Tell the EPA: Protect Us from Coal Dust Pollution!

Protect the health of our waterways from coal trains

I write to ask the EPA to strengthen protections from coal dust generated by open-top rail cars on coal trains. Coal dust from uncovered coal trains contains a highly toxic cocktail of chemicals and metals, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and mercury. Coal dust introduces toxic pollutants to surface waters that can build up in fish and other aquatic wildlife, leading to behavior changes, stunted growth, decreased reproduction, and many other environmental issues. 500 pounds of coal or more can escape from a single loaded car, polluting waterways and causing serious long-term health problems for people living near train tracks. Regulating coal dust on trains is a common-sense approach to protecting our waterways and communities, many of which already bear a disproportionate burden of pollution. Despite its prevalence across the United States, coal dust from uncovered rail cars is largely unregulated, and coal trains have become a significant source of water and air pollution across the United States and in my home state of Virginia. Many of these pollutants are made of tiny particles so small they can pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream. I support the petition put forth by the Sierra Club, Public Justice, and environmental and community groups to address the following: Recognizing the dangers that unregulated coal pollution presents to the Nation’s waterways, and with an eye toward the “national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985[,]” 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a)(1), Petitioners hereby request: Just as the EPA did with its nationwide 2013 NPDES Vessel General Permit for Discharges Incidental to the Normal Operation of Vessels, here, the EPA should engage in rulemaking to establish a nationwide NPDES permit for the transportation of coal by open-top railcars in the United States. Such a uniform nationwide general permit takes into account the STB’s concerns about a “patchwork” of potentially contradictory regulations while also ensuring that a statutorily defined point source—“rolling stock”—is properly regulated under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. In its opinion, the STB itself acknowledged that a nationwide general permit would not run afoul of ICCTA preemption.