of how toxic coal ash can be, or how much of it exists. Coal ash commonly contains some of the earth's deadliest toxics: arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and selenium. Most of it gets mixed with water and stored in sludgy, unlined basins commonly known as coal ash dams, which have an unfortunate tendency to leak, leach, flood or spill, sometimes in catastrophic amounts.

 

Climate change also heightens the risk from coal ash dams in areas prone to flooding. In addition to the increased risk of spills, scientists say the heavier rains expected to come from a warming planet threaten to bring a more hidden peril - rising water tables that seep into the unlined ash dams, then contaminating groundwater.

 

Heavy metals leaching from coal ash dams can adversely affect aquatic ecosystems, which was evidenced in Lake Macquarie in September and December 2022 from Mannering Lake and into Lake Macquarie.

 

Ironically, as coal plant pollution controls like electrostatic precipitators and baghouse filters become more effective at trapping fly ash and decreasing coal plant air pollution, the waste being dumped into coal ash waste dams is becoming more toxic.

 

While a lot of attention is given to the mining and burning of coal that leads to huge carbon emissions, the dangers of fly ash, the residue left after coal is burnt in thermal power plants, have received less public attention, despite the risks to our health and to the environment.

 

So, what can be done?

 

• Australian governments must initiate inquiries into coal ash dumps so as to understand the full extent of the toxic threat and make strong recommendations to protect human and environmental health.

 

• Australian governments should impose an immediate obligation on ash dump owners and operators to prepare best practice rehabilitation, closure plans and post-closure plans in consultation with the communities who live near these toxic sites.

 

• Australian regulators who oversee ash dumps should immediately develop and implement actions to clean up and manage ash dumps causing groundwater contamination, including re-siting operational ash dumps to thoroughly rehabilitate existing sources of contamination to best practice standards.

 

• Australian governments should impose immediate obligations on ash dump owners and operators to convert wet dumps to dry ash emplacements.

 

One community group, however, is determined to take solving the coal ash problem even further. The Lake Macquarie & Central Coast Coal-ash Community Alliance has teamed up with Wilco Envirotech and Chantelle Baistow, a PhD candidate from UNSW, to bring together community members to envisage what Lake Macquarie could look like once the coal-ash dams around the Lake are empty.

 

In July, a small group of local residents used a 3D printer to create pottery from clay mixed with coal-ash. While they had fun with clay and technology, they learned about the roughly 100 million tons of coal-ash stored in unlined dams around Lake Macquarie and the threat this poses to the Lake and its animals and plants. And they heard about opportunities to use this ash to produce useful products in manufacturing processes that create highly skilled jobs for power station workers and others.

 

“Making our own ceramics was a fun and creative activity, which also opened our minds to envisage a future beyond the ash dams and their pollution,” said Darren Burgess from Teralba.

 

“What if all this coal-ash were used to make environmentally sound and economically viable products? How would we want our community to look then? These discussions make me excited and hopeful that we will find ways to get there”.

 

The ceramics made at the July workshop will be on exhibition at a second workshop in August, where the film ‘Regenerating Australia’ by award-winning author and filmmaker Damon Gameau will be shown. This film was made by Regen Studios in partnership with WWF-Australia and its Innovate to Regenerate Campaign. It illustrates what can be achieved by 2030 if we start now.

 

After the film screening, the audience will embark on some fun activities to envisage what we would like to see around Lake Macquarie by 2030 and to plot ways to get there – starting here and now.

 

The workshop is free and open to the public.

 

When: Saturday, 12 August, 10 am to 1 pm

 

Where: Landcare and Sustainability Centre umali barai-ku, 80 Toronto Road, Booragul (the entry is a little hidden behind the carpark opposite the Anglican nursing home)

 

More info: Dr Ingrid Schraner, Research Coordinator, Coal-ash Community Alliance, 0437 206 012 & Chantelle Baistow, PhD Candidate at UNSW, 0415 316 161.