The Environmental Protection Agency will issue on Friday its first-ever guidelines on the handling and storage of coal ash, which may pose a long-term health hazard to Hoosiers.
The waste produced by coal-fired power plants is at the centre of a marathon legal battle, and a federal judge has given the EPA until Friday to decide just how much a threat coal ash poses.
The EPA has identified storage sites in 33 states, and sites in a dozen of those states are considered to have significant or high hazard potential.
Indiana coal ash sites are located in Indianapolis, Martinsville, Lawrenceburg, and Wheatfield.
"Coal ash is a dangerous substance that has toxic chemicals in it - like mercury, like lead, like arsenic," said Mary Anne Hitt with the Sierra Club.
Until now, each state has had to try and regulate some of the largest utility companies in the country.
Adapted from press release by Joe Green