iLoveMountains.org, a coalition fighting mountaintop removal coal mining, of which Appalachian Voices is a partner organization has launched a comprehensive section of information including links to news, blog posts, photos, and videos of the event as well as detailed information about coal fly ash, historical accounts of other similar incidents, and personal accounts of the current event.
Visit ilovemountains.org/tvaspill.
Jan 6th, 2009 by admin
from www.appvoices.org View the complete results (pdf)
High levels of toxic heavy metals are present in samples taken from the Kingston Fossil Plant ash spill in Harriman, TN, independent testing shows.
Preliminary testing was conducted on samples from the Emory River by scientists working in coordination with Appalachian Voices and the Waterkeeper Alliance’s Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Program.
Concentrations of eight toxic chemicals range from twice to 300 times higher than drinking water limits, according to scientists with Appalachian State University who conducted the tests.
“Although these results are preliminary, we want to release them because of the public health concern and because we believe the TVA and EPA aren’t being candid,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chair of the Waterkeeper Alliance.
The tests were conducted this week at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry labs at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, by Dr. Shea Tuberty, Associate Professor of Biology, and Dr. Carol Babyak, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
Tuberty and Babyak conducted tests for 17 different heavy metals in triplicate using standard EPA methods. The samples were collected on Saturday, December 27 by Watauga Riverkeeper
Donna Lisenby from three separate locations on the Emory River.
According to the tests, arsenic levels from the Kingston power plant intake canal tested at close to 300 times the allowable amounts in drinking water, while a sample from two miles
downstream still revealed arsenic at approximately 30 times the allowed limits. Lead was present at between twice to 21 times the legal drinking water limits, and thallium levels tested at three to
four times the allowable amounts.
Continue Reading »
Jan 6th, 2009 by admin
From Coal River Mountain Watch
For years the residents of Prenter Hollow in Boone County, WV have been drinking and bathing in contaminated groundwater. The toxic slurry that is left after coal is processed before going to the power plant was injected into underground mine shafts in the hills above Prenter Hollow. After years of gravity and blasting form nearby mountaintop removal operations, the slurry made it’s way into the wells of the residents of Prenter Hollow.
Residents in Prenter got organized and demanded clean drinking water. After a year of campaigning and following the lead of folks in the community of Rawl in Mingo County who went through this same experience, the plans and much of the funding are there to lay water lines throughout the community. But even with being bumped up to the top of the list, those lines are at least two years away.
Cancer, kidney problems and stomach problems are very common in Prenter, not to mention that almost everyone has had their gall bladder removed. Drinking this water for another two years is not a healthy option for the resident of Prenter, so we are helping set up a program to deliver clean water right to people’s homes. The PSD put a spigot on the end of the line just short of the mouth of Prenter Hollow. We put 50 gallon drums with pumps at all the houses and will be filling them regularly.
Please visit www.PrenterWaterFund.org to learn more and donate to help provide clean water to the residents of Prenter Hollow.
Jan 6th, 2009 by admin
from www.kftc.org – (ed. note, you can also explore www.followthecoalmoney.org to learn about how much money your politicians are taking from the coal industry.)
It may come as no surprise that mining companies ponied up cash in this last election cycle to candidates. According to the latest figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, mining companies opened up their wallet to a tune of $1.8 million to federal candidates (House and Senate) running for office in 2008. 35% of that amount went to Democrats and 65% went to Republicans.
The National Mining Association was the all-star in the group of 27 mining PACS compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics with donations of more than $630,000. Arch came in at $180,000 even and Peabody fell in at over $150,000.
And if you support people in politics, not corporate mining profits in politics, join us for the 2009 “I Love Mountains” Rally and Lobby Day at the state capitol in Frankfort, KY in February — where we will tell mining companies that they can’t bury our streams and destroy our communities. Stay tuned to this blog for details coming shortly!
Jan 5th, 2009 by admin
I spent most of the Christmas-New Years holiday at ground zero in Kingston, Tennessee, documenting the coal ash disaster at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston coal-fired power plant. I believe that this huge and terrible catastrophe may be the worst man-made environmental disaster since Chernobyl.
It is difficult to grasp the immense size of this toxic nightmare.
Before it failed, the ash mountain was 55 feet high and 40 acres in size. The trucks working on the site now look like ants. And it’s all toxic waste.
