Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiFlood of Sludge Breaks TVA Dike
Collapse poses risk of toxic ash
HARRIMAN, Tenn. - Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
![[The aftermath of a retention wall collapse is seen Monday in Harriman, Tenn. A retention pond wall collapsed early Monday morning at a power plant run by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, releasing a frigid mix of water and ash that flooded 15 homes nearby. (J. Miles Cary/ Knoxville News Sentinel)
]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/ash-1224.jpg "ash-1224.jpg")
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years.
About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry - enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools - rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.
The ash slide, which began just before 1 a.m., covered as many as 400 acres as deep as 6 feet. The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and ruptured a gas line. It damaged 12 homes, and one person had to be rescued, though no one was seriously hurt.
Much remains to be determined, including why this happened, said Tom Kilgore, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
"I fully suspect that the amount of rain we've had in the last eight to 10 days, plus the freezing weather ... might have had something to do with this," he said in a news conference Monday on the site.
The area received almost 5 inches of rain this month, compared with the usual 2.8 inches. Freeze and thaw cycles may have undermined the sides of the pond. The last formal report on the condition of the 40-acre pond - an unlined, earthen structure - was issued in January and was unavailable Monday, officials said.
Neighbors Don and Jil Smith, who have lived near the pond for eight years, said that nearly every year TVA has cleaned up what they termed "baby blowouts."
Ashen liquid similar to that seen on a much larger scale in Monday's disaster came from the dike, they said.
"It would start gushing this gray ooze," said Don Smith, whose home escaped harm. "They'd work on it for weeks and weeks.
"They can say this is a one-time thing, but I don't think people are going to believe them."
The U.S. Coast Guard, EPA, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation were among agencies that responded to the emergency.
Toxic irritants possible
Coal is burned to produce electricity at the Kingston Fossil Plant, notable for its tall towers seen along Interstate 40 near the Harriman exit in Roane County.
Water is added to the ash, which is the consistency of face powder, for pumping it to the pond. The ash is settled out in that pond before the sludge is moved to other, drier ponds, Kilgore said.
Coal ash can carry toxic substances that include mercury, arsenic and lead, according to a federal study. The amount of poisons in TVA's ashy wastes that could irritate skin, trigger allergies and even cause cancer or neurological problems could not be determined Monday, officials said.
Viewed from above, the scene looked like the aftermath of a tsunami, with swirls of dirtied water stretching for hundreds of acres on the land, and muddied water in the Emory River.
The Emory leads to the Clinch, which flows into the Tennessee.
Workers sampled river water Monday, with results expected back today, but didn't sample the dunelike drifts of muddy ash.
That could begin today, officials said, and the potential magnitude of the problem could make this a federally declared Superfund site. That would mean close monitoring and a deep, costly cleanup requiring years of work.
"We'll be sampling for metals in the ground to see what kind of impact that had," said Laura Niles, a spokeswoman for the EPA in Atlanta.
"Hopefully, it won't be as bad as creating a Superfund site, but it depends on what is found."
Stephen Smith, with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, said those concerned about water and air quality have tried for years to press for tighter regulation of the ash.
The heavy metals in coal - including mercury and other toxic substances - concentrate in the ash when burned, he said.
"You know where that is now," he said. "It's in that stuff that's all over those people's houses now."
Chemicals and metals from coal ash have contaminated drinking water in several states, made people and animals sick in New Mexico, and tainted fish in Texas and elsewhere, according to Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit national environmental law firm that follows the issue.
"It's discouraging because this is an easy problem to fix," she said.
Ash could be recycled by using it to make concrete and at the very least should be placed in lined, state-of-the-art landfills, she said.
Plant is still operating
TVA's Kilgore said that chemicals in the ash are of concern, but that the situation is probably safe. The power plant is still operating, sending the ash to a larger pond on the site.
"There are levels of chemicals in there that we are concerned about," Kilgore said. "We don't think there's anything immediate of danger because most of that's contained, but that's why we have sampling folks out."
Officials were monitoring a water intake that serves Kingston City and is only a few miles downstream from the Kingston plant, but said no problem had been noted there as of Monday afternoon.
The power producer, which oversees the Tennessee River system, had slowed river flow in the area, releasing less water from key dams, so the pollution might be better contained for possible cleanup.
TVA has insurance for an event like this, spokeswoman Barbara Martucci said, but what the cleanup cost is and how much insurance will pay remains to be determined.
Otherwise, ratepayers in Tennessee could bear much of the costs. TVA provides virtually all the electricity in the state, along with parts of six others.
