I have blogged about so-called "clean coal" many times before. It still isn't any cleaner and never will be. A study by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club, and Earth Justice has released a report that found that at 39 sites in 21 states where coal fired power plants were dumping coal ash they were polluting the ground water with toxic metals such as arsenic and lead. The report brings the number of polluted sites to 137 in 34 states.Power companies dump the ash in holding ponds. Others stockpile it on dry land where when it dries it turns into a very fine dust that blows into the air. It is equally toxic to breathe as to drink. We saw in Kingston, Tennessee, what can happen when the reservoirs into which it is dumped fail.

This report comes at a time when the EPA is holding hearings to determine for the first time ever if the federal government should regulate the storage and disposal of coal ash. The companies want the states to regulate them. This would amount to another unfunded mandate. States are by and large bankrupt so we know how that will work. The pollution is happening in 34 states, or in any state that has coal fired generating plants. It is a national problem that begs for a national solution.

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It’s hard to quantify, but the number of underground coal fires in this country, estimated at close to 200, and those in the rest of the world are almost impossible to estimate. China alone burns at least 10 million tons of coal in these underground infernos every year. Dan Cray brought this problem to light in a Time magazine article at http://www.time. He says every coal field in the world has these fires, with most in developed or developing countries. The amount of green house gases spewed out by these fires is staggering, with some having burned for 48 years.

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