Coal Ash Spills Too Dangerous To Reveal To Public, Says DHS (VIDEO)

Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can't publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States -- or a storm or some other disrupting event -- could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected. "There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff," she said.

"Homeland Security and the Army Corps [of Engineers] have decided in the interests of national security they can't make these sites known," she said.

Ash Coal Sites

 

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There are several hundred coal ash piles across the nation, she said, all of them unregulated.

"If these coal ash piles were to fail they'd pose a threat to the people nearby," she said. While keeping it from the public, DHS is alerting first responders as to the location of the piles.

"I believe it is essential to let people know," said Boxer, arguing that if people knew what was in their backyard they'd press public officials to clean it up and protect the area. "I think secrecy might lead to inaction...I am pressing on this."

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Boxer is sending a letter, she told reporters Friday, to DHS and the Army Corps, pressing for public release of the information and asking for a more thorough explanation and a comparison of this policy of secrecy to policies around Superfund-listed sites and nuclear sites.

"We don't need legislation if they do their job," she said.

A recent coal ash spill in Tennessee devastated the surrounding area, was 100 times worse than the Exxon-Valdez spill, said Boxer, and will cost a billion dollars to clean up.

That one's not secret.

Watch Boxer at Friday's press briefing.

Ryan Grim is the author of the just-released book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[LSP]

What is HOMELAND SECURITY doing about this?

Last year the HOMELAND SECURITY NETWORK INC entered into a joint venture partnership with Huma Clean, a corporation in Texas that processes contaminated sludge which ends up as (so-called) nutrient rich soil that is then resold on the open-market as a variety of plant-nutritious products under the company’s "Gourmet Soil" label.

They have huge contracts worth billions for cleaning up contaminated soil and water all over the world, including Mexico and India. HOMELAND SECURITY NETWORK INC also profits by these deals.

If they can do it in India and Mexico they can do it in Tennessee and elsewhere in our own country.

GET IT DONE.

[rshrink]

If a private citizen made this mess or even the owner of a small company, they would be jailed and fined heavily. How is it that a big corporation can get away with this? Oh yah, because they are also lobbyists who buy the votes of congress people.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Actually no. See my post below. The vast majority of the current stockpiles occurred before economic regulations were put into effect. Therefore, no laws were broken.

And I will predict, just like all of our other pollution problems in the USA over the past 50 years, private industry, under reasonable regulations, will provide the most cost effective clean up of the problem.

This is a fixable problem. No hysteria required.

[research]

BS. Criminal Negligence is always a crime. These coal ash disasters have been with us since coal has been burned in large quantities. It's a known risk. AGW may be true or false, but is definitely NOT a scam, the people doing the research are sincere, as opposed to a large number of the Deniers who are shills for dirty industry and d@mn the environment. (notice I said "many" not all. I agree there are serious question about AGW since Climate is Chaotic)

[vlwall]

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/coalash/

The above link lists the 66 sites that made the EPA's dangerous or potentially dangerous list in 2007, based on findings in 2005.

[JoshuaLudd]

This isn't too far off from the kind of coverup and state ass-covering that led directly to the Chernobyl disaster.

[PlasmaX]

We're being lied to, cheated, poisoned on a daily basis...but of course...in the interest of national security if would be too dangerous for the American people to know the truth. Rubbish.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

Two quick points:

>Where is Erin Brockovich when we need her?

>Why hasn't the complete list of these sites been leaked to the web like everything else that malefactors try to keep secret?

[digdeeper]

Didn't Bush sign off his administration by sanctioning more pollution from coal ash which is poluting rivers as well as the land.
I'll bet it doesn't happen in his back yard.

[Tier3]

I am SO for Nuclear Energy, and here's another reason. Same danger level, infinite more power.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

And we can bury the waste in your back yard?

OK, deal.

Be sure to tell your kids that they can't go out and play on the swingset for another 20,000 years.

