The week before Christmas, one of the worst environmental disasters in US history occured in Roane County, Tennessee. From the Tennessean:
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.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.
These photos really say it all, and it's hard to imagine the hardship the members of this community are facing. These kinds of disasters simply bring home the fact that we've been horribly managing waste and byproducts from industry for a long while, and the results are going to begin to catch up with us. It's not just about global warming anymore.
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Why didn't I hear about this earlier? I'm not news-obsessed, but I don't live under a rock either. Strange...
I'm with you...I hadn't heard about this either, and I am a bit news-obsessed! I agree with others here that there is no clean-coal and yes, people of Appalachia HAVE been thinking and dealing with the health issues of coal for a long time. bell hooks has a brand new book out called "Belonging: A Culture of Place". For those who don't know, she is from the mountains of Kentucky and the book is a reflection on place, sustainability, environment, gender/race/class, specific to Appalachia.
Other than the advocacy groups already mentioned, is there a specific way to help the people/community affected by this disaster?
Unitedmountaindefense has set up a blog at http://dirtycoaltva.blogspot.com/ and they mentioned several things they needed on the fifth, including funding and support from other non-profits and foundations for bottled water, further testing, and equipment. They're also taking donations, according to Appalachian voices, a news blog, for residents to get tested for heavy metal exposure, as many people have became ill after drinking area water, despite tva's claims that the drinking water is safe.
You can send donations through their paypal account, which has a link on their main website, which secondbeach linked to. Their website also contains information for sending a check. They've also requested to let them know if you are able to perform specialized water testing.
After responding I noticed you said other than the advocacy groups mentioned, so I went on a bit of a hunt. As far as I can tell United Mountain Defense is the only organization dealing with the problem. TVA put people up in hotels and did testing in December, but that was the extent of it, and there's a lot of questions surrounding their conclusions to the results, as people are getting sick off the water, despite it being deemed safe. Greenpeace is calling for criminal investigation of the spill, but nothing's actually being done on their part according to the information I found. If anyone else has different results I'd love to know.
I'm shocked at the level of help the people are not getting and the lack of coverage! I did find two recent news articles http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28538907/
and
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/01/toxic-influence-coal-ash-tainted-money-funds-senators-holding-tva-disaster-hearing.html
but not much else. And the things on UMD blog/site are appalling...Red Cross apparently called but then told not to come, drinking water said to be safe but people are getting VERY sick, TVA is not helping financially with any needs of residents, clean up workers not being told how dangerous this stuff is, etc. Where is the outrage! I feel so powerless in my little cubicle today. :-(
Yeah, I did some more searching and it seems the WaPo is the only major paper providing some level of recurring coverage.
This has barely been covered.
There's a small, 100% volunteer non-profit working in the area in the anti-mountaintop removal mining movement called United Mountain Defense that basically became first-responders. They've been helping locals get food and water, as well as doing the water testing and damage assessment that the government and company at fault are neglecting to do. The less documentation there is, the harder it is to hold them responsible.
Check out their work at http://unitedmountaindefense.org/ and spread the word: there is NO clean coal.
I visited the site, they have a ton of pictures. It really is a HUGE disaster.
Every Feministing reader with a blog should put up a post about this ASAP. I can't believe more people don't know.
I'm shocked that I didn't hear about this earlier, too. That's really... well, horrible and disgusting are the only words I can think of for it.
I'd like to point out it's never been just about global warming. Conservation, air quality, water quality and availability have been issues far longer and have many componets independant of global warming.
THANK YOU. Global warming is just one part of a larger problem. Toxic spills, such as this, do more than up the earth's temperature.
To think that in May the Kansas House of Representatives was a mere four votes short of overturning Governor Sebelius' third, yes THIRD veto of a bill to allow the construction of two new coal plants in our state.
How on earth does anyone think that coal plants are a viable energy solution? Why does it take a disaster of these proportions to make the health and environmental risks so clear?
Sadly this isn't the first time it's happened and it won't be the last. The problem is that it's always covered up to a degree.
In 1972 in Logan County, West Virginia 125 people were killed, 1,121 injured, and 4,000 were left homeless because of a dam break at a coal slurry impoundment. The company responsible called it an "act of God".
In 2000, another spill in Martin County, Ky dumped 306 million gallons (30 times larger than the exxon valdez oil spill) of sludge into the waterways of the area. Due to the recent disaster Appalashop, an Appalachian film company, is streaming their film "sludge" about the Martin County disaster on their website http://www.appalshop.org/sludge/ through January.
There are many of these impoundments all across the U.S. and a quick internet search brings up many more small sludge spills that haven't been covered on the news much at all. One impoundemnt that's leaking is set up 400 yards from an Marsh Fork elementary school in West Virginia. This particular impoundment has a 3 billion gallon capacity, although I don't know how much it's filled to at this point. Community members are raising money in attempts to get a new school built in another area. Their site is http://www.penniesofpromise.org/ and they also have videos up on youtube you can look at.
I'll reiterate what secondbeach said earlier. There is no such thing as clean coal. It's sad that it takes something like this to prove it though when the people of Appalachia have been dealing with this sort of thing for so long. If you check out the coal spill information anywhere look up mountaintop removal as well.
I still trust a coal plant more than a nuclear plant.
And as much as I want to assume that an environmental disaster such as this one will make people jump up and actually make meaningful change to the ways we live... I'd be really surprised if anything meaningful happens.
I just wrote about this on my blog...it's rather long-winded and angry, but that's me for ya...
I also posted this on my Facebook page with the note of: "do something."
Which I think should be the impetus here: don't just be angry. Do something.
By now, no one is probably going to be looking at this, but I noticed today that the news story that was quoted by Miriam puts the old number of gallons spilled. The amount has been updated to over double the previous amount, the new total being over 5 million gallons.