Another TVA Coal-Ash Spill?
January 9th, 2009Locust Fork News-Journal Joins Call for Investigation
A waste pond at a coal-burning power plant in northeast Alabama ruptured early Friday about 30 miles southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to the Associated Press and other news organizations, the second ash spill in less than a month at a TVA plant.
“For the second time in less than one month, the citizens served by the Tennessee Valley Authority have been unnecessarily exposed to a multitude of health risks due to a failure of a coal-ash pond,” said Adam Snyder, executive director of Conservation Alabama. “This unfortunate incident highlights TVA’s over-reliance on coal for energy production and a lack of adequate health safety standards and enforcement. Conservation Alabama calls on Congress, TVA, and EPA to not only conduct an exhaustive evaluation of its current standards, but also to put into action whatever means necessary to ensure that the citizens of Alabama are not put in harm’s way again.”
On December 22, a spill in Kingston, Tenn., dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of sludge across 400 acres, burying homes, buildings, and heavy equipment, as reported in the story below.
The Locust Fork News-Journal joins the call for a full investigation by the incoming Obama administration and new regulations for the waste from these dirty coal-fired power plants. Perhaps power generators such as TVA and Southern Company should be forced to pay in some way for the newer, greener energy sources we are going to need for an environmentally sustainable and economically viable future.
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Tags: Environmental Protection Agency, TVA, TVA Coal Ash Spill
January 9th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Let’s hope no one is seriously pushing nuclear a “greener” energy source. That hope unfortunately is too late; already quiet yet hard-sell campaign going on to start cranking up the forever waste plants.
Nuclear waste is indeed forever in the time frames of human life and of most of our capacities for imagination.
There is an often repeated saying among the shills for the nuclear industry that “there is no such thing as nuclear waste.” Bullshit.
Brown’s Ferry and Bellefonte are two close at hand reminders of how nuclear power generation is a failed concept. A person close to the development of nuclear anything was Albert Einstein , who defined insanity as “doing the same thing again and again even though it doesn’t work.”
Beware of who is insisting on change, and exactly what changes they might have in mind.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Not here. We’ve consistently anti-Nuclear power since covering the disaster at Browns Ferry.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Review:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browns_Ferry
TVA at the least seems careless and sloppy if not outright incompetent and irresponsible.
TVA operates three nuclear plants. Should we expect leaks and spills from these facilities?
Scary stuff!!!