by hilzoy
From the NYT, a few days ago:
"In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.
And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades' worth of these deposits.
For days, authority officials have maintained that the sludge released in the spill is not toxic, though coal ash has long been known to contain dangerous concentrations of heavy metals. On Monday, a week after the spill, the authority issued a joint statement with the E.P.A. and other agencies recommending that direct contact with the ash be avoided and that pets and children should be kept away from affected areas."
I would have thought that when sludge containing these quantities of toxins spills into the water supply, the presumption ought to be that it is toxic. Of course, one ought to test the water supply to see -- evidence is better than presumptions. Oddly enough, though, this hasn't really happened:
"Though the E.P.A., the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the authority have spoken daily about their efforts to monitor air, soil and water quality, complete results have been released for only two samples, both taken from a drinking water intake site that is upstream of the spill. The water there met drinking standards.
A test for heavy metals in water, soil or sediment should take two to eight hours, said Peter Schulert, the chief executive of the Environmental Science Corporation, an environmental laboratory near Nashville. "There's no reason why you couldn't have the results within a day," Mr. Schulert said.
The data on the toxic compounds produced by the plant was filed with the E.P.A. this year, said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the power authority. It was posted on the authority's Web site only in a section labeled "air quality.""
I can see using tests of water upstream from the spill as part of a comparison: they would provide a natural baseline against which to measure the effects of the spill on the water supply. But is there any reason at all for releasing them as stand-alone pieces of data that are supposed to be in any way relevant to this catastrophe, let alone as the only tests released?
Luckily, other groups are testing as well:
"High levels of toxic heavy metals are present in samples taken from the Kingston Fossil Plant ash spill in Harriman, TN, independent testing shows.
Preliminary testing was conducted on samples from the Emory River by scientists working in coordination with Appalachian Voices and the Waterkeeper Alliance's Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Program. (...)
According to the tests, arsenic levels from the Kingston power plant intake canal tested at close to 300 times the allowable amounts in drinking water, while a sample from two miles downstream still revealed arsenic at approximately 30 times the allowed limits. Lead was present at between twice to 21 times the legal drinking water limits, and thallium levels tested at three to four times the allowable amounts.
All water samples were found to contain elevated levels of arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and thallium. The samples were taken from the immediate area of the coal waste spill, in front of the Kingston Fossil plant intake canal just downstream from the spill site, and at a power line crossing two miles downstream from the spill.
"I have never seen levels of arsenic, lead and copper this high in natural waters," said Babyak."
I hope Tennesseeans have plenty of bottled water, and that someone is trying to make it available to those in the affected area who can't afford it, and especially to poorer kids. I also hope the maintenance records for the site that spilled are investigated within an inch of their lives.
It's easy to take for granted all the ways in which you use water until you read something like this. I would suggest that people there also start taking dirt baths, but who knows what's in the dirt there as well?
Posted by: slag | January 02, 2009 at 02:05 PM
Hmm. Reminds me of certain reports of air quality surrounding lower manhattan after the towers came down. Heck of a job Stevy.
Posted by: watchinginwonder | January 02, 2009 at 02:23 PM
Hamlet thought there was something rotten in Denmark, but the King suggested testing the waters upstream, where drowned Ophelia traces were not to be found.
When asked what might become of New Orleans, George W. reported HE was dry, warm and on high ground, so what's to worry?
I've been shopping since the Towers fell. What have you people been doing? Accentuating the negative, I'll bet, you party poopers.
In Larry Kudlow land, there's a silver lining at the end of every tunnel, namely that tax receipts are down, which seems like a good time to gut government some more.
The sky is not falling. No, the city on the hill is rising to meet it half way.
Cake. Shut up and eat it.
Pangloss never noticed the nose on his face, until it rotted and it fell off and he stepped on it. Then he thought it was a sow's ear, so he put it in his silk purse to sell it later, as a package of hedged sow's ears, to unsuspecting 401Ks everywhere.
