› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
Power plants in the U.S. produce more than 125 million tons of coal combustion waste each year, most of which ends up in dry landfills or in above-ground coal slurry pounds. In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed that material as non-hazardous and thus it didn’t fall under any strict government regulations.
When the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash impoundment pond burst last December, it did more than dump a billion gallons of toxic material on to peoples’ property and into Emery River where people from all around would fish, boat and swim. It destroyed homes in its wake, and quickly diminished property values. And it created a nuisance not just to those who had to flee the area, but to the ones who stayed who now live with the 20-hour-a-day, continuous cleanup effort by the TVA.
For decades, engineers raised questions about the walls of an impoundment pond containing toxic coal ash at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston, Tennessee coal-burning plant, according to the KnoxvilleBiz.com. They questioned the way the walls were built and argued that they were not initially designed to stand as tall as they did. Those concerns fell on deaf ears then, but now have a voice after the walls of the pond broke loose last December and dumped 1.1 billion gallons of toxic material on to 300 acres of an east Tennessee community and into the waters of the Emory River.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) may have to lean on customers to relieve some of its financial pains, according to the Associated Press. The nation’s largest utility is spending $1 million a day to clean up the mess left behind when a coal ash impoundment pond at its Kingston, Tennessee coal-burning plant failed and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic material on to an east Tennessee community and into the Emory River. The coal ash spill cleanup effort is expected to cost the utility between $525 million and $825 million.
As one east Tennessee community struggles to recover from the devastating spillage of coal ash from a nearby Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-burning plant on to its land and waterways, one man is working to find better uses for the waste leftover from coal burning. Mulalo Doyoyo, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has developed a new structural material from coal ash and bottom ash that is strong and lightweight enough to serve as an alternative to cement in concrete.
Problems continue to mount for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This week a federal judge upheld an order handed down in January that the TVA accelerate its billion-dollar program to clean up four of its coal plants in Tennessee and Alabama so the plants could stop polluting the air in North Carolina, according to the Associated Press/Forbes.
More than two dozen residents of the east Tennessee community affected by the December 2008 coal ash spill are asking a federal judge to halt the Tennessee Valley Authority’s cleanup efforts until more environmental studies and oversight have been performed, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. Residents of the area are concerned the TVA is “recklessly forging ahead with a cleanup plan” that will cause the 300 acres of rural property to “sustain even greater environmental damage from preventable contamination, exposure and migration of coal ash through air, land and water.”
Sen. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review, inspect and regulate coal ash impoundments from all coal-burning plants in the country, instead of just those run by utilities. Cardin’s request is fueled by last week’s coal ash leak at New Page Corporation, a Maryland paper mill, that spilled 4,000 gallons of toxic coal ash into the Potomac River.
President Obama’s new energy policies are pitting mining companies and environmentalists against each other as the federal government explores new ways of storing carbon emissions. Mining companies and the lawmakers who support them say that establishing these new measures could cost billions while environmentalists say the price is not important in comparison to the ecological damage of continuing common practices.
Southern California community members worried about the ill effects from coal-burning mines and power plants are conducting a 100-day national campaign uniting 100 communities in the area urging lawmakers to phase out of coal-based energy and transition to cleaner, renewable sources that would produce more green jobs, according to the Palm Springs (California) My Desert.
