how did the tennessee coal ash spill happen
Calling it an “environmental disaster of epic proportions,” Carol Kimmons, a local resident who works at the non-profit Sequatchie Valley Institute, told reporters that the nasty black ash flowed into “the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.” She added that the spill was 70 percent bigger than a similar one in Kentucky in October 2000 (306 million gallons) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) referred to at the time as “one of the worst environmental disasters in the Southeastern United States.”More than a year after that Kentucky spill, researchers found levels of lead downstream from where the spill took place that were 400 times higher than the EPA’s safe limit. Coal ash is the byproduct of electricity generated by the nation's coal-fired power plants, which together produce about 130 million tons of coal ash every year. A Lawyer, 40 Dead Americans, and a Billion Gallons of Coal Sludge A decade ago, a power plant spewed toxic coal sludge over 300 acres in rural Tennessee.
Toxics Release Inventory According to bathymetry studies conducted afterward, millions of gallons of ash were dislodged and sent downriver. Gradually, the ground became saturated. "In your backyard you may have 20 to 50 parts per million (ppm) of arsenic depending on where you live," says John Kammeyer, TVA's vice-president for civil projects, who was in charge of engineering for the cleanup.
The torrent roiled up heaps of ash and propelled them past a weir (an underwater dam) that TVA had built downstream to try to keep the muck in place. "If anything, the spill will increase levels above that threshold. After four years he was laid off for his illnesses. But "we believe coal ash can be safely managed." To which Kilgore responds: "You have to draw the line somewhere. More than 900 people worked on the site between 2008 and 2015, operating the giant dredges, track-hoes, bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment to remove the ash from the river, dry it in windrows, and ship it in rail cars to a lined landfill near Uniontown, Alabama.Ansol Clark was one of the first to arrive at the site on December 22, 2008.
Doug Bledsoe is one: He was recently diagnosed with brain and lung cancer, shortly after his wife battled breast cancer.More than 200 cleanup workers and family members are now suing TVA's main contractor, Jacobs Engineering, for refusing to provide them with protective equipment and for causing their debilitating and in some cases deadly diseases. The coal ash slide disrupted electrical power and ruptured a gas line, causing the evacuation of 22 residents. All that evidence suggests there was a concerted effort by TVA and Jacobs to downplay the dangers of coal ash, says Jamie Satterfield, an investigative reporter for the "It was a PR thing," says Satterfield. Workers who cleaned up the Tennessee Valley Authority's record-breaking coal ash spill and now say they are sick made a case Wednesday for TVA's help.
"Ansol Clark was one of the first to arrive at the site on December 22, 2008. Selenium entered their reproductive systems and produced a host of defects in their young: bulging eyes, twisted spines, deformed heads. At about 1 a.m. last Dec. 22, James Schean awoke with a start.
The company immediately bought out people like Schean, whose homes were either ruined or damaged. "How can they draw a line and say, 'Here is affected, and here isn't affected?'
At a time when seemingly everyone from President Barack Obama on down is talking about "clean coal," the spill showed it's anything but.
Yet the debacle has had another, potentially more far-reaching, impact: it has displayed in the most graphic manner imaginable just how dirty coal is. The agency never followed through on that determination, though. On December 22, ten years to the day after a dike ruptured at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant near Kingston, Tennessee, pouring more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash …
By May 4 the Emory, which might flow at 1,000 cubic feet per second on a normal day, churned up to nearly 70,000 cubic feet per second—about four or five times the volume of the Colorado River as it charges through the Grand Canyon. The cleanup effort, which the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing, could cost as much as $1 billion (though estimates continue to climb) and take years to complete. Swept up by some mighty force, it tore clear of its foundation and rumbled off like a derailed freight car.
Six months later, scientists have a better idea the full impact of the December 2008 coal ash spill. But he thinks TVA should at least compensate him for the diminished value of his land—a request the company has ruled out.
Every few minutes he's racked by a harsh barking cough. "The system was already saturated" with selenium, he says. "TVA has fanned suspicions further by seeming to downplay the dangers of the released ash. Until all the ash ponds and landfills are cleaned upâand we stop burning coalâthe risk to U.S. drinking water supplies remains. Dredge it, and you risk sending a stream of toxins downriver. "With no good options, TVA is just trying to dredge the ash out of the river as quickly and carefully as possible.
But the view—not much more than a green field—is nothing like that pond.One recent afternoon, the couple visited the site of their old home.
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