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

“Are the people of Perry County, Ala., less valuable than the people in Kingston, Tenn.?” asks Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen. The activist sent a complaint letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson this week in an effort to stop shipments of coal ash recovered from the east Tennessee spill site to a poor, black community in Alabama. Residents near the Uniontown, Ala., landfill say the coal ash is stinking up their town. And they, too, worry that the same toxic sludge that poured down on the community of Kingston causing serious damage and threatening human health, may create problems for them as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Arrowhead Landfill in Uniontown, Ala., may be the “Cadillac” of all landfills in the industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and dumping millions of tons of toxic coal ash recovered from a spill site in Tennessee into the landfill may generate several jobs and millions of dollars in storage fees for the impoverished community, but residents of the mostly black community are hardly thrilled. A standing-room-only crowd gathered Wednesday night to hear plans for the dump in their community. Perry County District Attorney Michael Jackson voiced the concerns of the crowd, saying he was tired of poor areas being dumping grounds for the rest of the nation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Coal ash recovered from an east Tennessee community where the toxic material spilled after an impoundment pond breached at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-firing plant in Kingston, Tenn., is already being shipped to landfills in other states, creating jobs and bringing money to impoverished counties, but residents of an Alabama community receiving the shipments aren’t pleased.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa Jackson

“Lisa Jackson, will you help us?”

The phrase is repeated over and over in a short film by Alabama activist Betsy Ramaccia. You can view the film on www.AshHoles.org. Last month at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) meeting in Tennessee, Ramaccia dressed in a haz-mat suit and handed out fake newspapers with the headline “The New Ash Hole of Alabama,” and directed them to the Web site. There, viewers can hear the voices and see the faces of several Uniontown, Alabama residents pleading with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to protect them from the dangers of coal ash. The Web site also has a form letter asking for protection where people can add their names and e-mails and submit them to Jackson.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three million tons of toxic coal ash recovered from east Tennessee from a breached impoundment at a coal-firing plant which sent a wave of the dangerous material on to a neighboring community, will be moved to Perry County, Alabama, and stored in a privately owned landfill near Uniontown. The deal could generate $4.1 million in fees and more than 50 jobs to the community, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state. But residents are hardly optimistic.

Read the rest of this entry »