Broadcasting in our monthly PBS television program, The Catch is a Great Lakes Now series that brings you more news about the lakes you love. Go beyond the headlines with reporters from around the region who cover the lakes and drinking water issues. Find all the work HERE.
This month, The Catch features stories from “Poisonous Ponds: Tackling Toxic Coal Ash,” a collaborative project featuring the reporting work of students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications on Great Lakes Now and Energy News Network programs and websites.
Recent Medill journalism grad Diana Leane offered up a national overview of the complications around coal ash regulation. For years, coal ash has been disposed of in the ground, and some of it has been scattered on land.
There were few or no regulations or oversight, but that changed in 2015 when the EPA established some.
“The EPA has indicated that they’re going to take a more active approach going forward with the sites that are regulated under their current rules,” Leane said.
Catch more news at Great Lakes Now:
The Catch: Lincoln Stone Quarry and coal ash
The Catch: Bitcoin mining and coal ash
Featured image: Coal ash contains mercury, cadmium, arsenic and other heavy metals. After a 2015 coal ash disaster in Tennessee, a number of people became concerned about how the waste material is being stored at sites across the country. (Photo Credit: GLN)
