"Environmental Groups Sue EPA Over Rollback Of Pollution Rule"

"Environmentalists and public health advocates are going to court to fight the Trump administration's move to rewrite Obama-era rules limiting water pollution from coal-fired power plants.

A coalition of about a dozen groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The action challenges the decision by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last month seeking to rewrite the 2015 water pollution regulations.

The rule would have required utilities to cut the amounts of toxic heavy metals in the wastewater piped from their plants into rivers and lakes often used as sources of drinking water. Arsenic, lead and mercury and other potentially harmful contaminates leach from massive pits of waterlogged ash left behind after burning coal to generate electricity."

Michael Biesecker reports for the Associated Press May 4, 2017.