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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
  • To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Tenneessee sludge
  • Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:10:41 -0500

If it is going into the Clinch River, it is moving away from the mountains and westward towards the interior of the state. There's some good fishing in the Clinch, or well, I suppose there used to be. :(

Bev

bobf wrote:
This is the first I've seen of this, but apparently it happened
earlier in the week. It isn't making much 'national' news. 50 miles
East of Knoxville, should be heading into the Smokey Mtns, if my
memory is clear, which might not be the case. That is some of the
most beautiful land in the country if it is where I am remembering.
'seems like open water and ground water could be affected, but the
article says nobody is , yet, claiming toxicity?
Huh......................


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water


By Samira J. Simone CNN

(CNN) -- 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.


Environmental Protection Agency officials are on the scene and expect
the cleanup to to take four to six weeks.

The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at
a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant in
Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, agency officials said.

The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill
and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three
homes were deemed uninhabitable, a TVA spokesman told CNN.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the
Clinch River.

"We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our
Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to
nearby homes," TVA said in a statement released Tuesday.

TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had
been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez
oil spill.

Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and
garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the
TVA said power had been restored to the area.

Francis said Environmental Protection Agency officials were on the
scene and estimated the cleanup could take four to six weeks.

Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water
quality test show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant
meets standards.

"I don't want to drink it. I doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles,
who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you
reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all
this mess?"


Still, there is the potential for more sludge to enter the water
supply through waste runoff.

"We're taking steps to stabilize runoff from this incident," Francis
said.

Although video from the scene shows dead fish on the banks of the
tributary, he said that "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis
comes in, you can't call it toxic."

One environmental attorney called that statement "irresponsible." The
ash that gives sludge its thick, pudding-like consistency in this
case is known as fly ash, which results from the combustion of coal.

Fly ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and
benzine, said Chandra Taylor, staff attorney for the Southern
Environmental Law Center.

"These things are naturally occurring, but they concentrate in the
burning process and the residual is more toxic than it starts," she
told CNN.

Appalachian environmentalists compared the mess with another spill
eight years ago in eastern Kentucky, where the bottom of a coal
sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy broke into an abandoned
underground mine, oozing more than 300 million gallons of coal waste
into tributaries.

The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and
aquatic life in the area perished. It took months to clean up the
spill.

"If the estimates are correct, this spill is one and a half times
bigger," said Dave Cooper, an environmental advocate with the
Mountaintop Removal Road Show, a traveling program that explains the
effect of an extreme form of mining.

While the full scope of the TVA spill is being determined, coal
critics are already concerned about its long-term effects.

Cleaning up the mess, which could fill nearly 800 Olympic-size
swimming pools, could take months or years, Taylor said.

"We're very concerned about how long it's going to take" to clean the
spill, she told CNN.

Cooper agreed, saying, "It's 4, 5 feet deep. How are you going to
scoop it up? Where are you going to put it?"




http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/tennessee.sludge.spill/index.html



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