However, Rahall’s proposal would place the safety of the coal ash impoundments under the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and/or the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM), the same entities charged with preventing disasters like Massey’s Martin County Kentucky coal slurry spill in October 2000.
Dec 22nd, 2008 by admin
Update (Thanks Dave Cooper): This Tennessee TVA spill is over 40-48 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, if local news accounts are correct. This is a huge environmental disaster of epic proportions; approximately 1 Billion gallons of nasty black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. We’re “lucky” it was sludgy and slow moving, or thousands could have died. Click here to see an amazing aerial video of the spill - the big chunks in the river are mounds of coal ash.
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Suprisingly, the industry still says that coal will be “clean” if we find out how to sequester the carbon– here is more terrible proof they are wrong. On Monday, 39 groups, including our friends with the Citizens Coal Council and The Alliance for Appalachia banded together to ask President-Elect Obama to overturn Bush’s recent attempts to de-regulate coal ash even more.
In some twist of grim irony, the night before these groups sent out their demand for increased regulation of coal ash, 4 to 6 feet of toxic coal ash and ice cold slurry burst out of a faulty TVA containment pond in Eastern Tennessee and destroyed 12 homes, 400 acres, and wrecked a train; you can read more about it in the Knoxville News Sentinel. This break isn’t the first terrible sludge dam disaster. It is a huge tragedy, and we won’t know for years how the mercury, arsenic, and other toxic heavy metals like beryllium and cadmium commonly found in coal ash will have impacted the local community and wildlife.
Coal ash is what is leftover when you burn coal. Coal ash is an enormous problem throughout the US. It is more radioactive than nuclear waste, according to Scientific American and is under-regulated. It is made into concrete, drywall, and as a road building material. People living near coal ash dumps have been estimated to have up to 900 times the national cancer rates.
I might hazard a guess that that cancer figure just increased even more in eastern Tennessee.
Dec 19th, 2008 by admin
from www.wvhighlands.org by Cindy Rank
As tempting as it is to become excited about this Reality Coalition campaign I feel compelled to remind us all that the Alliance for Climate Protection is focused only on the emissions aspect of burning coal. The assumption being that once CO2 is captured and stored (as if that will ever be possible) then we have “clean coal”.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL —
Well — you catch my drift…..Thank goodness some state, local and regional groups as well as some of the national groups are not limiting their efforts to concerns about emissions and wearing blinders to all other aspects of the whole cycle of coal - from cradle to grave so to speak.
Dec 18th, 2008 by admin
For many residents of Wilson Creek, Kentucky, this season is less joyous than usual.
That’s because Wilson Creek is the latest mountain to be added to our list of America’s Most Endangered Mountains.
A major coal company has moved in to this small Kentucky community, with plans to blow up the ridge top above the right side of Wilson Creek. Their plans include three valley fills, which would bury the headwaters of Wilson Creek and Big Fork.
The majority of the 94 families who call Wilson Creek home are fighting to save their homes and their way of life from the devastation of mountaintop removal coal mining. But they need your help getting the word out about their struggle.
Dec 18th, 2008 by admin
President-Elect Obama’s new Secretary of the Department of Energy has not been shy about the fact that the United States has to transition away from coal to survive.
In fact, Chu says:
Coal is my worst nightmare.
Dr. Chu, currently Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Stanford University professor, also says he doubts that carbon sequestration is an effective tool to save the coal industry.
Chu said existing pilot projects involving a few million tons of carbon dioxide sequestration are far too small to tell if the process would work on the scale needed.
“It’s sort of a research and development issue,” he said. “I think we have to do this if we’re going to go forward with coal, but it’s not a guarantee that we have a solution with coal.”
Dec 12th, 2008 by admin
This remarkable testimony by Robert F. Kennedy highlights nearly every issue that citizens are facing with mountaintop removal; from the undermining of the Unions and worker safety issues to the illegality of the permitting process, and on and on.
You can learn more about this hearing here:
From global warming to water quality to endangered species to clean air, the Bush administration is pushing harder than ever to advance its anti-environmental agenda by rescinding, changing, or issuing rules, with negative consequences for our natural resources, environment, and America’s energy policy.
A panel of environmental and regulatory experts discussed the ramifications of these last-minute rulemakings at a hearing on December 11, 2008 before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.