2.6 Million Cubic Yards of Toxic Coal Ash Slurry Released in Tennessee Dike Burst
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 12.24.08
An environmental disaster of epic proportions just happened in Tennessee. Monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train.
According to the EPA the cleanup will take at least several weeks, but could take years. Officials also said that the magnitude of this spill is such that the entire area could be declared a federal superfund site.
Toxic Sludge Got Into Tributary of Chattanooga Water Supply
Apart from the immediate physical damage, the issue is what toxic substances are in that sludge: Mercury, arsenic, lead, beryllium, cadmium. Though officials said the amounts of these poisons in the sludge could not be determined on Monday, they could (at the mild end) irritate skin or trigger allergies or (longer term) cause cancer or neurological problems.
This toxic sludge got into the Emory River, a tributary of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers: The water supply for Chattanooga, Tennessee as well as millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. TVA says that as yet the spill (which they are characterizing as a mudslide or landslide, but frankly it's still toxic...) has not affected the water quality in the Emory River.
High Levels of Rain, Thaw Freeze Cycles May Have Weakened Pond Walls
On why the spill happened, the Tennessean speculated,
The area received almost 5 inches of rain this month, compared with the usual 2.8 inches. Freeze and thaw cycles may have undermined the sides of the pond. The last formal report on the condition of the 40-acre pond — an unlined, earthen structure — was issued in January and was unavailable Monday, officials said.
Greenpeace Calls for Criminal Investigation
In a press release issued yesterday, noting that spills of similar substances have resulted in felony charges, Greenpeace called for a criminal investigation into the spill:
"Every facility like this is supposed to have a spill contingency plan to prevent this kind of disaster," said Rick Hind, Greenpeace Legislative Director. "The authorities need to get to the bottom of what went wrong and hold the responsible parties accountable."
TVA Releases Official Statement
In an official statement, TVA president and CEO Tom Kilgore said,
Protecting the public, our employees, and the environment is TVA’s primary concern as we supply electric power for the people of Tennessee Valley region. We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to nearby homes.We are grateful no injuries have been reported, and we will take all appropriate actions to assist those affected by this situation.
We appreciate the continuing efforts of local and state agencies, as well as TVA employees, to respond to this situation quickly and efficiently. Our intense effort to respond effectively will continue 24/7 for the foreseeable future with the safety of the public our top priority.
Clean Coal, Yeah Right
As many people in the blog world are noting, it's this sort of thing that really makes the proposition of clean coal so absurd. Even if you can scrub all the CO2 out of it, you still have so many other toxic waste products associated with burning coal that have to be stored that carbon emissions are just a part of the problem. How many other holding ponds are out there waiting to burst?
Update: Epic Environmental Fail: Landowners sue Tennessee Valley Authority for $165M over Coal Ash Spill
More: The Tennessean, It’s Getting Hot In Here, Greenpeace, Scholars and Rogues
Coal, Clean Coal
There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal
The Real Clean Coal? Former Mine Becomes Clean Energy Village
Clean Coal Carolers From An Industry Run by Morons
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
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Oh the irony, that google adwords placed an ad for clean coal under this article:
Clean Coal Technology - www.AmericasPower.org/
The reality: It’s here And it’s made coal 70% cleaner.
Clean coal, my tookus.
Merry christmas everyone, and if you have the option through your utility pay for green power, if you don't have the option through the utility - buy offsets.
holy crap.
In other news, recession ends for Coal Lawyers and thousand of people living in Eastern Tennessee.
Isn't it true that this sludge is 100x more RADIOACTIVE than nuclear waste (in addition to all the toxins listed here)?
Take a radiation detector to a coal ash pile someday, then compare your readings to what we allow nuclear plants to leak. Strike three for coal, you're outta there...
I'm expecting this type of story about the tar sands here in Alberta any day. If you substitute "coal ash slurry" for tailings pond water. Disaster waiting to happen.
From what I've been told, if the Watts Bar unit 2 nuclear reactor had been completed back when it was originally intended, this coal plant would have been shut down by the TVA and this whole thing might have been avoided.
This is a stark reminder of industrial dimension cause industrial devastation. Many people believe that the coal dust covered miners emerge from a shaft with train loads of coal. Nothing could be further from the truth as is that the coal that was mind is just carbon. Since strip mining and the world's largest equipment it not only spews toxic elements into the air but washes them into the water table and nearby rivers. It is not just the toxic brother Mercury, Arsenic, lead, beryllium, cadmium but also the radio active nuclear Sisters Uranium, Cobalt and all kinds of isotopes. This would be without impact if we still lived in the 19th century with less then a Billion people on earth and a miner with a shovel. We have managed to poison the sea, the water, the ground and the air. We are on the best way to poison ourselves. Happy Green Coal day.
