OT: Coal Ash Spill Revives Issues of Its Hazards

[Guest guest]

Maybe this will open some eyes and ears to our toxic environment and

polluters since they said this stuff is safe (from one in a coal-

fired state)

NY TIMES, December 25, 2008

Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards

By SHAILA DEWAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?

pagewanted=2 & _r=1 & th & emc=th

KINGSTON, Tenn. — What may be the nation's largest spill of coal ash

lay thick and largely untouched over hundreds of acres of land and

waterways Wednesday after a dam broke this week, as officials and

environmentalists argued over its potential toxicity.

Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant

quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can

cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no official word on

the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, displaced residents spent

Christmas Eve worried about their health and their property, and

wondering what to do.

The spill took place at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a Tennessee Valley

Authority generating plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville on the

banks of the Emory River, which feeds into the Clinch River, and then

the Tennessee River just downstream.

Holly Schean, a waitress whose home, which she shared with her

parents, was swept off its foundation when millions of cubic yards of

ash breached a retaining wall early Monday morning, said, " They're

giving their apologies, which don't mean very much. "

The T.V.A., Ms. Schean said, has not yet declared the house

uninhabitable. But, she said: " I don't need your apologies. I need

information. "

Even as the authority played down the risks, the spill reignited a

debate over whether the federal government should regulate coal ash

as a hazardous material. Similar ponds and mounds of ash exist at

hundreds of coal plants around the nation.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has issued no warnings about the

potential chemical dangers of the spill, saying there was as yet no

evidence of toxic substances. " Most of that material is inert, " said

Gilbert Francis Jr., a spokesman for the authority. " It does have

some heavy metals within it, but it's not toxic or anything. "

Mr. Francis said contaminants in water samples taken near the spill

site and at the intake for the town of Kingston, six miles

downstream, were within acceptable levels.

But a draft report last year by the federal Environmental Protection

Agency found that fly ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal to

produce electricity, does contain significant amounts of carcinogens

and retains the heavy metal present in coal in far higher

concentrations. The report found that the concentrations of arsenic

to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated

by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold.

Similarly, a 2006 study by the federally chartered National Research

Council found that these coal-burning byproducts " often contain a

mixture of metals and other constituents in sufficient quantities

that they may pose public health and environmental concerns if

improperly managed. " The study said " risks to human health and

ecosystems " might occur when these contaminants entered drinking

water supplies or surface water bodies.

In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter

federal controls of coal ash, but backed away in the face of fierce

opposition from utilities, the coal industry, and Clinton

administration officials. At the time, the Edison Electric Institute,

an association of power utilities, estimated that the industry would

have to spend up to $5 billion in additional cleanup costs if the

substance were declared hazardous. Since then, environmentalists have

urged tighter federal standards, and the E.P.A. is reconsidering its

decision not to classify the waste as hazardous.

A morning flight over the disaster area showed some cleanup activity

along a road and the railroad tracks that take coal to the facility,

both heaped in sludge, but no evidence of promised skimmers or

barricades on the water to prevent the ash from sliding downstream.

The breach occurred when an earthen dike, the only thing separating

millions of cubic yards of ash from the river, gave way, releasing a

glossy sea of muck, four to six feet thick, dotted with icebergs of

ash across the landscape. Where the Clinch River joined the

Tennessee, a clear demarcation was visible between the soiled waters

of the former and the clear brown broth of the latter.

By afternoon, dump trucks were depositing rock into the river in a

race to blockade it before an impending rainstorm washed more ash

downstream.

The spill, which released about 300 million gallons of sludge and

water, is far larger than the other two similar disasters, said

Stant, the director of the Coal Combustion Waste Initiative

for the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental legal

group, who has written on the subject for the E.P.A. One spill in

1967 on the Clinch River in Virginia released about 130 million

gallons, and the other in 2005 in Northampton County, Pa., released

about 100 million gallons into the Delaware River.

