This would be a good time also to revisit the massive spill in Martin Kentucky that happened a few years ago. It was 40 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The massive spill contaminated over 100 miles of the Big Sandy River that flows into the Ohio. The spill never got half the coverage it deserved when it happened. If you did an inventory of the sludge and coal slurry impoundments in East Kentucky and Tennessee you would be able to identify the ticking time bombs among us.

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.

You folks living in that part of the country (I grew up about 30 miles from the spill) may have to do "parallel monitoring".  You may have to organize an effort to pull stream samples and get them tested,, then use those findings to keep the
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.