If you think this could never happen in your neighborhood, you may be mistaken. The EPA has deemed 44 sites (that store their toxic sludge the same way as the plant in Tennessee) across the nation a high hazard, due to their methods of storing toxic sludge.
It often seems that we, as a nation, live in a culture of little or no concern for the impact our choices and decisions have on others and our future, that we just attempt to pass off the real cost of the things we buy and use.
On December 22, 2008, a wall containing a pool of waste from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-burning power plant, burst and flooded the streets of Harriman, Tennessee. Up until then, waste was just being piled up and piled up in a landfill. No one outside of the town housing the pool of toxins had bothered to ask the simple question: What was happening with the waste from the power plant? Out of sight, out of mind. But when a pool of toxic waste, up to 60 feet high, poured through neighborhoods, everyone began to see what happens when, as a society, we ask for things like cheap electricity without demanding things like safe and responsible removal and cleanup of the byproducts.
The flood of 1 billion gallons of toxic waste that covered 300 acres of land was an ironic event. What had brought so much to Harriman, as well as surrounding communities, was also what nearly destroyed it (luckily, in the actual flooding, no one was killed and only about a dozen houses were destroyed). The town had grown to love the Kingston power plant. By hiring the people of the town, the plant became its lifeblood, supplying careers to families for generations. And all the jobs created a bustling town (workers needed homes, food, clothes, entertainment, etc.). One local grandmother, in a written response to a report on the disaster, said that she still could not be mad at the Kingston plant because without it, her kids would not have jobs or homes or families.
The toxic waste that flooded Kingston is called “fly ash.” When we think of coal-burning power plants, we think of huge stacks spitting out toxic waste into the air in the form of white smoke. Federal laws attempting to clean up the air have issued regulations requiring power plants like the one in Kingston to install scrubbers that basically grab the smoke before it hits the air. But there is still pollution—so where does it go? Since the federal government has not regulated this new type of waste, one that seems to be more potent than what was previously released into the air, the power plants of America have a lot of wiggle room to dispose of the toxic waste as they see fit. A common disposal approach has been to mix the dry fly ash with water and dump the liquid sludge into a landfill. The water is used to keep the fly ash from staying too dry and polluting the air. And the reason why the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has now spent a full year trying to clean up a 300-acre toxic spill is because the wall holding back that toxic sludge burst.
There are more than 1,300 of these toxic landfills across the U.S. The dams holding up the pools are deemed a high hazard, by the EPA, at 44 of the 1,300 locations. And 12 of these hazardous dams are located in North Carolina. These toxic pools are less regulated than household trash, and while a 2007 EPA report learned that many of the pools of waste are contaminating groundwater and wells, authorities have, on the whole, failed to act. Why toxic? Because last anyone checked, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, beryllium, and lead are all toxic, cancer-causing, birth-defect producing substances. In fact, some of the toxic sludge pools are even known to contain radioactive elements.
Yet, when the wall at the Kingston power plant, one that held back 40 times more pollution than what was unleashed in the Exxon Valdez spill, broke, the Federal government was still classifying the toxic sludge as non-hazardous material. And that makes perfect sense—if you live in the Twilight Zone. After all, it’s the only way to explain how, ordinarily, mercury would be considered toxic and hazardous, yet when you mix it with water and other toxic chemicals, and proceed to rename it sludge, it’s not hazardous. That makes sense, right?
You see, by creating a new name, the Federal government can say the substance with this new name is safe until it’s been tested to determine otherwise. Take carbon monoxide. Its deadly when you lock yourself in the garage and have your car running, yet when you rename it and spray it on beef (which is done in the U.S.), it’s perfectly safe (until tested), a little fact I learned after listening to the FDA answer questions on Capitol Hill a few years back. Thanks once again to the interests of the powerful in this country and their army of lobbyists, we are now able to buy beef sprayed with poison that looks fresh, even when it isn’t, and we can officially call mercury non-hazardous—even when it isn’t. These powerful forces have been able to stop the Federal government from regulating anything that can cut into company profits. That could explain why the government body that regulates the environment, the EPA, has been on record since the 1980s as saying they have to create guidelines on how to store and dispose of toxic sludge, while the reality is that they have been doing nothing.
50% of power plants in the U.S. run on coal, and every step of the process of removing coal, from the ground, to shipping it, to burning it, has an outside cost that is passed on to someone else so that you and I can pay reasonable rates for electricity. And at every step of the process, the Federal government has failed to set up safety standards to protect American citizens from harm.
The most popular way to remove coal these days is known as “mountaintop removal mining,” where explosives are used to destroy mountaintops to remove the coal. The external unseen cost of this is the devastation to the landscape. On one level, the landscape loses its raw, untapped beauty. But on another level, without the proper landscape, rains now create floods and mudslides, destroying homes and communities. Meanwhile, the men that are in the mine, physically digging out the coal, are breathing in pollution for years and decades after. And God forbid a mine collapses because the owners of the mine failed to carry out the bare minimum in safety standards. We have all seen a few of these tragic stories on the news just in the past decade.
When coal is shipped by railcar, there is a dust of coal blown in the air, which is unsafe to breathe. And when that coal is burned, the waste is usually blown out of the smoke stacks into the air, polluting the air and lungs of the community. But even with the new technology, and federal laws backing it up, that has made it possible to grab some of the pollution before it is sent into the atmosphere, a new question arises and an old one remains: What to do and what is being done with the new pollution, and where is the Federal government with their regulations?
Stay tuned for Part II of Ian’s report. In the meantime, check out these links for more information –
Tennessee Coal Ash Survivors Network
- a network set up to raise worldwide awareness of the Harriman coal ash disaster, with the mission of educating, assisting, and empowering communities concerning the impact of coal waste on their health and environment
One Year Later: America’s Worst Environmental Disaster Continues with No Regulatory Relief in Sight
- a press release from Earthjustice about the Tennessee spill that sent 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into nearby homes, rivers, and communities
Tennessee sludge contains elevated levels of arsenic
- a CNN report a few weeks after the disaster, regarding the dangers posed to residents from the contents of the spill
TVA Coal is Killing Tennessee
- a blog focused on news, updates, and reports on the worsening coal disaster
Lessons Learned from Last Year's TVA Coal Ash Spill
- a recent entry in the blog of Rob Perks, Director, Center for Advocacy Campaigns, Washington, D.C.
EPA Releases the Toxic 44 (coal fly ash ponds you WON’T take home to mama)
- an entry in the Appalachian Voice Front Porch Blog regarding the release of the names of 44 coal fly ash waste sites with high hazard potential, despite attempts by the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the list private
Ian August is author of the Nations of Rumi. He has a B.A. in Political Science and is very interested in government issues and actions. In his spare time, he is trying to reach enlightenment (but not too hard, because it’s supposed to be effortless).