The Disaster In Tennessee

by hilzoy

I'm late to this story, but: what's happening in Tennessee sounds horrific:

"A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.

The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards.

A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders, said John Moulton, a spokesman for the T.V.A., which owns the electrical generating plant, one of the authority’s largest.

Mr. Moulton said Friday that the levels exceeded safety limits for drinking water, but that both metals were filtered out by water treatment processes.

Mercury and arsenic, he said, were "barely detectable" in the samples."

This is much bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill. You can see aerial video here. I find it disturbing that the amount of fly ash now thought to have been released is over twice as much as the TVA originally thought was in the entire pond.

Fly ash has a lot of bad stuff in it. Besides this Scientific American article with the comforting title "Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste", there's this:

"A draft report last year by the federal Environmental Protection Agency found that fly ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal to produce electricity, does contain significant amounts of carcinogens and retains the heavy metal present in coal in far higher concentrations. The report found that the concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold.

Similarly, a 2006 study by the federally chartered National Research Council found that these coal-burning byproducts "often contain a mixture of metals and other constituents in sufficient quantities that they may pose public health and environmental concerns if improperly managed." The study said "risks to human health and ecosystems" might occur when these contaminants entered drinking water supplies or surface water bodies."

And guess what? It's headed into the Chatanooga water supply. Oh goody. There are reports of fish kills, though a TVA spokesman claims they are not the result of toxic substances, but of a surge of water beaching a lot of fish. However, I can't imagine a sudden influx of heavy metals and neurotoxins did the fish any good.

As David Roberts at Gristmill says, "There is no clean coal."

Comments

[Michael Cain]

If you are implying that we should replace coal-fired generation (and I inferred that from your final quote), then my inner systems analyst thinks that you need to suggest how we might replace the two billion megawatt hours of electricity produced from coal each year (EIA statistics). In light of a population growing at 2.7 million people per year (CIA World Factbook, 2008 estimate).

We are talking staggering amounts of capital here, particularly if the job is going to be done on a time scale shorter than several decades.

[Catsy]

This is just horrible. I can't believe it's the first I'm hearing about it.

[charlie]

Michael Cain, I didn't infer that from the post, but if so I agree with you. I do think imposing and enforcing regulations for waste disposal would be a good idea. How much do you think this clean-up will cost? If they can clean it up.
I think WBIR ( the news channel linked to) should consider hiring some of the commenters to their story. They ask a lot better questions than the reporter did.

[frank]

tragic really. Its cheaper to buy congressmen that proper containment.

[Michael]

Hilzroy, isn't saying anything about replacing coal, just pointing out that "clean coal" is a myth.

Kinda like the folks that promote nuclear power because it doesn't put CO2 in the air and ignore all the other problems caused by nuclear power.

[Hartmut]

Your last paragraph reminds me of a joke decades old:
A spokesman of the chemical industry announced that their in-depth analysis yielded the result that the pollution of rivers and lakes was not due to chemical waste disposal but caused by all the dead fish.
---
There are a lot of ticking time bombs of that kind in the US with holding dams for toxic mining waste left over from bankrupt companies (that often declared bankruptcy in order to avoid the costs of disposing the stuff in a safe way) in danger of failing and poisoning rivers (Montana seems to be especially threatened by that).

[The Adirondacks]

Coal sucks.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Michael Cain, I think the issue is not whether to magically speed up replacement of coal with cleaner energy sources, but whether to expand our production of coal in the name of energy independence. The costs of using coal include lives lost to black lung and cave-ins, bad water, bad air, acid rain, and contaminated farmlands. Because these costs turn up years and miles later, and are often hard to trace to particular mines or policies, they are easy to gloss over. It is important to notice when they happen, so we can improve our cost-benefit calculations.

Proponents of clean coal like to assert that wondrous new technology has made those costs a thing of the past. These claims smack of "we'll be greeted with flowers," or the endless claims that the latest 'smart bombs' will win a war without ground troops. Disasters like this one remind us of the cost of wishful thinking about cleanup technologies.

[matttbastard]

Tennessee blogger Aunt B.:

"We should just change our state motto to “Unless it’s gay, we’ll tolerate it, even if it kills us.”"

(via Aunt B., good local coverage of the TVA spill @ Enclave; also see Jillmz's Twitter feed.)

[matttbastard]

More online resources @ Women's Health News.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

"This is much bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill."

Forty-eight times bigger according to your link.

And Exxon, that model of American cold-hearted captialism, has yet to pay for that ruination of wildlife.

Rather, it continues to pay lawyers and run the case through the courts years and years after that devastating event -- years and years after, and the damage to Mother Nature still continues.

"The Tiger" has no shame.