I spent most of the Christmas/New Year's holiday at ground zero in Kingston, Tenn., documenting the TVA Kingston coal ash disaster. This huge and terrible catastrophe may be the worst man-made environmental disaster since Chernobyl.
It is difficult to grasp the immense size of this toxic nightmare.
TVA released 5.3 million cubic yards (1 billion gallons) of coal waste into tributaries of the Tennessee River, almost 100 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill. It will take approximately 250,000 truckloads to haul away the ash. The coal ash mountain was 40 acres wide and 65 feet high. The trucks working on site look like ants.
"TVA released 5.3 million cubic yards of coal waste into tributaries of the Tennessee River"? They, of course, did no such thing. If you read a news report from the scene, you find out that an inifitesimal portion of that spill made it to a lake nearby. Not to the river. And not 5.3 million cubic yards. And not "released." And it involved a benign substance called coal fly ash.
And "the worst man-made environmental disaster since Chernobyl"? Did he write this with a straight face?
I don't know whether to denounce this environmental crusader for the propagandist that he is or simply laugh at him.
I choose the latter.
2 comments:
The bad part is many folks will buy this zealot's story and support the likes of Cardinal-without-portfolio Pelosi to save the planet by reinstating the ban on drilling, banning coal-fired generating plants and other ruinous measures.
Benign?
Not so much... coal fly ash contains heavy metals, including the following, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, radium, thorium and a lot more...
Just because it isn't considered hazardous material doesn't make it benign...
Why not go study on this topic, because it is quite evident that you have NO idea what you are talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash
Drew
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