[NWBrunette]

This is idiocy becoming of republicans. Tell me again what this Obama change thing was all about.

[charon]

Any enemy could find these ash piles blindfolded; the intent is obviously to keep Americans ignorant about what is going on in this country. It is evil and the height of anti-Americanism.

[Parker]

Who ever is saying this is a security risk in DHS is a TOOL of the the coal industry. This is all about maintaining the ridiculous idea of "clean coal" Big coal has powerful friends in this administration and the last and in congress. Besides actually mentioning that it is a security risk MAKES it more of a risk by spreading the idea of it. It would have been safer to just release the information, after all, is the location of coal fired power plants a secret. No. It's not and guess what, the coal ash is stored near them.

Coal has a lot of poisonous things in it not to mention the carbon issue. If we would simply focus our American ingenuity on conserving energy we would find we don't need it. Coal supporters want people to believe we are not smart or creative enough to save all that energy, that we will need coal no matter what. They are wrong. They underestimate Americans

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Is coal ash a problem? Currently, yes.

Is it something for which the free market system can not find a solution? Absolutely not. See the two separate articles at the below links:

http://www.aggregate.com/media_centre/press_releases/ash_solutions.aspx
http://www.gaiconsultants.com/ash

So, if the free market is so great, why has the problem been allowed to grow to the current levels?

Because there were no environmentla regulations up until 40 years ago, and free markets being what they are, no incentives to find other uses for the ash by-product. With a little regulation, there are now incentives, and solutions are becoming more available.

To abandon coal as a source of energy because of this problem, which is solvable, or because of man caused golbal warming (AGW), which is a hotly debated theory, and very likely one of greatest hoaxes attempted to be foisted on the citizens of the developed world by a very small group of scientists but a large group of politicians and uncritical media enablers, is short sighted in the extreme.

I would urge little more faith in the free market system to correct environmental problems, as proven by the last 40 years here in the USA, and a LOT less faith in the hoax of AGW, whose various models have failed to accurately predict anything.

[rshrink]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. There are numerous problems with coal and the reality is that anything done to make it better just increases the costs which make it prohibitive. First problem is mining. There is no way around that one and is a source of major pollution and destruction of the environment. We now have better solutions and need to get behind them. Scientists are coming up with new ideas everyday. We just need to accept that change is needed and immediately take action. It will never be any easier to do than now and the sooner, the better.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Cheap, plentiful energy is a reuirement for a growing economy. Can we at least agree on that point?

If you exclude nuclear energy from the "Green Energy" definition, then current renewable energy production in the US makes up a mere 6.8% of total US Energy production. Nuclear is 8.4%, and the remaining 84.8% of current energy production is from fossil fuels. Coal is used to produce a tad over 50% of the US's electric energy. See http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/pecss_diagram.html and http://energy.usgs.gov/coal.html

The only way to make so-called "Green Energy" competitive in price with existing fossil fuels is to dramitically RAISE the cost of fossil fuels, which the Waxman/Markey bill, or any of the other various proposed Cap and Trade bills will certainly accomplish.

Once that's done, there goes your cheap, plentiful energy, and there goes any hope of a growing economy. Artificially increasing the cost of energy from fossil fuels and claiming other alternatives are competitive is not only fundamentally dishonest, but is sorta like trying to borrow your way out of debt. It doesn't work. The rest of the developing world will not handicap themselves in such a short sighted manner, and our economy will suffer tremendously.

I am all for developing alternative energy, but only in a free market manner, and certainly not to fight the unproven, doubtful global warming hysteria or this new "emergency", which has existing solutions.

[Madbunny]

There are ways to solve the problems with coal. Those ways are likely to raise the cost of coal energy. There is no way around it. If you want cheap, we can dig it up, and shovel it into furnaces. If you want clean we'll need to do it a bit differently. Lets not get into the whole global warming thing and focus on what the article was about. It was about the potential hazards of coal ash being used as a manmade disaster. This is fixable, by not ignoring the issues but by focusing on them, and their attendant problems.

