The Tennessee Valley Authority, a government owned utility, operates the Kingston Fossil Plant in near Kingston, TN at the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers. With nine boiler units, it combusts primarily coal to produce ten billion kilowatt-hours (or ten million megawatt-hours) of electricity per year, for 670,000 homes. After the coal is burned, the ashes remain, and at this plant are mixed with water and stored outside in ponds. (Technology exists to more safely “recycle” the ash into construction materials.) There are three ponds with man-made dams to hold back the poisonous soup on the Kingston site. On Monday, December 22nd around 1am, one of the dams broke, releasing millions of gallons of fly ash slurry into the adjacent lake and river canal, onto roads, homes and railroad tracks. The toxic goop was six feet thick in some places, according to video footage taken by residents and concerned citizens.
On the ground, the all-volunteer non-profit, United Mountain Defense has been working around the clock to deliver emergency water to the residents, collect water samples for chemical analysis and update their website with the latest video footage. In addition, they have been distributing information to the residents about the potential toxicity of their water as well as the Tennessee Mountain Defender, an independent newspaper which describes the ills of mountain top removal mining, another piece of the dirty coal puzzle.
There are parallels between this spill and hurricane Katrina that happened in New Orleans in August of 2005. We point the finger of blame to the Army Corp, EPA, FEMA, TVA, the government, wondering how in the WORLD they could have let this happen?!? It’s human nature to want to blame someone or something, but should there always be someone/thing to blame? Mother Nature/Jah/God/Allah/Jehovah/insert your preference here played a role in both of these events, bringing tremendous wind and water to the Gulf Coast and bringing cold temperatures and rain to Tennessee which was part of the reason the dam broke, the news is reporting. I don’t doubt that in the months and years leading up to this catastrophe in Harriman that the TVA engineers felt they were doing all they could to make sure the ash pond was safe and secure. Isn’t that their job? I have trouble thinking that EPA or TVA “allowed” this to happen. lo que paso paso…..what happened, happened. Now we have to react and change course. Call me an optimist, but this is an opportunity! The small amount of good that can come from this is that more people will wake up to the facts that the coal industry is really not all it’s cracked up to be. We DO have us to take a hard look at the coal industry and what it is doing to our communities’ health. From cradle to grave, coal is a mess. It is a 19th century technology, which cannot be relied upon any longer to power our planet. We, and the earth, literally cannot take its’ poisoning effects much longer. Once again, an act of God, Mother Nature, whichever, has shown us that sometimes we, humans and our constructed realities are powerless to storms, wind, rain, cold, hot, ice, snow, blizzards, avalanches, mudslides, sinkholes, and tornados, etc.
If you can send donations to Tennessee, they are greatly needed, for emergency water, food and supplies. Donations can be made to the non-profit United Mountain Defense at PO Box 20363 Knoxville, TN 37920. Please mark “for TVA Spill” Many thanks for your solidarity, economically and otherwise.
Visit www.unitedmountaindefense.org or http://dirtycoaltva.blogspot.com/ for more updates and ways to help.
