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Forty-four coal ash impoundments similar to the Kingston, Tennessee pond that spilled over and poured 1.1 billion gallons of toxic material on to an east Tennessee community, are located around the country and could cause death or disaster to residents living nearby if a similar spill happened. However the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it will not disclose where those coal ash impoundment ponds are located.
Residents in and around Pettus, W. Va., gathered at the gate of the Marfork Coal Company earlier this week to protest the company’s plans to start blasting on Coal River Mountain, warning that Massey Energy’s coal mining operation efforts could weaken an eight-billion-gallon coal sludge dam, according to the Virtualization/PRNewswire-USNewswire. The dam in question is about 10 times larger than the coal ash pond that in December spilled more than a billion gallons of toxic material over 300 acres of rural east Tennessee.
The Kingston, Tennessee coal ash spill last month has spurred the Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a review of coal fly ash contaminant dams across West Virginia, according to the Tennessean.
