The top 100 coal waste storage sites in the United States

In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion wastes stored in surface impoundments like the one at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant. Sturgis used data from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available. The following table represents the amount of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006 by the top 100 polluters.

A January 2009 study by The New York Times following the enormous TVA coal ash spill found that there are more than 1,300 surface impoundments across the U.S., each of which can reach up to 1,500 acres. Also in January 2009, an Associate Press study found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to one that ruptured at Kingston Fossil Plant. The states with the most storage in coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama. The AP's analysis found that in 2005, 721 power plants generating at least 100 MW of electricity produced 95.8 million tons of coal ash, about 20 percent of which - or almost 20 million tons - ended up in surface ponds. The rest of the ash winds up in landfills or is sold for other uses.

The top 100 coal waste storage sites
''Table courtesy of Sue Sturgis and the Institute for Southern Studies, based on EPA data for 2006. Figures rounded to the nearest pound.''

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