38 Comments so far
Show AllIt's not sludge. It's preprocessed biosolids fertilizer. And it's good for you.
Flood of sludge in a valley! That's nothing, a mere bagatelle.
Those who lead America have been releasing a torrent of American 'sludge' right across most of the world for decades. It comes via the television, via fast food chains, via movies, via caffeine-laden drinks, every which way!
The whole world is drowning in unwanted American sludge.
Can we give it back?
Merry Xmas.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Environmentalists are like the Dutch boy who sticks his finger in the dike to stem the rising tide of human population that threatens to overwhelm and destroy his world.
As usual... the feds let problems go until they come crashing down.... i.e. WTC; foreign policy & defense/MIC, Katrina; outdated dikes, financial system; SEC failure and sheer lawlessness, and well, hell, I think you get the picture.
Meanwhile our meddling and empire sinks its tentacles deep into humanity via through our 700+ foreign bases and our nation deteriorates.
Where will it end? In Tennessee? I doubt it.
Revolution and soon.
I find is more than a bit ironic that the TVA (a legacy of the last great economic downturn) should release a catastrophic flood of toxic waste during the waning days of a toxic presidency that did everything possible to degrade environmental and safety legislation, especially during the opening days of the present economic collapse.
Talk about a self inflicted injury.
I would hazard a guess that this will have a toxic legacy greater than even the Love Canal disaster. It appears the the greater intelligence of the US (a questionable proposition at best) is incapable of learning from previous errors.
Walk in peace.
It is reasonable to assume a large part of all energy produced is wasted. We could conserve perhaps 40% less and live much like we live now.
That means more than 40% reduction in pollution if we shut down the worst stuff as we bring in the new power sources.
Finally, I trust the test results as much as the air testing over ground zero. Good luck to everyone within about 100 miles of this.
Coal could be used cleanly and safely. The problem is the cost to do so by far out weighs the value of the energy created. So that brings the question, why are we using coal? I'll answer that my self, GREED.
Rickster
emaho:
Kudos to you for your very knowledgeable post(re:11:23pm). Such comments as yours are invaluable to folks, like me, who were comfortably residing in, as you say, our "distant and lofty peaks;" not having experienced this disaster/fiasco point blank.
In re: "...the fact that you haven't any real knowledge of the situation you address, but are only used to pushing your own, narrow, agendas..." BANG! You hit the nail on the head with this.
It's a shame that people who don't know squat about a particular calamity, (albeit war, oppression, natural disasters, malnutrition, diseases, et al, will be "johnny on the spot" to screed eternal!
It's interesting...and amusing...to read the comments about the horrendous things that have and are about to unfold here. I live, as that black crow flies, about 1/2 mile from the epicenter of this calamity. I stand and watch the warning strobes from the 1000 ft stacks nearly every night. Fact is, I've lived in the shadow of this "thing" more than 30 years.
Some of you have delivered thoughtful and relevant comments. Others? Well, we've heard you before and have gotten used to the fact that you haven't any real knowledge of the situation you address, but are only used to pushing your own, narrow, agendas. Not to name names, but I think regular readers will recognize the names. Of course the TVA sucks,but what the fuck do you know about it from your distant and lofty peaks?
The whole environmental and governmental agenda has been structured so as to enable a disaster like this. Now, we'uns, us ingnernt dumb folks, will pay the price. What led to failure here, will lead to failure elsewhere, as generational capacity and electric grids collapse. TVA isn't anything more than a glorified component of the status quo. As a federal agency, TVA has known for years that they had problems with their coal and nuclear power systems.
As it stands now, aquatic life on the bottom of the Tennessee/Watts Bar Lake sytem is apt to be killed for an untold number of years.
Already, large fish kills are washing ashore. Harriman is 100 miles or more upstream from Chattanooga, but public safety officials there are already preparing to shut down the municipal water supply. Indeed, the supply of fresh water to more than 1,000,000 people is in danger.
According to news from local and federal "officials", this spill of toxins (including the full spectrum of heavy metals plus, in asome assessments, radioactivity) will have an effect on the immediate regiion...perhaps far beyond...for an unknown length of time.
Well, that's about all I can contribute here, from "ground zero". Check out www.knoxnews.com from some of the reliable info on what's happening here.
happy holidays
Skip the add
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=507828761
Why is this allowed to happen? Probably because the elected O' fficals in the South are bought and paid for by these very same bastards and their Co's who are polluting!
Screw the people and the planet! There's money ta be made off a dat der co-oal.
