Many people are following the coal-ash spill in Tennessee (which is now estimated at a billion gallons) far more closely than me, and Grist is a bit under-staffed during these holiday weeks, so the best I can do now is a roundup of the latest links from around the web. (If you have other good sources, leave them in comments.)
Wikipedia now has a page on the spill, and predictably it’s good, with up-to-date info and pictures.
The New York Times covers the toxics inventory from the plant and finds out just how delightfully clean coal is:
... in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.
And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades’ worth of these deposits.
So, so clean!
TVA, which didn’t do sh*t to prevent this spill and has yet to release any testing data on the toxicity of the ash (as opposed to the water supply), now says it will “clean up hundreds of acres of sludge-damaged property, help compensate dislocated residents, and come up with a new design to remove the residue from burning coal at the Kingston Fossil Plant.” How could we fail to trust them?
Speaking of trusting them, at the Center for Environmental Journalism blog, Tom Yulsman discusses how badly TVA and EPA have squandered their credibility from the minute the spill happened.
That’s only one of several excellent posts from Yulsman on the spill. See also, for instance, this great post on the danger of coal ash generally.
Christian Grantham reports that Tenn. GOP Party Chair Robin Smith is Twittering her colleagues, and ... well, I can’t top this:
Smith advises state Republicans via Twitter to at least acknowledge the horrible situation when asked about it but then refocus the conversation on why America needs coal.
Wow.
Appalachian Voices’ blog has on-the-ground reporting, pictures, and video. Like this:
I Love Mountains also has a great collection of resources and ongoing coverage.
Discovery Earth has some good pictures of the spill.
David Sassoon draws a connection between coal ash and tar sands tailings, another enormous disaster waiting to happen.
Finally, a historical note that is newly relevant: One of the other environmental nightmares around coal isn’t the waste left behind after it’s burned, but the sludge produced before it’s burned, which is generated from washing the coal to remove impurities. The go-to guy on this stuff is a mining engineer named Jack Spadaro. Spadaro was instrumental in uncovering a coordinated Bush administration effort to block investigation of the dangers of sludge. See:
- A fantastic 2004 Audubon piece on Spadaro and coal sludge.
- A 2004 60 Minutes piece on Spadaro and the cover-up.
- This National Catholic Reporter piece on Spadaro and the documentary that was made about his whistleblower case: Sludge. (No, not this Sludge, in which “sludge monster terrorizes a group of Geology students in the secluded Montana wilderness,” though that sounds good too.)
[UPDATE: I missed one of the best ones: the Knoxville News Sentinel has a great page of resources covering the spill.]
Another coal plant bites the dust
Blowing up our clean energy future
Comments
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Pompey Road Posted 12:48 am
31 Dec 2008
The spill in Tennessee contained several heavy metals that would be classified as a hazardous material when being considered by themselves but when you call it coal sludge it is not classified by the EPA as a Hazardous material. This is the perverted coal corporation lobby end run around the rules and a loophole that needs to be closed. The coal sludge ponds in East Kentucky and West Virginia are further contaminated with chemicals to separated the dirt from the coal or to make the coal float out/separate from the soil and rock. If anyone took to time to study the chemicals used in the cleaning process you would find several carcinogens and more heavy metal contaminates.
Console Coal Corporation that has been fined repeatedly in West Virginia for violating the Clean Water Act has been approved to dump coal waste water in the river that leads into the Fishtrap Dam Reservoir. The water is not advertised to be totally cleaned of the cleaning contaminates and it is stated the stream will contain chemicals for several hundred feet below the discharge pipe located near Grundy Virginia. It seems Virginia has less restrictions on the water quality in their mining area of the state. The Corps of Engineers who administer the flood control project called Fishtrap Dam in E. Ky. say they will monitor the water that comes from the coal chemical waste discharge into the river that runs into Fishtrap. I don't have any confidence in the Corps because they have just been caught with illegal/non permitted MTR's and Hollow fills on the site. It's is a trust me situation from Console Coal Corporation and the Corp of Engineers.
If this type of discharge is allowed it will become the norm for all the coal producing regions in Appalachia. The Corps has been forced to stop several Mountain Top Removal projects on some of their other projects. I have never witness a federal agency that is charged with the safety and quality of the water from their projects act in total disregard of the citizens from the area they serve. Fishtrap Dam is the drinking water source for several communities below the dam. The area is a joke of a Flood Control Project because the Corps has allowed continuous stripping since 1977 including Mountain Top Removal and decimated the watershed. The heavy metals that have leeched from the crushed rock from the Hollow Fills has made some of the fish contaminated with mercury and unfit to eat.
I see no hope for us down here in Appalachia when even the federal agency charged with monitoring and ensuring the safety of the water is totally in bed with the coal corporations. George Bush's last round of midnight rule and regulation changes concerning strip mining near streams will finish us off.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:21 pm
31 Dec 2008
Corps/EPA honest.
We've got a new incoming administration that is unlikely to turn a blind eye to agency misbehavior.
Remember, a president makes no laws, only sets regulations under existing laws. Lots of work for the new president and Congress in the upcoming year. Some problems might not be solved for a couple of years when/if we elect a filibuster proof Senate.
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tmullins Posted 5:42 am
02 Jan 2009
Appalachia can't stand anymore of the prosperity.
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
Hannity shut the fuck up !
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