Coal Ash On 60 Minutes: Lax Coal Ash Recycling Practices "An Outrage" (VIDEO)

Lesley Stahl on Sunday's 60 Minutes did an in-depth look at the problems with the by-products of coal production, commonly known as coal ash. Coal ash contains many toxic metals, including arsenic, which unchecked, can leak into ground water and be extremely hazardous to breathe. Stahl starts with a look at devastating coal ash spill that engulfed homes and destroyed whole communities in Tennessee in 2008 with a flood of a billion gallons of toxic sludge. This was the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the US. This disaster brought the issue of coal ash to the national spotlight, and Stahl moves on to how coal ash is not labeled a hazardous waste by the EPA, and is currently being used as filler in everything from golf courses to carpeting in schools to kitchen counters. Watch to the end when Stahl presses a power industry lobbyist about whether the material is being currently being handled safely and can't get a straight answer.

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Comments

[Folplant]

06:44 AM on 10/12/2009

TO: Interested Parties in the United States Coal Industry and Affected Communities

Subject: Comprehensive Coal Combustion Products Removal and Recycling Proposal

We are proposing, here, that a nation-wide project be undertaken which would recover fly ash and other coal combustion products from coal-powered electrical plants throughout the United States and, thereafter, to separate the products as to type, then to prepare it, in bulk (bagged, where possible, but in standard shipping containers, nonetheless) for safe shipment to Romania, through the Port of Constanta, on the Black Sea.

Why Romania?

We have a serious infrastructure problem in Romania and elsewhere in the former Soviet-block states, which has resulted from over 20 years of neglect to roads, bridges and structures of every sort.

What we propose is that the U.S. coal industry process ALL coal combustion products into dry, form and then bag the material into water-resistant (cement-type) bags of some previously agreed-upon size each and ship up to 100% of this material, to the Port of Constanta Romania, where any recycling (and other) costs, after POE, would be our responsibility.

In Romania, we have already investigated recycling these products and are convinced as to their safe re-use.

We are prepared to offer a five (5) year (or longer) contract, where we get exclusive rights to your non-domestically-recycled coal combustion products.

Please let us know what you think, by e-mail, using this user name at America On-line.

[WillowGarden]

12:57 PM on 10/07/2009

What a shame that the news media acts as though it hasn't happened before -- it happened in 2000 in Martin County, Kentucky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB8WQddz8x0) One of the old abandoned underground mines was being used to store coal ash, slurry, or sludge (-- whatever the preferred term --), and the impoundment broke, sending 300 million gallons of waste into two creeks that eventually end in the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers.

But yet ... poor people, poor county, covered up quickly, and a big whistle-blower scandal (Google Jack Spadaro).

I feel for the people in Kingston because I lived north of Knoxville for many years. But... it's happened before. It's just when it happens to a lake-side boating community -- and when the coal ash is spread on a golf course with no restrictions -- suddenly things start to be reported.

[StephenBP]

09:59 AM on 10/07/2009

Factoid Perspective.
Utility corporations are spewing coal ash containing toxic heavy metals. Illness and birth defects are known to be caused by toxic heavy metals. Pharmaceutical and health care corporations make profit off your illnesses. Some of these illnesses came from ingesting trace toxics from utility corporations and from ingesting junk food like cheeseburgers. Cheese burger corporations are making profit when you make bad food choices. Pharmaceutical and health care companies are making profit treating the illnesses that result from your bad food choices. Some of your bad food choices are contaminated by traces amounts of heavy metals and other toxics from chemicals that provided profit for chemical corporations. And on it goes. Yet despite all this, we survive. We grow. Many of us reproduce. Many of us are relatively healthy. The utility corporations and the pharmaceutical corporations and the cheeseburger corporations are all proud of providing jobs and products for consumers and profit for share holders. Moral: Many of those who profit in today's world have a serious vested interest in your ignorance and your disease. So educate yourselves,stay healthy, and find better ways to make profits.
Anyway, thats my opinion.

[Dan Agin]

07:29 AM on 10/07/2009

Reality check: There is no scientific basis for a fetal toxicity threshold for any exogenous chemical already known to be toxic. The embryos and fetuses of pregnant women are alway at risk. See http://bit.ly/OVRTK

[Wesneeds]

05:11 AM on 10/07/2009

If you think its bad now,look what is going on in China and India. The last I heard, China ws opening 2 coal burning plants a week to feed their industrial and residential need for electricity.

[JasonSW]

02:15 AM on 10/07/2009

Dominion, the coal company that contaminated the Battlefield Golf Course, won a U.S. EPA Coal Combustion Products Partnership Environmental Achievement Award in 2008:

http://www.epa.gov/osw/partnerships/c2p2/awards.htm

Troubling to say the least!

[Rayme]

10:53 PM on 10/06/2009

God, that was scary, especially about the agricultural products, now we have to look at our food supply.

[gobarackgo]

12:37 PM on 10/06/2009

"Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste" (Scientific American):

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

That stuff is nasty.

[SailorBill]

11:49 AM on 10/06/2009

I used to be on the Dark Side, working in the coal burning industry. When I heard about "clean coal" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Regardless of how you burn it, you still have the ash to deal with. Leslie's comment about never having heard of coal ash is very telling about our news media. We live in a world that revolves around technologies of all sorts, but our news media is totally ignorant of science and technology, and not the least bit interested in learning. Consequently, we don't learn of the dangers until it's too late. The story's got to bleed before it can lead. The true cost of burning coal is not reflected in the price we pay for our electricity. When all these costs are finally reflected in electric bills, renewable energy will be the cheapest and fossil (and "nucular") become obsolete.

[CaptainStormfield]

03:02 AM on 10/06/2009

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1260
EPA PROMOTING COAL ASH FOR CONSUMER USE — Partnership with Industry Sidesteps Public and Worker Toxic Exposure Concerns

[frankcaprafan]

11:43 PM on 10/05/2009

Blonde haired, blue eyed victims...it's gonna get interesting.

[LeLoup]

10:59 PM on 10/05/2009

It should be remember how nefarious is the role played by the senators from the coal states. Instead of trying to retool their local economy, they let the situation becoming worse while pocketing all the contributions they can from the coal industry.

BTW, the "official" numbers about coal reserves in this country are a farce.

[breakingpoint]

08:23 PM on 10/05/2009

Amanda Ray from the TVA proves most people will do what they're told to keep their job, what a coward.
she should go float and eat from the river every day if she's that confident.
what a tool, a pox on her house.

[Angie Cordeiro]

08:17 PM on 10/05/2009

If the "Lax Coal Ash recycling Practices" isn't enough for your panic pollution alert on this Meatless Monday to go to in between red and orange , well there is always the news coming from the Arctic Seas...

"...Arctic Seas Turn to Acid...

"...Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic...."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/04

[LeLoup]

11:03 PM on 10/05/2009

We have less than 2 decades to turn the world economy from growth at all costs to a sustainable one that account for all the "externalities" costs.

If we did that, there would be no recession anywhere for a long time. Alas, the actual beneficiaries of the present system are doing their best to jeopardize this effort.

2 decades...or else.

[abbienormal]

08:17 PM on 10/05/2009

What 60 minutes failed to mention is that the ash taken from the TVA disaster site is being trucked to low income, non-white neighborhoods for storage on land. Also, the recycling into cement process releases the toxins into the air. It does not contain them in the cement.