Introduction

Coal combustion residual, CCR, or Coal ash is a toxic waste that comes from coal-fired power plants or electric utilities that is full of toxins. Studies have shown that living in places nearby CCR could lead to severe lung diseases as well as heart problems. For decades Operators have been dumping this toxic waste into unlined ponds which sink into the groundwater. Due to updates to coal ash regulation, Coal-Fired utilities had to publicly record their groundwater monitoring data.

In My project, I will be analyzing the locations and hazard rates of units and comparing the demographic of POC’s and people in poverty to this. I hypothesize that there will be more units in places of lower-income and higher POC populations because there is less of a chance the government will step in to intervene with a poorly funded community.

Method

I got the data from earthdata.org ‘Mapping the Coal Ash Contamination’ and downloaded it to both R studio and Tableau. Using Tableau I’ll make an interactive map that lists details about each coal-fired electrical unit. With R I will render graphs finding the frequency of coal-fired electric units, Then the frequency of cities with units in them by cities with poverty levels above the state average, and cities with POC’s above the state average. After this, I will graph a comparison of the Hazard rate for each unit for both cities where POC’s population is above average and cities where the poverty level is above the state average. Then I will graph the estimated coal combustion residual volume in cubic yards with cities where POC’s population and/or the poverty level is above the state average. I also use R to generate a table to easily show the statistics of both the Estimated CCR Volume and Hazard Rating against those demographics.

Map of All Cities w/ Coal-Fired Electrical Units

The map exported from Tableau gives detail to each city with coal-fired electrical units. From it, we can see the State, City, Current volume estimate of CCR in CY, Groundwater Contamination Summary, Hazard Rating, Impermeable Liner Status, whether the POC’s population in the city is above or below average, and whether the population of people in the city that are in poverty is above or below the state average. The map also has each unit color coordinated to a hazard rating along with size coordination with their estimated CCR volume.

From the Tableau map, we can see that the density of units becomes denser towards the east of the U.S. Units on the west are more spread out. Through the color of the plot, we can see that the hazard rating varies a lot and seems to be evenly distributed through all different ratings.

Demographic of Cities with Units

The first graph shows the 15 cities with the most frequency of coal-fired electric units. I plan on using cities with units in them as a measurement and this graph is useful for reminding us that cities can have multiple units. This also means that the frequency of units alone is unknown but the population with the greatest city of units has a good chance of having a greater amount. The second graph tells us that the amount of cities with units that have a POC population above state average is significantly less than cities that do not have a POC population above state average. Our final graph tells us that cities with a poverty population above state average have more coal-fired electrical units than cities that don’t.

Hazard Ratings

We can see the graph shows us a majority of cities with units in them fall within the low hazard rating, accounting for 40% in this sample of 15. A low hazard rating implies that failure or misoperation is not likely to cause death or cause issues involving the economy or environment. The second greatest hazard rating in this sample is significant and NA makes up about 27% and 13% respectively of our sample. A significant hazard rate implies that failure or misoperation could result in economic loss, environmental damage, and disruption of lifeline facilities. NA is Not Applicable because this rating requirement is only for surface impoundments, not landfills.

The second graph shows the hazard rating for cities with a poverty population above state average. The most frequent hazard rating is NA, then significant and unknown.

Though these graphs provide a good visual, I constructed a table using knitr in order to display the data more concisely. The table shows the frequency of hazard ratings for cities with units in them. It also provides the demographic of the cities for POC and Poverty populations being above state average

Hazard Rating POC-Above State Average Low Income-Above State Average n
Low NA NA 94
Significant NA NA 68
Significant NA x 64
Low NA x 42
Significant x x 33
Low x x 28
High NA x 25
Incised x x 17
High NA NA 16
Incised NA x 16
Significant x NA 11
Incised NA NA 10
High x x 7
High x NA 3
Low x NA 3
High/Significant NA x 1

From the table, we can more clearly see that the most frequent hazard rating for cities without POC’s and Poverty population above state average is low, and the second most frequent hazard rating for those same demographic is significant. We can also clearly see that most cities despite the demographic have a hazard rating of either significant or low. 44 cities with POC populations above state average have at least one unit with a hazard rating of significant. With this, 97 cities with the poverty population above state average and 132 cities where neither demographic is above state average have units with a hazard rating of significant.

Estimated CCR Volumes

In these graphs, we can see the volume of CCR in CY versus cities with POC population and Poverty population above state average. The graphs are based on a random sample of cities for each demographic. The volume of the CCR is important because in the case of unit failure or misoperation comes up the aftermath of the unit could leave toxins in the groundwater, endanger animals, and drastically hurt the operator and/or America’s economy. From the graph, we can see that the CCR Rate is very varied between both demographics. The volume ranges from 7000 in the city of Shelocta to 9,975,225 in Belews Creek. You can refer to the Tableau graph towards the beginning of the project to see the estimated volume of CCR for all the cities with units.

Conclusion

After looking at graphs comparing the hazard rate frequencies and estimated volume of Coal Combustion Residue with demographics we have enough evidence to conclude that there are more Units in places where the POC population is below the state average, however, cities with a poverty population above state average have a greater amount of cities with units. This means my hypothesis is incorrect. Cities with neither POC nor poverty population above state average also have the highest frequency of units with a significant hazard rating.