A pile of toxic coal ash as high as 20-25 feet lays in an inlet approximately one mile from the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Plant retention pond after a large coal ash spill in December 2008. The ash pile stretched for two miles along the inlet, which empties into the Emory River. (Brian Stansberry, December 27, 2008.)

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced today a proposal to regulate coal ash and its disposal. Jackson said the agency will allow for 90 days of public comment before deciding whether to regulate the material in the hazardous waste section, or the non-hazardous waste section, of the federal Resource Recovery and Conservation Act.

Jackson's announcement comes 16 months after a large ash spill sent 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash into a community and contaminated the Emory River at Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Plant near Knoxville, Tenn.

Coal ash is a toxic waste product from coal-burning power plants which contains hazardous substances such as lead, arsenic, mercury, selenium, boron, zinc, thallium and chromium. It has long been associated with severe human health issues.

From the recent Huffington Post article Even The Cows Have Cancer: EPA Weighs Tougher Regulation of Toxic Coal Ash

Elisa Young says she has lost at least six neighbors to cancer in the last ten years.

"I've lost neighbors to lung cancer who have never smoked," she said. "I've lost them to brain cancer, breast, throat, colon, multiple myeloma, pre-leukemia. When my son, who's in his 20s, came home to visit, he said, 'Mom, is it normal for your mouth to taste like metal?' We pulled over and he coughed until he got sick."

Young has no doubt about what she believes is causing all the cancer: coal. For the past 10 years she's lived in Meigs County, Ohio, the center of the second largest concentration of coal plants in the nation, and has become an environmental activist.

"There isn't a house on this road that hasn't been touched by cancer... I had melanoma and I currently have two more precancerous conditions for breast and thyroid cancer, none of which are in my family," said Young, 47. "My dog died of cancer, my best friend's dog died of lymphoma. I just gave up a dog because I couldn't afford to take him into the vet. He was getting lumps on him."

According to a 2007 report by Scientific American, coal ash may be more radioactive than nuclear waste.

From Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste:

Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.

You can read more about today's EPA announcement here: EPA Proposes Coal Ash Rule, Sets Time For Comment