I once watched a guy poop in the Ganges. Then he walked ten feet upstream, being an optimist, and sipped a drink from the same river. Fifty feet upstream another optimist was pooping and kidding himself. He walked ten feet upstream and washed his laundry. One hundred upstream someone was being burned on a ghat and his half-consumed corpse was being floated midstream.
Which just goes to show, if you walk far enough upstream, you'll reach Nirvana.
Posted by: John Thullen | January 02, 2009 at 06:27 PM
"complete results have been released for only two samples, both taken from a drinking water intake site that is upstream of the spill."
for the record, pollutants can migrate upstream, as any one who has ever caught an eddy can tell you. They are trying to assure the residents of the town just above the spill that they are still safe... and hoping to ignore the downstream danger until it is too late for any one to do anything about it. Court is cheaper than making it right.
Posted by: tom p | January 02, 2009 at 08:15 PM
For some reason this story is not "getting legs." Nevertheless, a couple of local journalists in Tennessee are on the case and put up an incriminating You Tube video.
I haven't figured out why two of the biggest stories of the year appear to be getting left behind, this one and the Madoff scam. Both of these are huge.
Posted by: John Ballard | January 02, 2009 at 08:16 PM
Question for the assembled multitude that know way more about the law than I do:
Can the TVA be sued? Or is it immune as a government agency?
'cause if the answer is "yes", at least there's a big payday waiting down the road for some of these poor bastards. The ones that survive, that is.
Posted by: efgoldman | January 02, 2009 at 08:30 PM
//I also hope the maintenance records for the site that spilled are investigated within an inch of their lives.//
Because that will stop the spill that already happened.
It's probably better to look at all the other holding basins for integrity. An ounce of prevention and all that...
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 02, 2009 at 10:15 PM
If not, why the inconsistency? If so, I'd certainly be interested in your perhaps expanding on the appeal of the approach of not bothering to investigate or prosecute crimes.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 02, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Gary
I'm not against investigating and prosecuting crimes. Go for it.
It's just that I think justice occurs when crimes don't happen rather than when criminals are punished. So, in that light, I'd prefer to spend my time heading off the next one. Let's learn from this and check all the holding pond berms, and maybe find better places to store the stuff, or reprocess it.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 03, 2009 at 12:00 AM
"It's just that I think justice occurs when crimes don't happen rather than when criminals are punished."
I think it's better if crimes don't happen (who doesn't?), but I'm unclear that that's particularly what we mean by "justice."
Setting aside fine-tuning over the meaning of that word, however, it just would strike me as curious if someone's first comment on an investigation of a dreadful murder were, say, to essentially dismiss the point with "[b]ecause that will stop the spill that already happened," and it strikes me as not particularly less curious for someone to respond that way to a massive environmental poisoning: yes, it's essential that we do everything can to prevent future such events, but a key way that we always do that is by prosecuting current and past such cases. That's traditionally how we deter crimes, after all, isn't it? It's not as if a massive toxic spill is a crime of passion, after all.
Of course, as we say, Your Mileage May Vary.
"So, in that light, I'd prefer to spend my time heading off the next one."
Setting aside that we don't generally regard these choices as exclusive, again, do you take this attitude towards terrible crimes in general, or is there something different about environmental crimes, or why your emphasis?
"Let's learn from this and check all the holding pond berms, and maybe find better places to store the stuff, or reprocess it."
And let's massively fine the people responsible for crimes like this, and possibly send them to jail. Is that a bad idea for some reason?
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 03, 2009 at 12:18 AM
"It's just that I think justice occurs when crimes don't happen rather than when criminals are punished."
I think it's better if crimes don't happen (who doesn't?), but I'm unclear that that's particularly what we mean by "justice."
Setting aside fine-tuning over the meaning of that word, however, it just would strike me as curious if someone's first comment on an investigation of a dreadful murder were, say, to essentially dismiss the point with "[b]ecause that will stop the spill that already happened," and it strikes me as not particularly less curious for someone to respond that way to a massive environmental poisoning: yes, it's essential that we do everything can to prevent future such events, but a key way that we always do that is by prosecuting current and past such cases. That's traditionally how we deter crimes, after all, isn't it? It's not as if a massive toxic spill is a crime of passion, after all.
Of course, as we say, Your Mileage May Vary.
"So, in that light, I'd prefer to spend my time heading off the next one."
Setting aside that we don't generally regard these choices as exclusive, again, do you take this attitude towards terrible crimes in general, or is there something different about environmental crimes, or why your emphasis?
"Let's learn from this and check all the holding pond berms, and maybe find better places to store the stuff, or reprocess it."
And let's massively fine the people responsible for crimes like this, and possibly send them to jail. Is that a bad idea for some reason?
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 03, 2009 at 12:19 AM
I don't want to get involved in a pile-on here, but I'm genuinely curious: Do you think that investigating the chain of decisions which led to this mess -- and dealing out punishments where appropriate -- would make similar events more or less likely in the future?
(The way you phrased your posts makes it look -- to me, anyways-- like you think this was just one of those things that happens, and that there's nothing we can learn from the event.)
Posted by: A.J. | January 03, 2009 at 12:32 AM
//And let's massively fine the people responsible for crimes like this, and possibly send them to jail. Is that a bad idea for some reason?//
How should the money of the owner of the spilled goods be used? First, to stop the spread of the mess. Second, clean up the mess. Third, to compensate outside parties who've been harmed. (The list of harmed will include paying the actual costs of govt emergency responders and investigators, etc. as well as private parties.) Finally, last in line is some type of punitive fine - if it makes you happy. I'm not against it. It's just that I think all of the money will be gone before we reach this point and I think the other parties should be higher on the priority list. I think demanding and collecting fines looks good for the politicians and officials but does not do much constructive good.
//Setting aside that we don't generally regard these choices as exclusive, again, do you take this attitude towards terrible crimes in general, or is there something different about environmental crimes, or why your emphasis?//
Actually, I think I do take this attitude in general. I'm into learning and preventing more than punishing. Now, in the case of murder, rape, etc. one step is of course to put the criminal in quarantine, so to speak, so he can't do it anymore. I think my attitude is consistent with my other libertarianish leanings - I don't generally look first to an authority figure to ask why did they let this thing happen or to get the bad guy. My first thought is generally, 'what can a prudent person do to avoid this kind of thing in the future?'
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 03, 2009 at 12:49 AM
AJ
I think my 12:49 comment answers much of your question.
But more specifically about punishment.
When manmade structures collapse it is not always a crime. Sometimes it is. Think of aircraft crashes. The FAA is actually pretty good at investigating things down to the smallest detail and then mandating new procedures when necessary to prevent a future incident. The fact that a new procedure comes forth does not mean they were necessarily criminal or lax not to find it before. Sometimes, new things appear that were not foreseen before.
Hilzoy's statement was //I also hope the maintenance records for the site that spilled are investigated within an inch of their lives.// Yes, let's analyze the maintenance records. We'll learn something I'm sure. But, there are other more obvious things that leap to mind. Dams break - it's a fact. So why are they keeping poison around in the first place? Shouldn't it be reprocessed in some way to clean it up? And why so much? Reprocess it on a continuous basis since you're creating it on a continuous basis. I suspect everyone in the area is used to driving past slag heaps without batting an eye. That's a problem. To me it's not so much about the dam maintenance as it is about the large pile of concentrated poisons. I wager that the industry 'best practices' in the area are not so good - apparently slag heaps are allowed. I think the regulators have some complicity in respect to the fact that the pile existed in the first place. So, punishment...there is probably plenty to go around, the owner being foremost.
At the end of the day, I'd rather know that specific engineering and work routine things are changing then that the specific perpetrator got spanked.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 03, 2009 at 01:11 AM
"I'm into learning and preventing more than punishing."
I wouldn't argue the opposite case, myself, but it's not as if we're offered a choice between these two things, as a rule. The usual course of things is that crimes happen because, for one reason or another, we (civil society) were unable to prevent them, rather than that we chose not to give a darn.
"My first thought is generally, 'what can a prudent person do to avoid this kind of thing in the future?'"
As a bleeding heart liberal, I wouldn't say the following is my first thought, but in the top five or so would be that a perfectly legitimate role of government is to deter crimes.
And corporations tend to lack consciences, or the ability to grow them (note I said "tend to," not "can't"), so deterrence seems crucial to me.
In keeping with my liberalish inclinations, I tend to think there are a number of things a "prudent individual" can't do, but that a lot of united citizens, via agreed-upon democratic mechanisms, which we call "government," can. (Note again that I'm specifically not asserting that government is remotely my first resort.)
What I'm wondering is what you think will deter corporations from such crimes if no incentive is provided for them to avoid committing crimes?
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 03, 2009 at 01:11 AM
"But more specifically about punishment."
I should have been clearer, I suppose, that of course if no crime has been committed, that if an event is genuinely unforeseeable, obviously no one deserves punishment.
"To me it's not so much about the dam maintenance as it is about the large pile of concentrated poisons. I wager that the industry 'best practices' in the area are not so good - apparently slag heaps are allowed. I think the regulators have some complicity in respect to the fact that the pile existed in the first place."
Agreed.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 03, 2009 at 01:18 AM
PS
For what it is worth, I also believe that God is about learning rather than punishment. I think the Bible can be read as a story of God working to bring the people's understanding of justice from a low level to a high level. For example, before the flood, when it is said that their thoughts were evil continually, we see a guy saying he'll repay a slight against him by injuring the other guy 7 times over. Later, Moses comes along and says, repay a slight with an equal slight (eye for eye). Then, later in the book it says don't take vengence because 'vengence is mine says the Lord' yet Jesus (the Lord) comes along and doesn't take vengence. Instead he fixes people up and puts them back in play saying 'go and sin no more'. His point is that justice is when only good happens. So repay evil with good to the greatest extent you can.
Sorry for the intrusion my beliefs rather than my theories.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 03, 2009 at 01:25 AM
//What I'm wondering is what you think will deter corporations from such crimes if no incentive is provided for them to avoid committing crimes?//
//And corporations tend to lack consciences//
I haven't attacked government in my comments. I've only said what I think is more useful. With that in mind, i'll say that I think corporations do have consciences. They are made up of people who come to work every day and associate with each other as well as their neighbors and communities. It's just that their consciences tend to be at the lowest common denominator. That's why I say the biggest factor, in my mind, is that slag heaps were apparently acceptable in the area. Apparently the regulators, community, corporation and everyone thought the slag heap was appropriate. Was the conscience of the corporation any worse than the conscience of the others in that regard? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 03, 2009 at 01:41 AM
[sarcasm] Are those Clinton's last minute limits on pollutants that are exceeded by those numbers or those of Bush's appointees* that try to sell the idea that lead is good for your health? Tennessee, the new vacation spot for Mithridatists and those who want to become ones[/sarcasm]
*like the chief lobbyist of the lead industry turned regulator who proposed to increase the limit by a factor of fourty while the experts recommended tightening it by a factor of 4
Posted by: Hartmut | January 03, 2009 at 05:06 AM
Apparently the regulators, community, corporation and everyone thought the slag heap was appropriate.
What this ignores is the degree to which the influence of corporate money has perverted the proper function of government in protecting the public interest.
To me, this is a no-brainer. If there was malfeasance on the part of the company operating the plant, they should have the book thrown at them, and they should pay, through the nose.
I would, in fact, prefer criminal punishment for individuals in the corporation over fines. That would limit the punitive damage to the people responsible for the decisions.
If the regulations are inadequate to prevent things like this from happening, then they should be changed.
I appreciate that your interest is in making things better, rather than in punishing people for spilled milk. That's laudable.
What I'd suggest is that, absent punishment, milk will continue to be spilled, and at greater and more damaging rates.
Thanks -
Posted by: russell | January 03, 2009 at 06:11 PM
Not that this exonerates the TVA, but the testing schedule makes sense.
The TVA issued a warning about the actual spill itself, in case anyone was so stupid as to actually draw water from it or use it in any way (not impossible given what people sometimes do). The main danger comes from contamination of underground and downstream water supplies, and it will take some time for the contaminants to show up there. If they had tested immediately it would likely have give negatives, so not issuing such irrelevant results is actually a good thing. Major problems may only show up over time.
Posted by: skeptonomist | January 04, 2009 at 11:12 AM
The major objective of the TVA these days is providing cheap power, the vast majority of which is generated by coal. From the beginning the government-sponsored TVA was directed towards using this power for the economic and material benefit of the region. The real trade-off is between safety and environmental concerns and the cheapness of the power. Framing the issue in terms of "crimes" committed by individuals will just obscure the real nature of the problem.
Posted by: skeptonomist | January 04, 2009 at 11:25 AM
// Framing the issue in terms of "crimes" committed by individuals will just obscure the real nature of the problem.//
Exactly.
Unfortunately, many readers of this blog consider Criminal and Businessperson to be synonyms. When something like this arises the scent of an opportunity to convict one is so overpowering that they lose perspective.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 04, 2009 at 06:02 PM
Unfortunately, many readers of this blog consider Criminal and Businessperson to be synonyms.
Can you please list them by name for my future reference and edification, please? Thanks in advance!
Posted by: Phil | January 04, 2009 at 07:03 PM
Unfortunately, many readers of this blog consider Criminal and Businessperson to be synonyms.
Not me.
I'm just pointing out a plain fact. Corporations and other institutions behave in profoundly careless and anti-social ways every day of the week, and the sanctions or other remedies that are available to prevent them from doing so are far weaker than those that would apply to a private individual doing the same thing.
If you need examples, I'm happy to oblige, but ObWi may need to request more disk space from their web host to hold my reply.
If the TVA was negligent they should be punished. If individual people were personally negligent, or guilty of criminal malfeasance, they should likewise be punished.
Not because it will make the spill go away, and not to satisfy some perverse punitive impulse on my, or anyone else's, part.
But because that is the proper consequence for failing to carry out their responsibility to ensure public safety. It's the "stick" part of "carrot and stick".
Hey, if it's an act of God, it's an act of God. There's only so much you can do. But what you're responsible to do, should be done.
Do you disagree?
Believe me, dave, if I, personally, acted badly, or even was just negligent, in some way that caused poisonous industrial wastes to pollute the water supply of a medium sized city, we would not be discussing whether criminal charges and/or large fines were "punitive", or whether my carelessness was just spilled milk. We would be discussing how big the fine should be, and/or how many years I should be spending in the big house.
Don't believe me? Go dump a few tons of arsenic in your town's water supply and see what happens.
Why should the folks involved here be different?
Thanks -
Posted by: russell | January 04, 2009 at 07:20 PM
"Unfortunately, many readers of this blog consider Criminal and Businessperson to be synonyms."
That's interesting; I'd never noticed. Please give cites to such comments from people here, if you'd be so kind. Since there are "many" such readers here, this should be very easy. Thanks!
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 04, 2009 at 09:05 PM
"I would, in fact, prefer criminal punishment for individuals in the corporation over fines. That would limit the punitive damage to the people responsible for the decisions."
Meanwhile the head of the San Lu company, accused in the melamine-tainted milk scandal, is being tried on capital charges and will almost certainly be convicted. How's that for CEO compensation - a 17c bullet in the back of the head, to be paid for by the criminal's family in lieu of beheading?
Posted by: Jim | January 05, 2009 at 01:01 PM