Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

A month after a holding pond at a coal-fired electric plant in Kingston, Tennessee, spilled over and poured more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials over 300 acres in East Tennessee, authorities are still trying to get a grasp of the economic toll it will take on the area, according to The Institute for Southern Studies.

A team of scientists from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., have begun collecting water, sediment and fish samples from the Emory, Clinch and Tennessee rivers, and what they have found is alarming.

Many of the fish collected by the scientists had large amounts of ash in their stomachs, and others have swum as much as two miles upstream to find cleaner water. The ash that cakes in the fishes’ stomachs and gills can smother and kill the fish. The scientists summarize that the ash has traveled more than 6.5 miles downstream.

Many families in the east Tennessee rural neighborhood have suffered serious property damage, but there is mounting concern over how the coal ash spill will affect the health of residents there. The ash from the Tennessee spill contains dangerous materials such as arsenic, lead, barium, chromium and manganese, which can lead to serious health problems in humans such as cancer, liver damage and neurological complications.

Authorities are calling the Kingston, Tennessee disaster the largest industrial spill in our nation’s history, having dumped 100 times more toxic waste than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.