The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on February 6 a final rule extending key compliance deadlines for coal combustion residual management unit (CCRMU) and groundwater monitoring requirements.
The rule extends deadlines by one year for facilities with CCRMUs to complete the Facility Evaluation Report (FER) Part 1 and FER Part 2 and establish CCR websites. The reports are now due by January 31, 2032. These reports identify the units and include figures of the facilities, where the units are located, and the sizes of the units.
The rule also provides these facilities with three years to comply with the groundwater monitoring requirements and is making conforming changes to deadlines for the other CCRMU requirements. The EPA pushed back the deadline from May 2028 to February 2031.
In the past, NGWA supported regulations for closure and monitoring of legacy unlined coal ash ponds to protect groundwater as well as not extending closure deadlines. NGWA stated in March 2023 that "Both private and public wells drawing on groundwater sources could be impacted with long periods of storage extension in unlined impoundments.”