This article along with the video provide a good overview of this catastrophe.
Coal generates over 50% of America's electricity, and we have about 600 coal plants. Coal pollutes when it is mined, transported to the power plant, stored, and burned.
Each of the coal plants in the US has some sort of coal waste repository or holding pond. As well, there are holding ponds for the wastes from coal mining.
The alarming factor from this TVA catastrophe is that Bush has just relaxed the regulations for mining and other wastes - therefore allowing them to be dumped in close proximity to wetlands, rivers, lakes and ponds.
As we are now learning - freshwater is our most precious asset on Earth. Let's hope more enlightened leadership will reverse such foolishness.
Yes, this is a tragedy.
However, it is a result of an 'environmentalist movement' that did not want any new nuclear energy plants.
You keep wanting lower and lower tech solutions. Newsflash: 7 billion people will not be able to grow their own food. We need high tech solutions.
Like laser launchers to economically get payload into orbit. Where a lot of manufacturing can take place (incidentally, keeping a lot of pollution off the earth.)
Or Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
Why is it that I do not see this story in any of the major newspapers?
Another irony is that when TVA finishes the cleanup and assesses the cost, they'll just pass that cost on down to the customer's electric bills.
At the time these protective ponds were built, just like the dikes around New Orleans, there was no account for a "worst scenario". They were, and still are, designed with saving money for the "company" in mind. They just don't want to recognize all the other not-in-dollars costs.
Anyway, to continue using coal and other fossil forms of limited energy is cheaper in dollars for the present mentality of the country's public and private leadership.
Hopefully the country's new visionary leadership will be affective enough to influence a major attitude change in us consumers.
Don't look now, but it is OUR USE of the current forms of energy that drives the energy companies to do what they do.
Closely related, I am just ecstatic at the recent rapid drop in the price of a barrel of oil. This was caused by a measurable reduction in vehicle use by us, the consumer - even with one big cut in oil production recently by OPEC and another one coming in a few days or so.
Hang in there fellow Americans! We can do it.
We should be outraged that things like this happen.
"Take a radiation detector to a coal ash pile someday, then compare your readings to what we allow nuclear plants to leak. Strike three for coal, you're outta there."
Ironically, without the useless obstructionism of Watts bar I and II by the antis the Kingston coal plant would have been made superfluous and shut down long ago.
p.s. The Kingston coal plant exhaust has been known to set of the radiation alarms at ORNL when the wind lies just right.
This should not be blamed on freez and rain.
Their were known leaks and a wet spot had been seen! This is someone taking a shortcut to save a buck. The feds should not pay to clean this. THe company should. I hope those who chose not to fix the wet spot and leaks are forced to roll in it and make their faimilys drink the water at the point of entry.
Marry Christmas
Say a prayer for all those who just lost their homes to the Kingston mining disaster that released a coal ash sludge that plowed through 15 homes and in to the river system that that provides drinking water from Tennessee to Alabama. Say a prayer for those who are spending this Christmas worrying about their health. To the mother who is preparing a babies bottle with tap water and hasn’t heard of the disaster yet. To the child reaching for a glass of water. For all those who are in the winds path when the sludge dries and turns to dust. The mining disaster is 40 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. “It is ok to drink the water for a few days because Although video from the scene shows dead fish on the banks of the tributary, he said that "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic." Interview from Cnn. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/tennessee.sludge.spill/index.html . The wet ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and benzine is covering 400 acres of land and 15 homes not including what has entered the drinking water. It causes neurological problems and increases the risk of cancer sever hundred fold. Pray fro all those victims, and those that don’t know they will become a victim. You can see an aerial view of the damage here.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/lets-go-clean-coal-yeah-baby-more-kingston-mine-gifts-to-the-people-and-environment
Please sign the above petition and this one
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/green-power-plants
As a response to Soylent, I was born and raised in Knoxville and my grandfather retired from T.V.A. I have never heard of Kingston steam plant seting alarms off at Oak Ridge the plant was built to power O.R.N.L. This is a bad accident but just know most of T.V.A.s power comes from hydro at dams along the Tennessee river and they use a lot of wind(look up windrock in olver springs its just past oak ridge) we need coal for power how do you expect we get enough to supply the demand.
I saw this on the news the other day and was wondering exactly what this "sludge" they kept mentioning was. I had assumed that it was the sludge from coal ash, but the new program(s) never said this. Wonder why?!
(No, I don't.)