Coal though antiquated it might seem provides for an amazing amount of our countries energy production, I personally would like to see that go down and have alternative methods replace it. No matter what we do, even if it were windfarms and solar paneling on the freeways and rooftops of every surface in the country it will have problems. Ignoring those problems and byproducts is always a bad idea no matter how abundant, useful or societally beneficial the power is.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

I do not believe I'm ignoring the issue. In fact, I provided links to some of the existing workable solutions. You seem to agree with me this is a solvable problem.

As I also mentioned, I am in favor of alternative energy supplies, but only so far as they are at least as or more efficient that current energy sources, and producable in such amounts as to make replacement of current energy sources realistic.

To ignore the Waxman/Markey bill, a direct political response to the global warming hoax, and not see the relationship to this story, which as you said is fixable, but which the press and the libs are already using to inflame additional hysterical passions against fossil fuels, is to be obtuse.

[staticnoise]

Quotes taken from the second suggested article"
"electric utilities became concerned with their languishing stores of both wet and dry coal by-products (fly-ash), making proper disposal solutions a top priority."

"Since environmental regulations did not exist 40 years ago as they do now, the by-product was simply being discarded with no plans for practical utilization"

The free market had a concern, but done nothing about it? 40 years later they blame the lack of environmental regulations, regulations, regulations they fight tooth and nail, until strong regulation gives way to corporate profits, and we are to leave it all up to the free market? Screw the free markets, they would eat the seed wheat, rather than suffer even the slightest. Any way the free market exists for only that group that has amassed the wealth and power to dominate the market, free market is only a myth brought up when it has a role in applying spin. All in all the general public is the real problem, as they too would eat the seed wheat, ignorantly buying into what the corporations have been selling them.

[Lionsden]

The DHS is a dangerous group. No wonder Obama wants it to continue.

The reason these sites are subject to terrorist threat is because democrats in particular keep inviting people to this country who hate us. All Middle-East, Russian, and Chinese immigration should be banned.

But that won't happen because democrats need these people who hate us to come here and pose a national security threat in order for democrats to build up a totalitarian police-state.

The DHS is central to the build-up of the totalitarian police state both major parties are creating.

[rshrink]

Lion, you may want to consider going into standup comedy. Or perhaps if Limbaugh dies, you can take over. Lots of laughs though. Thanks for that.

[elbzee]

Wow! You have a real future in muck-spewing! Rush & all the other hate mongerers have taught you well. Better duck & cover, cuz us librlllls are all around you!

[Dennis]

Coal ash is composed of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of uranium and thorium. None of the substances listed are exactly good for you and it's particularly interesting to note that two of them are radioactive. The uranium content of coal ash varies between less than 1ppm to 10 ppm while the thorium content varies between 1.3ppm and 3.2ppm. The decay of these two elements also produces radium, radon, polonium, bismuth and lead. When you consider that the US burns nearly one billion tons of coal per year for electric power generation and that 10.3% of it remains as ash then you get an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

[lost in thought]

This is nothing new. Scientists agree that our planet is in peril but unless someone can make a buck, nothing will change. We condemned Russia for it's negligence with Chernobyl, yet we did the same thing with 3-mile Island and are obviously continuing those policies today. If a meteor were rocketing towards Earth, would your government tell you?

[yesyesyes]

Didn't "they" used to , or still do, keep the locations of nukes silos secret. Their reasoning seems to be on par with that. But if things are that dangerous then we shouldn't have 'em.

[Madbunny]

Do we have massive catapaults ready to throw this ash waste at our enemies? This isn't on par with that at all. This stuff could be horrible if it is ever released, but unlike nuclear missiles it's trash that needs to be processed and cleaned up. I'd want to know if there was a hillside with a lake of radioactive goo being hidden in my back yard, wouldn't you?