Clean Water — News & Analysis

EPA proposes to allow coal ash to remain in groundwater; eliminates property-wide cleanup rules (April 10, 2026)

April 10, 2026 — The Trump EPA published a proposed rule to weaken coal ash disposal regulations by allowing owners to close coal ash disposal sites that are in contact with groundwater without fully remediating that contamination — reversing a Biden-era standard that had prohibited leaving ash in groundwater. The proposal would also eliminate requirements to clean up entire coal properties rather than just the specific sites where ash was dumped, and would make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes with reduced oversight. The rule was explicitly aligned with requests that coal industry entities had submitted to EPA Administrator Zeldin in January 2025 within days of Trump taking office.

Coal ash contains arsenic, lead, mercury, radium, cobalt, chromium, and other pollutants classified as carcinogens or neurotoxins. A groundwater monitoring rule finalized in 2024 had required utilities to test for contamination around ash sites and trigger cleanup. The new proposal would allow contaminated groundwater to be left in place as long as the operator could claim it "poses no reasonable probability of adverse effects" — a standard critics said was nearly impossible to enforce or contest and effectively gave operators a self-certification loophole.

"The Trump administration just took a sledgehammer to the health protections in place for toxic coal pollution," said Earthjustice's Lisa Evans. Environmental groups and community advocates warned that communities living near coal plants — many of them low-income and communities of color — would bear the health consequences. The proposal to allow more exemptions from national standards was seen as particularly consequential because coal ash sites are found in every state, with the most contaminated near rivers and reservoirs that serve as drinking water sources.