"...I have never heard of Kingston steam plant seting alarms off at Oak Ridge the plant was built to power..."
They have very sensitive continous air monitors. You can detect radiation in miniscule amounts and coal exhaust is way above background.
I can't remember what they're using them for, but I suspect it's to detect and monitor nuclear weapons testing.
Sad thing is THE COAL INDUSTRY will be more concerned about how to open the railway to make more of this. They will be more concerned about what this will do to their image than what it is doing to the environment.
Nothing else to see here folks, move along, the fish froze to death, this is clean coal.
You know if a crack is found on a jetliner the whole model is grounded until the problem is fixed, why not do the same for clean coal operations ?
Greed has destroyed East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia.
Time to update the disaster--they now are saying 5.4 million cubic yards, which is more the double the original number. Give them some time and it may go even higher! Just another noxious side effect of burning coal. But no worry as it isn't a health hazard or environmental disaster. Just trust them, because they are the experts and would never try to cover up the truth. Absolutely nothing toxic in the ash and they would sprinkle it on their oatmeal to prove it.
Keep voting Republican
I hope everyone understands that we all get what we deserve, right?
The true legacy of the Reagan/Bush years
Fortunately, there won't be any accidents at Yucca Mountain.
I agree that this is a total disaster and that somebody should stand up and take full responsibility for this, but remember people, when you go home and turn on your lights at night, it's because a coal miner risked his life to did that shit out of the mountain. We certainly need cleaner sources of energy, but this is the one we have now.
In the 12/29/08 New York Times article, it said
in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese
Ah, numbers. Just looking at the first, arsenic, the plant puts 45,000 pounds in the storage pond. Every year?
However, the article also says this plant provides power for 670,000 households. I wondered how much arsenic was being produced for each household, so I divided
45,000 + 670,000 = 0.067 pounds per household
That doesn't tell me much, so I converted to ounces
0.067 X 16 = 1.07 ounces, ok that makes sense, about an ounce per household. If you like metric, that's about 28 grams per household.
Then, I wondered, just how toxic is arsenic? One measure is, how much would it take to kill you?
From Manbir Online:
The reported lethal dose of arsenic ranges from 120 to 200 mg in adults and is 2 mg/kg in children.
So 200 milligram will kill just about anyone, so you can kill 5 people with one gram. So with each households production of 28 grams, that's enough to kill 140 people. Per household, per year.
Now that's worst case, and we can handle quite a bit of arsenic in our bodies, arsenic is a natural part of the planet. On the other hand, arsenic does accumulate in our bodies over time.
Arsenic is just not a nice thing to have around, so if we can make less, that is a good thing.
And then there's the lead, 49,000 lbs/year. But you already know about lead.
"in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese"
You forgot about mercury and cadmium.
Chromium and manganese do not belong in the same sentence as arsenic and lead; they are essential trace minerals without which most plants and animals die and in time they will become diluted down to reasonable levels.
Mercury, cadmium, lead and arsenic are potentially hazzardous far below lethal levels(e.g. arsenic is a carcinogen, mercury interferes with the mental development of children...).
It matters a lot which form of the compound we are talking about, e.g. insoluble cinnabar is far less toxic than elemental mercury which is far less toxic than methylmercury.
"So 200 milligram will kill just about anyone, so you can kill 5 people with one gram. So with each households production of 28 grams, that's enough to kill 140 people. Per household, per year."
I can kill infinity people by drowning them in single bathtub. That makes water infinetly toxic.
Sorry, you're going to have to make an actual evaulation of how much arsenic people will be exposed to and what level of hazzard it represents to get a non-silly result.
I live just around the bend from where this happened, in Asheville NC - and we were getting air pollution from the release of this stuff so bad, people were suffering from headaches, bloody noses, nausea, breathing difficulties and other variesd allergy symptom.s The air smelled so bad two days ago, it was like a mixture of exhaust, roach spray, beer, and burned poison.
Many people here have had flu like symptoms too for the last week.
A meeting for people living along roads running along river (that want to leave) is Sunday. Erin Brokovich is going to be there. Question is: Will this be a meeting to assist people in relocating OR an attempt to convince them there is no danger in staying.
I have a relative whose house you can see in the news coverage. I would have evacuated that day. & would have gathered some woodland creatures from my yard to monitor (& hopefully save).
Regarding the alarms allegedly going off in Oak Ridge: Where is this information coming from? I'm sure the alarm wasn't like the one when the golf course is closing (was an internal affairs item).
What about the people that have lived adjacent to this cesspool all along? & the wildlife that has partaken of it before? Has anyone looked into the history of the mountain that the dam was on?