TVA Dumps Toxic Coal Ash in Poor Alabama Town
August 10th, 2009The People Who Don’t Want It Are Afraid of the Effects
by Glynn Wilson [Videos below]
UNIONTOWN, Ala. — The Rev. James R. Murdock sits on his porch with a view of the Arrowhead Landfill and wonders, watching the TVA coal ash train roll in.
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| Glynn Wilson |
| The Rev. James R. Murdock |
Murdock is one of the original members of Concerned Citizens of Perry County, a group that lost a court fight to keep the landfill from opening — before they knew the coal ash would be shipped to their town dump. It was permitted to take garbage from 16 states, including New Jersey, and for that the chairman of the county commission of 18 years lost his seat.
Not in time for the people here who have to live with the landfill now, though, along with the effluent from the Southeastern Cheese factory, overflowing their lagoon sewer.
Murdock, a cancer survivor, is anxious about the toxic and radioactive coal ash rolling into town. It contains at least 14 different chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic and lead. There are ways to recycle some coal ash, like putting it in concrete. But experts say this particular coal ash is some of the most toxic ever generated as a byproduct of burning some of the dirtiest coal to ever be mined for electric power. It has been piling up in East Tennessee since the 1960s. A member of Congress from Huntsville, a doctor, recently testified it was as deadly as nuclear waste.
Murdock and his group are concerned, but they don’t know what they can do since the people elected to represent them have written them off. He worries the toxic ash will get airborne and pollute the very air he breaths every day, as well as the local drinking water supply.
Yet he wonders, aloud, if “there’s even a point to fighting it anymore.”
