Massive Coal Sludge Spill Devastates Tennessee Town

Treehugger:

An environmental disaster of epic proportions just happened in Tennessee. Monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train.

According to the EPA the cleanup will take at least several weeks, but could take years. Officials also said that the magnitude of this spill is such that the entire area could be declared a federal superfund site.

Read the whole story: Treehugger

Comments

[JiminNC]

V1
Micco walked in the soft mud along the riverside
Some times big water runs deep, sometimes runs wide
But a man could pack every thing he owned and move on to higher ground
10,000 years before we put these fence posts down

Chorus
Now the wind don’t blow (no more) across the red flood plain
And the trees die slow in the silver rain
And the fish still swim and the kids still play
In the shadow of the TVA

V2
They changed the courses of rivers
They were saviors from the start
But some men never understand the will of a free man’s heart
So they drown the truth and plant the seeds
Of disillusion and mis-belief
And hide behind the shadows they call progress

Now the wind don’t blow (no more) across the red flood plain
And the trees die slow in the silver rain
And the fish don't swim and the kids can't play
In the shadow of the TVA

[sixx]

"Who could have imagined" anyone in the Bush WH.

[INTUITE]

Just one more case of no one wants to maintain anything. Maintenance is believed to be an unnecessary cost, which to the reasonably intelligent person is anything but...the cost of the clean up-- out of sight. They will obviously look to the govt. to pay for it... you and me that is. Oh! and they will declare! "we must take all necessary steps to see that this never happens again". Same old same old.

[fratricide08]

Please stop the ignorant bashing. 1. Roane Co. is represented by a DEMOCRAT. 2. This accident is a TVA accident -- which is a NEW DEAL PROGRAM. 3. Obama didn't win here because our state democratic party was in the midst of an implosion AND he did not campaign here.

Bash Corker all you want but Tennessee is not monolithic and he was barely elected.

[JiminNC]

Having worked for the TVA, I would like to say that the TVA might have been a new deal project but the republicans have sure screwed it up.

[Greggo]

You're both right. The TVA was a New Deal program and has done a tremendous amount of good in the valley. But it started going south in the 80's when the Good Ol' Boy Carpetbaggers started coming in taking their fill of the till.

But as far as the Tennessee, Clinch and Emory rivers are concerned, if they can survive 50 years of Oak Ridge, they can survive this.

[fratricide08]

Jim, I agree. I didn't mean to imply TVA was blameless. You're certainly right that they've been taken over by the GOP -- the land deals a few years ago are something I've yet to get over.

[helonias]

So the mercury in this stuff will make the folks down there even smarter

[nomoreofthesame]

Clean coal, isn't that like sterile boogers?

[robbor]

don't screw with sludge

[helonias]

So where are they going to put this stuff

[UnknownSoldier]

Ask Corker, they voted for him

[tbone99]

Bush just signed off on longtime prohibitons preventing dumping sludge and waste in streams. I imagine all kinds of companies are dumping a backload of stuff as fast as they can . Given his stance this is exacty what we can expect more of.

And this is what Tennessee voted for.

[max]

i don't want coal sludge in my house

[tbone99]

Merry Christmas from George Bush.

[amaycatbaker]

I lived in Alaska during the Exxon Valdez and as far as I know, some of the oil contamination still exists. I would not want to live south of this disaster, they might have the worst water contamination.

[SchmaltzyTheGolem]

Clean like my Colon.

[UnknownSoldier]

Tennesee has continued to vote against their own best interest. DRILL BABY DRILL, let their coal money pay for the clean up, and not my TAX DOLLARS

Say no to the SUPER FUND Site.

[tbone99]

It would be against their priciples to seek money from the government , if I understand their views correctly

[openlids]

clean-up crews & construction crews hiring? can people get some funding to go back to school & learn levy/dam engineering or solar tech.? a lot of people need jobs right now, hey let's build green infrastructure instead of giving money to banks! i heard MD & the rest of the country need it too!

[Beernuts]

The damage...the cleanup...the repair....all will be considered a "plus" when they calculate the GDP.
Americuh....ain't she grand?