Broken promises follow Tennessee coal ash disaster

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http://www.grist.org/article/broken-promises-follow-tennessee-coal-ash-disaster


It was one year ago today that a 60-foot-tall dam broke at a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant in Roane County, Tenn., dumping more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash onto a nearby community and into the Clinch and Emory rivers.

The largest industrial waste spill in U.S. history, the ash slide covered more than half a square mile, damaging 42 residential properties, knocking one home completely off its foundation and rendering three others uninhabitable. It dumped some 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants including arsenic, lead, and mercury into the nearby rivers—more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007, according to a recent analysis. The pollutants in coal ash have been linked to health problems including cancer, liver damage and nervous-system disorders.

The disaster pushed the obscure issue of coal ash waste disposal into the national spotlight and spurred the Tennessee Valley Authority and federal regulators to promise swift action to prevent anything like it from occurring again.

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Shortly after the incident, at a public meeting held in the Roane County community of Harriman, Tenn., TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore told affected residents that the utility would make them whole again and clean up the waste in six to eight weeks. But today, the Emory River remains closed to public traffic near the spill, ponds in the area are still clogged with several feet of coal ash, and dust from the ash is a chronic problem for local residents, some of whom complain of related health problems including coughing, nosebleeds, and headaches.

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“Residents here have letters from pulmonologists, cardiologists, and family doctors stating that they need to move or be relocated until the cleanup is complete,” says Randy Ellis, a Swan Pond resident and a member of the Roane County Long Term Recovery Committee. “Their concerns and health are being totally ignored by the TVA.”

But coal ash is not a hazard only for the people living near TVA’s Kingston plant: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented 584 coal ash waste disposal sites across the United States and classifies 49 of those as high-hazard, meaning that a breach in their impoundments could kill people.

At the same time, an unknown number of those sites are leaking contaminants into the environment—a disaster less dramatic than what happened at Kingston but still dangerous to human health. Most coal ash surface impoundments in the U.S. are still unlined and thus pose the very real risk of water contamination. In fact, coal ash disposal sites have already poisoned surface or groundwater supplies in at least 23 states, while all 13 of those operated by the two major utilities in North Carolina are leaking contaminants to groundwater.

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The EPA said it expects to issue a proposed rule in the “near future.” Environmental advocates say they hope that means early next month.

“The Obama administration has pledged to let law and science guide its environmental decisions, not the arm twisting of industry lobbyists,” according to a statement from Earthjustice, the Environmental Integrity Project, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club. “That is a promise President Obama must keep.”
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the EPA and the W.H. need some sharp, hard, jabs from our elbows. to get them moving on this before another ash pond breaks.

how come the EPA hasn't ramped up much since Obama was elected? they did next to nothing under the neo cons. are too many neo cons still in the EPA causing trouble and delays?

[snagglepuss]

1. Good question. K & R. nt