Munich........Whoa there!!! Don't be havin' no stroke over this here problem. Ain't no different than whut's been goin' on fer years in these parts. We just gotta be patinet and mindful and, when all this 2oth century modern bullshit passes on...and it will...we'uns can jest step out an start out lives agin. Brother, we've know fer a long, long time where the power in these parts was. An we know'd it weren't nothin' to be made of much of. Them that thinks they control the world...me and you...well, they just done got beyond their raisin.
I don't much like to think of the end of the world. Sorta puts me in a fearful state of mind. But I know, and take my part in all of it, that there's gonna be a big comeuppance. And, no matter who we thought we were, who we thought we are, or who we thought we was s'ppposed to be, we're all gonna have to answer.
Re: Criminal George and the EPA.
The attack on America's invironment by the 'crippled' EPA agency that George Bush 'stacked' with lawyer who's entire lives have been devoted to tearing down EPA codes in favor of big corporations: Farming and coal companies - and lobbyists who's only interest has been greed, having cared little about America's environmment or endangered wild animal species threatened by their rotten anti-EPA deeds.
Thanks to George Bush, scrubbers for coal mine polluting smokestacks were delayed and delayed by the Bush crime syndicate - until it was too late as we read about children with chronic asthma, respiratory infections and stunted growth in all states where coal mining is a major industry.
The coal mines in Southeastern US, with 'a lot' of help from the Bush crime syndicate, have continued to pour slurry into nearby rivers and lakes until aquatic life will not spawn in these polluted rivers, lakes and ponds of deadly chemicals. Places where the fish do spawn produce fish that are ineatable and dangereous for human or animal consumption - thanks Bush!
This war criminal and environmental monster should be tried by a jury of his peers and then hung for all the enviromental and human loss of life, limb and health disasters he has created in his lifetime chain of failures and disasters on three continents.
Over a million lives have been lost to this monster in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Lebenon and Palestine, and millions more will die because of the genocidal and invironmental disasters (Depleted U-238 & U-239 contamination being the most deadly) he promoted for the 'war profiteers' and corporate buddies, all for the sake of donations of money to promote his agenda based on his ignorance and 'idiot savant' stupidity.
In the Northwest (Klamath Falls area) he authorized the daming of parts of the Colorado deciminating the Salmon fish industry that will take 100 years to reverse providing there is a removal of dozens of dams and dikes built for the convienance of the farmers that have been sucking the Colorado river dry in the name of corporate profits and greed - many of them producing absolutly nothing yet receiving billions from the US dept. of Agriculture under their farm subsidy programs that serve to rape the US taxpayer and do nothing for the small farm owners - a breed that has been decimated by the small handful of large corporate farms that now collect 95% of all farm subsidies for the benefit of their stockholders.
TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
.Not to nitpick but, while the Colorado River flows through seven states on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, Oregon is not one of them.
The Salmon fishery in the Northwest is imperiled due to many factors, most of them predating the Bush administration. I do not believe there is or every was a salmon population in the Colorado however.
Damming our rivers, and California has only one single river left without a dam, The Smith, without providing fish ladders was shortsighted and wrong. The water is controlled by Farmers and diverted for use by cities as well, thus the powers that be do not want any valuable fish standing in the way of their profitable selling of that water. The Rice growers, for example, comprise a multi-billion dollar industry in California, and, as rice is a water intensive crop, have a huge say over that water.
The fish hatcheries in Northern California used to produce 50,000,000 smolts
( immature salmon) spread across the three main salmon runs, Spring, Fall and Winter. They produced, this last year, barely 5,000,000. The taking of water for industry and agriculture leaves most of California and Oregon's Salmon Rivers far too low, and thus too warm, for a survivable population of salmon smolts to reach the sea. Many Rivers that used to have terrific salmon runs are now devoid. One of my very favorites, the Feather , is devoid of a fishable population of salmon altogether. The Yuba,the San Joaquin, the Mokelumne, the Stanislaus are all close as well. This year the Klamath produced a good run, mostly swallowed up at the mouth by Indian netting of just about the entire population of the Fall run. I still fished the Sacramento in its limited ( two month) season and intend to do so tomorrow ( Saturday) ,weather permitting for the last chance this year to fight such a noble fish.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
cowboy, do you know my mother? she usually sits at the art gallery afternoons most of the time. she doesn't like my politics, though.
for peace and sustainability
Clean Coal! Now Mr. Pres. Elect please look close this is one little part of what you get with Coal. Wind, solar and water would do it all!
this is an appropriate application for Rev Wright's comments.
