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Student activists at Iowa State University want their school to alter its coal ash disposal method by the end of 2009, and they began their campaign Monday to make that happen.
Student environmental activists held a rally Monday at Iowa State University hoping to persuade the school to alter its coal ash disposal method. The group plans to deliver petitions to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy this week. (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent)
ActivUS, a student environmental and social justice organization, held a rally Monday on the Ames campus of ISU to call on the school’s president, Gregory Geoffroy, to end the practice of disposing of coal ash an unlined, unmonitored quarry in Waterloo. The group’s president, Graham Jordison, said the plan is to deliver a petition to Geoffroy’s office this week demanding he meet with students on the issue.
“This is sort of our first step of the campaign to change the school’s policy,” Jordison said. “We find it ironic that Iowa State has this ‘Live Green’ motto and yet they are dumping ash in an unlined quarry.”
Coal ash, also known as fly ash, is the waste produced by burning coal. The ash contains much greater concentrations of elements such as mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium than the coal itself, and environmentalists fear that dumping it into unlined quarries may result in contamination of groundwater supplies.
A report released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year found the cancer risk to be 1 in 2,000 from exposure to arsenic in drinking water for residents living near unlined landfills containing coal ash and coal refuse, which is 500 times the level usually regarded as safe by current federal regulations.
Because the Waterloo site received a waiver from the state allowing it to accept coal ash without following strict landfill standards, there is no monitoring conducted to ensure toxins are not leaching into groundwater. State regulators say they are waiting for the federal government to issue new rules governing coal ash disposal, despite admitting to The Iowa Independent that contamination could already be taking place.
Iowa State, along with the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, said earlier this summer that they planned to investigate any potential public health risks their disposal methods could create. However, after meeting with the owners of the quarry, BMC Aggregates, all three schools announced they were not going to make a change.
It should not surprise anyone that the site owners would say the disposal method is safe, Jordison said, nor should it surprise anyone that the announcement was made over the school’s summer vacation.
“It was probably intentional,” he said. “I do think they had their meeting during the summer because there were no students around to pick up on the information. They are getting their facts from a corporation that owns the quarry. Of course the owner of the facility is going to say there is no problem.”
Tyler Rygg, treasurer of ActivUs, said even if the state never toughens regulations, the university should still stop using an unlined quarry as a dump site.
“I want Iowa State to do more than the bare minimum,” he said. “I know that there are not regulations on this, but I’d like them to be a role model for the rest of Iowa. We need to be doing more than simply what is required of us. They ask students to do this every day, so we’re asking them to do it today.”
In addition to changing the schools disposal methods, Jordison said his organization would also call on President Geoffroy to speak out against the practice and encourage other schools to do the same. Geoffroy should also pressure state regulators to toughen the law rather than wait for the federal government to do so.
“We want to pressure [the school] to live up to its rhetoric,” he said. “We’re not afraid to step it up, get our activists together and do some non-violent actions. Whatever it takes to get the school to wake up and realize students want this to change.”
In July, the chair of the state’s Environmental Protection Commission and two key legislators called for hearings on Iowa’s rules governing coal ash. However, state Sen. Dennis Black, D-Grinnell, said the earliest he expects this to happen would be the summer of 2010.
A spokeswoman for Iowa State University said President Geoffroy has not yet been contacted by any student groups in regards to the coal ash issue.
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