Huffington Post Green:

Leslie Stahl on Sunday’s 60 Minutes did an in-depth look at the problems with the by-products of coal production, commonly known as coal ash. Coal ash contains many toxic medals, including arsenic, which unchecked, can leak into ground water and be extremely hazardous to breathe. Stahl starts with a look at devastating coal ash spill that engulfed homes and destroyed whole communities in Tennessee in 2008 when a billion gallons of the toxic sludge in the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the US. This disaster brought the issue of coal ash to the national spotlight, and Stahl moves on to how to how coal ash is not labeled a hazardous waste by the EPA, and is currently being used as filler in everything from golf courses to carpeting in schools to kitchen counters.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Talking Points Memo:

The toxic leftovers from burning coal for power are sitting in nearly 600 sites in 35 states, according to a federal survey released Tuesday.Spills have occurred at 34 of those sites over the last decade.

Many of the spills were minor compared with the disaster that occurred at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Kingston, Tenn., in December. That spill, which flooded hundreds of acres of land, damaged homes and killed fish in nearby rivers, is not included in the data, although it triggered the EPA’s March request of 61 power companies for information on how they manage coal combustion waste.

The survey is the most comprehensive list to date of coal ash storage sites and includes information submitted by 219 facilities.

Here is a summary of responses to the survey:

survey2 –

Full responses From Electric Utilities to the EPA information request letter can be found here.

New York Times:

UNIONTOWN, Ala. — Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.

To county leaders, the train’s loads, which will total three million cubic yards of coal ash from a massive spill at a power plant in east Tennessee last December, are a tremendous financial windfall. A per-ton “host fee” that the landfill operators pay the county will add more than $3 million to the county’s budget of about $4.5 million.

Here is TVA’s Ash Disposal Plan:

Approved Offsite Ash Disposal Options Plan –

Review of the Kingston Fossil Plan Ash Spill –

Story at the Tennessean.

Via EPA.

(ATLANTA – June 15, 2009) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced an extension of the public comment period on the Administrative Record for the Administrative Order and Agreement on Consent (AOC) entered into between EPA and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) regarding the TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Plant Release Site, in Roane County, Tenn.

The Administrative Record file includes the AOC itself, as well as the documents which support the AOC. All interested persons are encouraged to review and comment on the documents.

The documents are available online at http://www.epa.gov/region4/kingston/admin_record.html, and will also be available for public review during normal business hours at the following locations:

TVA Kingston Outreach Center Harriman Public Library
509 North Kentucky Street 601 Walden Street
Kingston, Tenn. Harriman, Tenn.
865-882-3195 865-882-3195

and

U.S. EPA Records Center-Region 4
Sam Nunn Federal Center 11th Floor
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, Ga.
Attn: Debbie Jourdan

EPA will accept comments regarding the Administrative Record during the public comment period which began on Monday, May 18, 2009, and will now end on Friday, July 20, 2009, allowing for an additional thirty (30) days for the public to comment. Comments should be addressed to Stephanie Brown at brown.stephaniey@epa.gov or:

Stephanie Y. Brown
Community Involvement Coordinator
U.S. EPA Region 4,
OSPAO, 11th Floor
61 Forsyth Street, S.W.
Atlanta, GA 30303

At the end of the comment period, a written response to all pertinent comments will be prepared in a responsiveness summary and placed in the file.

For additional information about the AOC and EPA’s response, visit: http://www.epa.gov/region4/kingston/index.html

Greenhouse gas emissions aside, dealing with coal ash is yet another massive problem associated with coal-fired power plants. The repercussions of December’s massive Kingston spill are still being determined. To that end, Appalachian Voices has just released data from their testing of the Emory River. The results are not pretty:

Total recoverable metals water testing results from Emory River mile 2.2, where ash clogs the river, revealed arsenic levels were 260 times the allowable amounts in drinking water. Lead measured 16 times higher than the drinking water standard while barium and cadmium were three times higher. Selenium measured 1.9 times higher than the Tennessee acute aquatic life criteria and 7.6 times higher than the Tennessee chronic aquatic life criteria.

Ever wonder what happens when human beings are exposed to arsenic?

Long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause cancer in the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. It can also cause other skin changes such as thickening and pigmentation. The likelihood of effects is related to the level of exposure to arsenic and in areas where drinking water is heavily contaminated, these effects can be seen in many individuals in the population.

…

Soluble inorganic arsenic can have immediate toxic effects. Ingestion of large amounts can lead to gastrointestinal symptoms such as severe vomiting, disturbances of the blood and circulation, damage to the nervous system, and eventually death. When not deadly, such large doses may reduce blood cell production, break up red blood cells in the circulation, enlarge the liver, color the skin, produce tingling and loss of sensation in the limbs, and cause brain damage.

In addition to the host of problems associated with burning coal, as well as the deleterious effects of mountaintop removal, storing and transporting the byproducts of burning coal is a daunting task prone to environmentally disastrous spills. These spills are literally poisoning the water we drink and the food we eat. It is shameful, and frankly pretty damn embarrassing, for the United States to be so dependent on the dirtiest energy source on the planet in the 21st century.

Sadly, the main thing getting in the way of reducing use of coal in the United States is the influence of the coal lobby. The lack of coverage meaningful coverage from corporate media obscures the issue so it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. When it comes down to it, I’m with Al Gore:

I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.

Here are some additional resources:

• Appalachian Voices Press Release (PDF)
• Appalachian Voices Final Sampling Report (PDF)
• KnoxNews.com: Fly-ash spill study finds selenium in fish
• Charlotte Observer: Tenn. ash spill threatens fish population