January 11, 2026 - The Environmental Protection Agency plans to let 11 coal plants dump toxic coal ash into unlined pits until 2031 — a full decade later than allowed under current federal rules.

The move tosses a lifeline to the polluting power plants. If the facilities were barred from dumping ash into unlined pits, they would be forced to close, since they can’t operate if they don’t have a place to dispose of the ash, and the companies say finding alternative locations for disposal would be impossible.

These 11 plants have already circumvented the 2021 deadline to close such pits, through a 2020 extension offer from the first Trump administration. By filing applications for that extension through 2028, the plants were allowed to keep running even though the EPA has yet to rule on the applications.

On January 6, the EPA held a virtual public hearing on its proposal to give the plants an additional three years to stop dumping coal ash in unlined pits. Attorneys, advocates, and people who live near the plants called the plan illegal, a threat to public health, and another tactic by the Trump administration to prolong the lives of polluting coal plants.

In recent months, the Department of Energy has ordered coal plants scheduled for retirement to continue operating, saying their electricity is needed — an argument the EPA echoed in its proposal. Some state regulators, grid operators, and energy experts have pushed back on the notion that it is necessary to force these power plants to stay online. At the hearing, critics of the EPA’s proposed extension said reliability concerns are outside the agency’s coal ash mandate to protect human health and the environment.

“If the proposal is not finalized, the plants would have to close their [coal ash] impoundments and cease burning coal by 2028,” said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice. But under the proposed extension, ?“the plants will continue to burn coal, thus creating additional air pollution,” and contamination from coal ash.

Coal ash dumped in unlined pits can leach into groundwater, potentially contaminating drinking water wells with carcinogens and other dangerous elements. In 2018, the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2015 federal regulation on Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) must be strengthened to better deal with such sites. The ruling led to an April 2021 deadline to start closing unlined coal ash ponds.

Through a 2020 extension offer from the first Trump administration, the EPA invited power companies to apply for the extension through 2028 if they had no other way to deal with the ash and were otherwise in compliance with the rules for disposal.

The EPA made a final decision in only one case, denying an extension to the troubled James M. Gavin plant in Ohio in 2022. But any company that filed an application has been able to keep its plant running while the EPA considers the case, something critics say is an obvious loophole.

The latest proposal would let three such plants in Illinois, two in Louisiana, two in Texas, and one each in Indiana, Ohio, Utah, and Wyoming operate until 2031.

“That [2021] deadline was established to stop ongoing contamination and protect communities,” said Cate Caldwell, senior policy manager of the Illinois Environmental Council, which represents 130 groups in the state. ?“By expanding a loophole created during the first Trump administration, EPA would allow coal plants to delay closure for at least three more years and potentially much longer.”

An illegal proposal?

The EPA’s previous and proposed regulations say that an extension for unlined pits can be granted only if the site is in compliance with the federal coal ash rules, including those involving cleaning up groundwater contamination.

At the hearing, experts argued that the 11 plants are not in compliance. Groundwater monitoring data that the companies are required to provide shows that all the sites eligible for the extension have elevated levels of contaminants linked to coal ash.

“EPA never reviewed these demonstrations,” Evans said. ?“If they did, I am confident that they would likely find that each of the plants are ineligible for an extension.”

In the virtual hearing, Indra Frank, coal ash adviser to the citizens group Hoosier Environmental Council, told the EPA that the R.M. Schahfer plant in Indiana is violating the coal ash rules by failing to file the required groundwater monitoring reports and other documents for a retired coal ash pond, which she and Earthjustice attorneys discovered in reviewing maps and images of the site.

“That impoundment is subject to the federal CCR rule, but it has not met any of the requirements of the rule. To qualify for the extension offered in 2020, utilities were required to be in full compliance,” Frank said at the hearing. ?“Since Schahfer was not in compliance, Schahfer did not qualify for the extension in 2020 and should not receive the additional proposed extension.”

Schahfer’s two coal-fired units were scheduled to close in December, but the Department of Energy ordered the plant to keep running — though one unit has actually been offline since July in need of repairs. In an August email to the EPA, an official with the plant’s parent company said the coal ash extension would be necessary to justify spending money to get the plant back online.

Serious Concerns

Locals are dismayed that Schahfer may continue to run and say that no more coal ash should be placed in its unlined pond. Arsenic, molybdenum, cobalt, and radium have been found in groundwater near the pond, and the coal ash is held back by a dam with a high hazard rating, meaning its failure would be likely to cause death.

“We just see this proposed rule as a downright unlawful, reckless attempt by the Trump EPA to let polluters keep polluting,” said Ashley Williams, executive director of the advocacy organization Just Transition Northwest Indiana. She called the coal ash at the Schahfer site a ?“largely silent crisis that we’ve had to continue to sound the alarms on.”

Colette Morrow, a professor at an Indiana public university, told the EPA during the hearing that she suffers from an autoimmune disease and fears for her health if the Schahfer plant is allowed to keep running.

“This is unconscionable that the U.S government would put its own people at risk to such a high degree, only in order to enhance profits of these utility providers,” Morrow said.

Retired chemistry teacher Mary Ellen DeClue said she was shocked to learn about the contaminants that could be leaching into Illinoisans’ drinking water — since many rural residents tap private wells.

“This is not acceptable,” she said, imploring the EPA not to ?“rubber-stamp” the extension.

The three Illinois plants seeking the extension — Kincaid, Newton, and Baldwin — are owned by Texas-based Vistra Corp. The plants have already benefited from leniency under the Trump administration: Last year the company accepted the administration’s offer of an extension on complying with federal air pollutant limits.

Illinois is one of the states with the highest number of coal ash sites, according to data filed by power companies. Illinois coal plants will have to shut down by 2030 under state law, but each extra year of operation places residents at risk, local advocates say.

“Many of these communities rely on groundwater for drinking water and lack the resources to address widespread contamination on their own,” Caldwell of the Illinois Environmental Council told the EPA. ?“The agency should not be asking coal companies how long they would like to continue dumping toxic waste. It should be enforcing closure requirements that are already long overdue.”