The contents of coal ash can vary widely depending on the source, but

one study found that the mean concentrations of lead, chromium,

nickel and arsenic are three to five times higher in the Appalachian

coal that is mined near Kingston than in Rocky Mountain or Northern

Plains coal.

A. , the executive director of the Southern Alliance for

Clean Energy, said it was " mind-boggling " that officials had not

warned nearby residents of the dangers.

" The fact that they have not warned people, I think, is disastrous

and potentially harmful to the residents, " Mr. said. " There are

people walking around, checking it out. "

He and other environmentalists warned that another danger would arise

when the muck dried out and became airborne and breathable.

Despite numerous reports from recreational anglers and television

news video of a large fish kill downstream of the spill, Mr. Francis

said the T.V.A.'s environmental team had not encountered any dead

fish. On Swan Pond Road, home to the residences nearest the plant, a

group of environmental advocates went door to door telling residents

that boiling their water, as officials had suggested, would not

remove heavy metals.

Environmentalists pointed to the accident as proof of their long-held

assertion that there is no such thing as " clean coal, " noting two

factors that may have contributed to the scale of the disaster.

First, as coal plants have gotten better at controlling air

pollution, the toxic substances that would have been spewed into the

air have been shifted to solid byproducts like fly ash, and the

production of such postcombustion waste, as it is called, has

increased sharply.

Second, the Kingston plant, surrounded by residential tracts, had

little room to grow and simply piled its ash higher and higher,

though officials said the pond whose wall gave way was not over

capacity.

Environmental groups have long pressed for coal ash to be buried in

lined landfills to prevent the leaching of metals into the soil and

groundwater, a recommendation borne out by the 2006 E.P.A. report. An

above-ground embankment like the one at Kingston was not an

appropriate storage site for fly ash, said J. FitzGerald, the

director of nonprofit Kentucky Resources Council and an expert in

coal waste.

" I find it difficult to comprehend that the State of Tennessee would

have approved that as a permanent disposal site, " Mr. FitzGerald said.

The T.V.A. will find an alternative place to dispose of the fly ash

in the future, Mr. Francis said. He said that at least 30 pieces of

heavy machinery had been put in use to begin the cleanup of the

estimated 1.7 million cubic yards of ash that spilled from the 80-

acre pond, and that work would continue day and night, even on

Christmas. The plant, which generates enough electricity to support

670,000 homes, is still functioning, but might run out of coal before

the railroad tracks are cleared.

About 15 houses were affected by the flood, Mr. Francis said, and

three would likely be declared uninhabitable. " We're going to make it

right, " he said. " We're going to restore these folks to where they

were prior to this incident. "

A spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency, Niles,

said the agency was overseeing the cleanup and would decide whether

to declare Kingston a Superfund site when the extent of the

contamination was known.

United States coal plants produce 129 million tons of postcombustion

byproducts a year, the second-largest waste stream in the country,

after municipal solid waste. That is enough to fill more than a

million railroad coal cars, according to the National Research

Council.

Another 2007 E.P.A. report said that over about a decade, 67 towns in

26 states had their groundwater contaminated by heavy metals from

such dumps.

For instance, in Anne Arundel County, Md., between Baltimore and

polis, residential wells were polluted by heavy metals, including

thallium, cadmium and arsenic, leaching from a sand-and-gravel pit

where ash from a local power plant had been dumped since the mid-

1990s by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. land fined the

company $1 million in 2007.

As it grew dark in Kingston, a hard rain enveloped Roane County,

rendering the twin smokestacks of the steam plant, as locals refer to

it, barely visible amid the dingy clouds.

Spurgeon, a teacher and mother of two whose dock was smothered

in the ash-slide, said she was worried about the health effects,

saying that on the night of the accident everyone was covered in

sludge.

" The breathing is what concerns me, the lung issues, " Ms. Spurgeon

said. " Who knows what's in that water? "

Felicity Barringer and Robbie Brown contributed reporting.