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

Rules regarding the storage of coal ash are expected to come from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before the end of the year, but how the agency plans to categorize coal ash ponds has many environmentalists seeing red. According to a General Accountability Office document listing options currently being discussed, the EPA is considering designating wet coal ash as a hazardous material, but leaving the dry coal ash, or fly ash, categorized as non-hazardous if it is stored in a dry landfill.

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Lesley Stahl, a reporter for the CBS news program 60 Minutes, pressed a power industry lobbyist about whether coal ash byproducts are being used safely during a report on coal ash recycling practices Sunday. His answer was anything but straight. It’s no surprise. The byproducts from coal-burning utilities, coal ash and fly ash, are recycled and used as filler for numerous products in kitchen counters and carpeting in schools, to name a few. Coal ash has not considered a hazardous material, and thus coal-burning plants have not fallen under federal regulations. But since the country’s largest spill of coal ash occurred last December, people are beginning to question just how safe coal ash – and the products made from it – are.

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More than 100 people in Tennessee are concerned enough about their health following a massive coal ash spill in their community that they have signed up for free medical screenings. These are people who lived in or around Kingston, Tennessee last December when a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash impoundment pond burst, sending 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash on to 300 acres of neighboring property and into the Emory River.

That spill destroyed homes and damaged property and forced officials to hang signs warning people against swimming in nearby waters or eating fish caught in them. The threat of the coal ash drying and flying into the air caused more concern from residents who worried breathing traces of fly ash might harm them.

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Communities and aquatic ecosystems near coal-firing plants are at risk for serious health problems from the toxic metals and radioactivity stored in ponds at the plants even if the facilities cease to burn its coal ash, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Pratt School of Engineering, the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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Glen and Lisa Sexton listed their house in Kingston, Tennessee for sale last September and had plenty of out-of-state offers. But since an a coal ash impoundment pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) plant 16 miles away failed last December and flooded the neighboring community with more than a billion gallons of coal ash, no one seems interested in their home. “Our situation is we can’t sell it. It’s worthless,” Glen says.

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Hotter and drier summer conditions increase the likelihood of coal ash going airborne, increasing the potential for the toxic material to be inhaled by those living near the site that was heavily damaged when a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) fossil fuel plant’s impoundment pond was breached, causing more than a billion gallons of coal ash to tumble down on to a neighboring community.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is eying a dormant landfill near its Kingston, Tennessee, plant and an abandoned strip mine in Cumberland County, Tennessee, as possible locations to bury the ash it is cleaning up after one of its impoundment ponds leaked and dumped more than a billion gallons of coal ash on to an east Tennessee community, according to WAAY-TV.

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The huge cleanup effort by the nation’s largest public utility could cost as much as $150 million more than previously estimated, according to the Associated Press. The effort to restore 300 acres of east Tennessee property damaged by the December 2008 coal ash spill from a Kingston, Tennessee, coal-firing plant is also expected to take years to complete.

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A congressional committee will focus on why a large Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash impoundment failed last December, which resulted in one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history, according to News Channel 5. The breach caused more than a billion gallons of coal ash sludge to spill on to 300 acres of an east Tennessee community, destroying homes and damaging property in its wake. Coal ash contains dangerous toxins such as arsenic and lead which can contribute to serious health problems such as cancer, liver damage and neurological problems.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has been given permission to dredge the Emory River to remove ash that spilled into it after the utility’s coal ash pond failed last December and poured more than a billion gallons of toxic material on to 300 acres of east Tennessee property, according to MSNBC. The dredging is part of the TVA’s $1-million-a-day effort to clean up the massive mess, and was one of the items detailed in the utility’s cleanup plan aimed to return the community to “as good, if not better (condition) than they were before.”

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