In Chesapeake, Virginia, Battlefield Golf Club certainly lives up to its name. Constructed by using toxic coal ash as contaminated fill, the poisons have contaminated nearby water supplies. The coal ash normally considered as hazardous waste was allowed to be used because of a rule the EPA has about “beneficial uses” of otherwise toxic substances. Normally if the coal ash was disposed in exactly the same way it as at the golf course someplace else, it would be considered contaminated fill and there would requirements to have liners underneath the ash, monitoring wells to detect toxic poisons and regulations requiring minimum distances from any water underneath. This golf course did none of this. They got away with it due to the sweetheart regulations the power industry lobbyists managed to get the EPA to give them. Beneficial use to who? In the meantime the homes near the gold course have the prospect of their well water containing toxic chemicals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and others. If you live near any place coal ash is either used as fill or is disposed of, it is time to worry. Even if your water supply is public water, there very well may be poisons you are drinking every day.