Tennessee Coal Ash Spill Before And After -- And What's Next

The online environmental community is abuzz with reports of all kinds about the coal ash sludge spill in Tennessee, ranging from first-hand accounts to health concerns to worries about coal in general. Twitter in particular has been a place where people have been posting news stories and concerns.

A local blog also posted before and after photos of the affected area.

Joe Romm blogs at ClimateProgress that the muck has a lot of people worried about how easy it would be for another such spill to happen:

Coal ash deposits in the USA are now under renewed scrutiny after a giant spill just before Christmas released 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge into Tennessee waterways. Water tests near the spill from the Kingston Fossil Plant showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders. The spill muddied the waters in the Emory river and is flowing into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

So now a big question mark hangs over the hundreds of coal plants all across the country which store their fly ash in unlined embankments and ponds -- like the one that failed last week. Most are situated near rivers that supply water needed by the coal plants to operate.

The NY Times reported that in the US, coal plants produce 129 million tons of postcombustion byproducts a year. It's the second-largest waste stream in the country, after municipal solid waste, and it's storage and handling is unregulated. Who knew?

MSNBC reports on the cleanup and asks the rhetorical question: once the muck is gone, does that mean the problem is gone?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Comments

[Roxanna]

This is truly a tragedy that hopefully will open some peoples eyes that there is No Such Thing as Clean Coal energy!

[Ascoli]

The sludge is bad eneough.
The lack of concern for the (poor) people is....appalling.
No wonder the USA is going down the drain.
Only $$$$$ has value.
Sad Sad Sad

[MilesLong]

It's hard to imagine the fine folks of Tennessee having a problem with their current circumstance. After all, you get what you vote for...

I, on the other hand, believe willful ignorance has readily identifiable consequences born out by thousands of years of recorded human history.

Miles "Foregone Conclusion" Long

[instarx]

How do you know who the people in those ruined houses voted for?

[jsgaetano]

Good think they saved their state from all those evil money-grubbing environmentalist nuts.

Tennessee is now a deregulated paradise! Smaller gubment for everybody!

[Sarah Kreitzer]

What type of energy does your computer use to run? Why be a bigot and make fun of people on the basis of where they live?

[WoodyCPM]

Wait till you hear that there were audits warning of such a disaster. I can almost guarantee you that someone or some investigative body had warned in an official report that such a disaster could happen, and it was ignored, obviously.

[Pometacom]

Clean Coal !!!

[centerdrift]

Being a good Tennessian, I am sure Chip Saltsman will be glad to clean it one mouthful at a time.

[helonias]

So these folks will soon be able to return home and get cancer.

[helonias]

It will never be"cleaned up" and where to they put the stuff they cleaned up

[emily00011]

I've seen comments from people that think that protecting the environment shouldn't come at the expense of the economy. No doubt many people in places like Tennessee and Kentucky share that view, since it matches the conservatives and Palin-types.

Now, when it comes to the health of them and their family being threatened will they change their tune? Do they finally see that humans can't be healthy if the environment isn't?

[valkyrie607]

Indeed. As I've asked many times before: if your business plan can't be successful without polluting the environment, such that it's prohibitively expensive for you to pay for the clean-up, then what makes you so freakin' sure that your business plan is sound??

[maxbianco]

East tennessee. a never ending nightmare.

the majority of cancer patients at Vanderbilt Childens hospital in nashville, and St Judes in Memphis come from east tennessee. Its been like this for many years.
a Horrible legacy without end.

[WoodyCPM]

And still the ignoramuses in east TN don't get it.

[CoderX]

Exactly what is it that we don't get? Why are we ignoramuses? Where do you live Woody? Is your state/regi­on/neighbo­rhood free of problems and corrupt officials? Are saying that because we are a Red state that we invited this disaster?

[instarx]

Oh wow, the majority of patients in a Tennessee hospital come from Tennessee. What a Epidemiological news-flash that is. I'm sure that says something bad about Tennessee, but I can't quite figure out what.

[mudshark12]

Its turned into some kind of game for the idle rich, where they can store billions of cubic yards of toxic coal sludge behind a cheesy earth dam. Then when the dam breaks, they cry "who knew it would do that", then they have their lawyers and publicists give the media a new spin and downplay the whole thing. Then they justify it to themselves by turning it into a superfund area and let the U.S. Government pick up the tab for the cleanup. "They" of course are the TVA and the big coal companies who have a lot more of these "ponds" which someday soon will do the same thing, namely break and spew more billions of toxic sludge and crap. All of the time this is going on these rich jerks are laughing at us and counting their ill-gotten gains because there's NOBODY to stop their malevelolent practices because they have paid off every politician responsible for seeing that crap like this won't happen in the first place. You see, making a proper concrete dam and lining the containment area behind it would cost them MONEY and that would mean that they wouldn't have as much profit. The real problems are these: a) No Accountability, b) Corporate Greed, c) Lack of Conscience, & d) No one [so far] has stood up to them. Aside from this they are too stubborn to invest in alternative energy like wind power or solar power which are clean and don't pollute.

[M W]

Bristol Palin's baby garners 1040 comments yet this tragic, consequential environmental disaster gets 14 ! Shameful. The "clean coal" fallacy being foisted on a disinterested public is wasted PR.

[gmmonko]

American's don't care they just think they are and everything they do is great. Big mistake. The average life expectancy in the US is now 68 years.

Clean coal is possible but without incentives or law the US industry will do nothing.

[mediamarv]

As I have mentioned earlier on this blog, TVA's reaction was typical, espcially for a conservative-owned company. Lie as much as possible at first to minimize damage, then change the frame of the story and be the first to denounce any facts from the scientific or environmental communities.
As the damage grows, so do the lies.

Read more here:

[elizaconnors]

The TVA is owned by the federal government.

[KingPest05]

Well, as long as the rich continue to get richer and richer and richer and richer, with absolutely no regard for the other 99 percent of the population that actually has to live with the consequences of thier greedy, selfish acts againts nature, against decency, against basic humainty. Then I am a happy man. I think change is scary and Paris Hilton should be considered a Goddess. God bless the dollar.