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Lawmakers sit on both sides of the argument about whether lining the coal ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston, Tennessee, plant would have prevented the massive spill of toxic material onto neighboring homes and property, but legislation is moving through the Tennessee House and Senate that would require such ponds created or expanded in the future to be lined, according to the Times Free Press.
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.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has promised to make good on a promise it made nine years ago to issue regulations for coal ash storage. The announcement comes more than two months after a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) impoundment pond failed and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash on to 300 acres of east Tennessee property, destroying homes and damaging land in its wake.
December’s massive coal ash spill in east Tennessee has raised concerns over the safety of a longtime agricultural practice, according to Environmental Health News, a publication of the Environmental Health Sciences.
Crops in the Southeast and Midwest are grown in soil that has been routinely supplemented with tons of fly ash. Some of the more common crops grown in this amended soil include a variety of vegetables and peanuts.
