Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer said she would press for regulations on coal ash, after 1 billion gallons of sludge were dumped from a Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant Dec. 22.

“It is critically important that protective standards for coal-ash waste be created,” Boxer, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said at a hearing today.

The cost of managing the ash under new standards would be less costly than the pending cleanup, Boxer said. She also said she would look at mandating dry ash, rather than allowing the type of wet sludge that spilled in Tennessee.

Tennessee Valley Authority Chief Executive Officer Tom Kilgore offered no timetable in testimony for cleaning up the Dec. 22 spill that buried 300 acres of eastern Tennessee.

“Now that we have entered the recovery phase, we are turning our attention to a long-term plan for full recovery and restoration,” Kilgore said. “I cannot tell you at this point how long this might take.”

Coal ash storage facilities at power plants aren’t federally regulated and are subject only to state oversight. The industry-funded Utility Solid Waste Activities Group in Washington says that regulating the waste would be costly and unnecessary, while the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project says that the ash is toxic and can contaminate water supplies.

A wave set off by the collapse of a dump that held decades of coal ash destroyed three homes and damaged 42 properties.

Water samples taken in rivers downstream from the waste spill showed high levels of arsenic, lead and mercury, said Appalachian Voices, an environmental group based in North Carolina. The TVA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have tested treated drinking water, which they say is safe.

Almost 100 power plants in Florida, Alabama and at least 10 other states use the same type of coal-ash holding ponds that failed at TVA’s Kingston plant on Dec. 22, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, which collected data that companies send to the government.

Coal ash typically contains arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium, and thallium, said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former EPA official.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Whitten in Washington at dwhitten2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 8, 2009 11:10 EST