Comment submitted by Phylllis DaMota

My name is Phyllis DaMota and I'm sorry that I could not sit before you, face to face. I live in the Town of Pines in northwest Indiana. Some of you may be familiar with our bad fortune having to deal, on so many levels, with contaminated ground water from coal combustion waste over the past decades. You may also know that our groundwater has been contaminated with the heavy, toxic metals of fly ash for a very long time...records indicate well over 20 years. Before the contamination, "our" aquifer contained some of the cleanest water in the nation according to reports from two different hydro-geologists I spoke to personally. I've been wracking my brain for days, trying to think what more could possibly be said that would have you seriously consider retaining the EPA's 2024 national standards for the safe disposal of this highly dangerous material. You are already aware that many states do a lousy job of ensuring that coal combustion waste is disposed of safely, based on your 2023 EPA hearings in Chicago. I'm sure you are aware of the environmental, health, and human impact of contamination from fly ash. Many of us from Pines have appealed to your intellect with facts and figures just in case you didn't know what we know. We have appealed to your heart by telling our stories of damage and suffering. We have gotten angry. We have negotiated. We have, out of frustration, criticized. Given all this, I think I'm starting to understand why those of us who are deeply concerned and speaking up aren't able, so far, to get your attention. Groundwater contamination from fly ash is no plane crash or train wreck. There's no drama. No blood. No wreckage. Contaminated water, the environmental and personal consequences of that water, is not seductive or sexy. We don't strain our necks to get a peek or put our hands to our cheeks because we've just witnessed a horrible crime or crash or intolerable suffering. Groundwater contamination and its impact on lives and health and environmental systems, happens, in comparison, slowly, quietly, not all at once but over time. There's nothing very exciting about it. The pollution caused by unsafe disposal practices just inches its way into the lives of individuals and families...into unseen environmental systems...and then, sometimes and sometimes not, government agencies get involved, spend lots of taxpayer monies to fix the problem, and cover up the damage to our natural water supplies with municipal water. On this last day of your public hearings, I'm asking you to consider the severity of this kind of situation in fast-forward. Because, indeed, allowing states to put in place and regulate disposal of fly ash, has been a disaster and a wreckage of the worst kind. And for the EPA to lower your current standards would continue this environmental disaster. I can't imagine that I'm talking to people who are not smart enough to realize that the effort to make disposal of coal-combustion waste safe, needs to be applied up front...not as a reaction but in a forward thinking way. There are still people in this country who trust that EPA and other agencies are working on their behalf. There are still lots of people in this country who trust that those with power and influence and responsibility will protect them when they need protecting. Please don't disappoint them who, unlike many of us who have become cynical and distrustful, still believe you will do the right thing to protect them and their basic resource, clean water. Thank you very much for your time.