After being blasted by lawmakers and activists for its initial secrecy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency late this afternoon finally made public its list of 44 “high hazard” coal-ash impoundments around the country.

The list is posted here on EPA’s Web site, and I’ll list them below.

North Carolina had the most on the list, with 12, following by Arizona with 9. Kentucky had 7 and Ohio had six. West Virginia had 4.

It’s important to note that this “high hazard” ranking is defined this way by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

Dams assigned the high hazard potential classification are those where failure or misoperation will probably cause loss of human life. 

As EPA explained in a news release:

The rating is not an indication of the structural integrity of the unit or the possibility that a failure will occur in the future; it merely allows dam safety and other officials to determine where significant damage or loss of life may occur if there is a structural failure of the unit. 

For Coal Tattoo readers in West Virginia, I had previously mapped all of our state’s coal-ash impoundments, including those on today’s list. Click here for the story and the map.

Here’s the list: