The New York Times graphic below shows the spill site and how fly ash is produced in coal-burning power plants. The image showing home and property damage is by J. Miles Carey/Knoxville News Sentinel, via the Associated Press.
Coal isn’t looking too clean
Construction crews are working to clean up mud and fly ash that spilled over the land after “a wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.” The fly ash spill spill has polluted waterways, the landscape, and is responsible for damaging “5 homes and forced the evacuation of all residents.” From findingDulcinea:
The sludge has spread over 400 acres of land, exceeding the area covered from the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crash in 1989, according to TVA spokesman Gil Francis. He also indicated that it would take about four to six weeks to clean up the mess.
Preliminary water quality tests in the area reveal that drinking water is fine, and Francis said, “in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can’t call [the water supply] toxic.” But CNN says notes that there are videos of dead fish in the tributary’s banks and Chandra Taylor, a staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, suggested that the sludge consists of concentrated substances like mercury, arsenic and benzine. Furthermore, the recent spill is larger than a sludge spill that occurred eight years earlier in Kentucky, where “The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and aquatic life in the area perished,” according to CNN.
The estimate of fly ash sludge has been increased, and the EPA may consider the site a Superfund site. From Newsinferno.com, NY:
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) now says that 5.4 million cubic yards of potentially toxic fly ash was released from a retention pond at its Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, TN when a dam burst there early Monday morning. According to the Knoxville News, that’s triple the estimate of 1.7 million cubic yards the TVA released earlier this week.
The TVA said it could take months, if not years, to clean up the Tennessee fly ash spill. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was supervising the cleanup, and was also trying to determine if the area engulfed by the fly ash should be deemed a Superfund site.
The Tennessee fly ash spill occurred around 1:00 a.m. after a wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from the TVA coal plant in central Tennessee broke. Though the exact cause of the accident was not known, it was thought that six inches of rain over the previous 10 days and overnight temperatures in the teens contributed to the dam breach.
What is fly ash?
Fly ash is a residue produced when coal is burned, and this residue can pose environmental and health risks. Courts have determined that fly ash can be considered a hazardous waste under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund) if the fly ash contained one of the listed hazardous wastes under CERCLA (Reference: 118 A.L.R. Fed. 293 and United States v. Conservation Chem. Co., 1985). However, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), EPA considers fly ash a special waste, utility waste or fossil fuel combustion (FFC) waste, which “have been exempted from federal hazardous waste regulations under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).”
On the Net:
- Tenn. Sludge Spill Challenges ‘Clean Coal’ Future
- Tennessee sludge spill estimate grows to 1 billion gallons
- iLoveMountains.org – End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
- Oops…There’s Fly-Ash In The Clean Coal Ointment
- There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal
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I was at the spill site on Saturday morning and found security to be overwhelming. TVA police are questioning anyone with a camera anywhere near the plant or site, even on public roads. Two photographers were detained for a period of a couple of hours. Swan Pond road and Swan Pond Loop road are now closed to everyone that cannot prove they own property there. They are certainly trying to keep the disaster controlled and are tying to control the information getting out. I have new photos of the area on my website at http://www.jerrygreerphotography.com in the Environmental Portfolio. As for cleaning this up in 4 to 6 weeks, not a chance in hell! This is a disaster of epic proportions. An entire lake cove is now totally filled with a toxic fly ash coal sludge. I’m certain that they will have to buy up all the affected land then fill and cap the site. My worry is the water quality down river. They are already seeing extreme level of arsenic and other metals, though they say that it can be filtered out of the drinking water. Well, what about the many residents that have well water? Search Youtube and watch the videos and you will understand the magnitude of this disaster. A 4 to 6 week cleanup is laughable! TVA just gave their CEO Mr. Kilgore a $million$ raise! For what I ask?
I was a post graduate student from Bangkok Thailand at MTSU and once during academic term, visited at TVA plant viewing at the huge project and very much enjoined. The incident occured much damage and devastated ground level site of plantations, cattle farms, houses and buildings that brought sorrow to our Tennessians made me sad. My sympathy to our good friends in Tennessee, indeed.
Believing that all Fly-Ash, coal burnt from TVA has been vanished and bring good healthy life to my good old friends. I expect to visit my home campus someday to pay my courtesy call to Prof.Dr.George Vernadakis of MTSU in M’Boro, Tenn.
At the time will find my opportunity to look over at TVA Dam and Thermal Coal Burning Power Plant. Help cheer me up for that luck.