Keep them ignorant and do not tell them which % of the heavy metals go up the flue and which % goes into the ash. Keep them ignorant and do not tell them what % of coal ash is stored in slurry ponds, for how long, and what % is re-used in concrete, etc. Don't give them the info they need to develop on a grass roots level the public policies that best serve the people. For example, a policy that requires all coal ash to be reused in concrete and not kept in slurry ponds. For example, a policy that maximizes the heavy metals into the ash instead of up the flue. Don't even tell them about coal ash, except for once every forty years. And certainly do not tell them about the renewable zero-carbon energy alternatives. Do not tell them about the spiritual vitality in the low-energy societies around the world. Instead, promote marketing campaigns to get them to consume more electricity. The more they consume, the more they become dependent on it and then it matters less how damaging it is because they simply can't do with out it, ehh? God Bless Our Brown Skies and Grey Rivers! God Bless Our Toxic Right Wing Progress!
Sioux Rose
RTDRURY: Good posting. This is where the Karen Hughes types take over and turn shit into sunshine... and it's all packaged to sound like it's for our own good. Did you see the film BEDAZZLED with Dudley Moore? The premise is that the devil is overjoyed because having lost his edge over the centuries, he finally comes up with an 8th sin! Advertising!
PJD: I live in the southern appalachians and I think you should check your sources on the amount of sun and wind we get per year. Do you think a hundred year drought means wet?
I lived in Knoxville, Nashville and Lexington (I worked for the TVA in the 1970's) Knoxville averages 60 inches of rain per year (50% more than Seattle) the Smoky Mts. almost 100 inches. I don't recall this area being a particularly sunny place.
I also used to frequently travel to the Chattanooga area to go hang gliding, so I know about the wind conditions. (Contrary to what you maight think, less wind is actually favorable for hang gliding - we stay up using mostly thermals, not wind) Aside from maybe day or two before and after a cold front, winds are not reliable there like further north and west.
Check this map: http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
You don't rely on unusiual anomalous events like droughts when developong solar power - you rely on climate statistics.
Geothermal electric resources are limited to areas of current or geogically recent volcanism - nothing like that in the SE US.
My point was we need to stay in the reality-based community when looking for solutions.
Wind power is already being installed
PJD: Check the insolation map on the same site as your wind map. While we get a bunch of rain, it doesn't drizzle everyday like Seattle. The southeast isn't named the sunbelt for nothing.
"Contrary to what you maight think, less wind is actually favorable for hang gliding - we stay up using mostly thermals,"
no sh*t sherlock, and thermals are created by sunshine...
And they also create cumulus clouds, which block the sun.
---USAn---
Geothermal is everywhere. It's closer to the surface in some places more than others, but oil drilling technology has overcome the obstacles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power
P.S. I do a little hang gliding too, though I never got up to Lookout Mt.
While I'm all for alternatives, the probelem is that Tennessee and the southern Applacians and the southeast US in general is wet and not very windy. Wind and solar power is simply not practical there until much a improved electric transmission technology makes importation or electric power from the plains states practical.
---USAn---
It is usually windier on mountain tops. Oh I forgot...
Joe
"the probelem is that Tennessee and the southern Applacians and the southeast US in general is wet and not very windy"
hogwash!
Geothermal
I guess this qualifies as 'green' - a good example of coal liquification.
But I could be wrong !
Sioux Rose
Who stole the trees?
Alas, such as these
go about and do as they please
oblivious to what they release
laws passed to assist them with ease;
it's a crime against nature...
who stole the trees?
Dupont and Hearst stole the trees
This probably would have never happened had they not stooped to the lowest levels of
Insanity by making the HEMP plant illegal.
There was a really good segment on this morning, DemocracyNow. www.democracynow.org The show is a good followup to the article. Transcripts will remain online. Free. "Clean coal" is a myth. Solar, wind....don't make sludge... All coal firing plants have sludge...And the burning of the coal causes asthma, particularly vulnerable are kids (stated in segment) and old people (which I know and add). And coal mining in Appalachia is blowing up/off the tops of mountains and polluting the air and water...well, you know......
This wouldn't have been possible without the Bush Administration gutting EPA oversight and looting the environment in general. Clinton-era EPA actually enforced some containment laws.
Ah, Bush... putting the 'con' in neo-con.
Thanks to THE COAL INDUSTRY, http://www.wisecountyissues.com Appalachia is a toxic third world waste dump.
In more than one way. Apalachia is used to being shat upon.
Clean Coal!! The energy of the future!
PK
Is "clean" a verb?
Interesting play on words.
Everytime we CLEAN something, it follows that something else must get dirty.