Massive coal-ash spill causes river of sludge and controversy
KINGSTON, Tenn.
Federal studies long own shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals such as arsenic, be in advance of and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no authoritative word on the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, displaced residents spent Christmas Eve worried about their health and their property and wondering what to do.
The shed occurred at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) generating plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville on the banks of the Emory River, which feeds into the Clinch and then the Tennessee River condign downstream.
“They’re giving their apologies, which don’t mean excessively much,” said Holly Schean, a waitress whose home, which she shared with her parents, had been swept off its establishment when millions of cubic yards of ash breached a retaining wall early Monday. The TVA has not declared the tribe uninhabitable, she reported. “I don’t need your apologies,” she added. “I stand in want of information.”
The spill reignited a debate over whether the federal government should regulate coal ash as a hazardous material. Similar ponds and mounds of ash exist at hundreds of coal plants nationwide.
The TVA has issued no warnings on the point the possible dangers of the spill, saying in that place was as yet no evidence of toxins. “Most of that material is inert,” said Gilbert Francis Jr., a TVA speaker. “It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’session not toxic or anything.”
He before-mentioned contaminants in water samples taken near the spill site and at the intake for the town of Kingston, six miles downstream, were within acceptable levels.
But a bill of exchange report last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity, contains significant amounts of carcinogens and retains the heavy metal not past nor future in coal in far higher concentrations. The description found that the concentrations of arsenic to that people efficacy be exposed end drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold.
In 2000, the EPA proposed more stringent federal controls of coal ash but backed away in the face of fierce opposition from utilities, the coal industry and Clinton administration officials. At the time, the Edison Electric Institute, a chaffer association of power utilities, estimated the industry would have to spend up to $5 billion in additional cleanup costs suppose that the substance were declared hazardous.
Icebergs of ash
The breach occurred which time one earthen dike, the only thing separating millions of cubic yards of ash from the river, gave mode of dealing, regurgitating a glossy sea of muck, 4 to 6 feet thick, dotted with icebergs of ash across the landscape. Where the Clinch River joined the Tennessee, a clear demarcation was visible between the soiled waters of the former and the clear brown broth of the recent.
By Wednesday afternoon, dump trucks were depositing rock into the abundance in a race to stop up. it control each impending rainstorm washed further ash downstream.
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008558917_sludge25.html?syndication=rss
