The National Resources Defense Council is urging members and supporters of tighter regulations on coal ash to contact the EPA.
From an NRDC Action Alert that hit my inbox yesterday:
Under current rules, this industrial waste is managed less carefully than household garbage. The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to issue the first federal regulations for coal ash disposal, but as the agency attempts to end decades of regulatory delay, the coal-fired power industry is mounting a major lobbying effort targeting the White House to weaken this much-needed rule even before it is released for public comment. Communities near coal plants deserve strong, federally enforceable regulation of coal ash to ensure that this waste is disposed only in landfills equipped with proper pollution control and monitoring systems. And the public has the right to make its voice heard before industry gets the chance to weaken the EPA's rule.
Send a message telling Peter Orszag, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, that the EPA must be allowed to regulate coal ash disposal without further delay or industry interference.
The criticism faced by the Tennessee Valley Authority after a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee hasn't died down a bit.
In fact, on this one-year anniversary of the disaster that spilled 5.4 million cubic yards of heavy-metal laden ash that destroyed 4 homes, covered 300 acres, and poisoned the Emory River, environmentalists are calling for TVA to be prosecuted.
Representatives of the Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club and other groups said a report by TVA's own inspector general shows the Knoxville-based utility's spill at the Kingston plant is only its "latest and most dramatic example of environmental mismanagement."
The Institute for Southern Studies' online magazine, Facing South, discusses the impact on the residents of Kingston, TN (where cleanup is ongoing) and potential impact of similar incidents in other communities:
But coal ash is not a hazard only for the people living near TVA's Kingston plant: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented 584 coal ash waste disposal sites across the United States and classifies 49 of those as high-hazard, meaning that a breach in their impoundments could kill people.
And lets not forget the residents of Uniontown in Perry County, AL where the ash is being dumped into the Arrowhead Landfill. Most government officials in the county welcomed the ash because the landfill's expansion would bring more jobs to the area. Many residents near the facility and environmental groups though were bitterly opposed.
Security at the landfill is very tight. Uniontown police guard the main road leading inside, although the landfill is outside the city limits.
As far as I know, nobody representing the landfill has given an on-the-record interview.
Now, these are the people telling us that the facility is not only safe but a positive addition to the community. Why so quiet?
Watch for Snakes in Scottsboro looked at TVA's Widows Creek Plant last year to see if Jackson County could suffer a similar fate. Yikes! The answer is yes.
Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner is scheduled to testify tomorrow before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment at a hearing to discuss the TVA coal ash spill in Kingston, TN. He'll be addressing health and safety concerns about the coal ash being dumped in Perry County's landfill.
Earlier this year, TVA began transporting the ash from Kingston to the Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County. Commissioner Turner and other county leaders welcomed the ash because of the increased county revenue from dumping fees and added jobs at the landfill.
Citizens groups protested the dumping initially and last month filed suit to stop it:
Just as Turner is to talk about the safety of the Arrowhead Landfill, where the Environmental Protection Agency decided to transport the ash, a group of Uniontown residents are asking the EPA to reconsider its decision. The group is represented by David A Ludder, a Florida attorney specializing in environmental law. Ludder has also filed notice the residents of Uniontown he represents will sue Perry County Associates, who own the landfill, for violations of the Clear Air Act and the Solid Waste Disposal Act.
Ludder says his clients — about 15 of them — have suffered various maladies because of the odors coming from the landfill. Those odors are indications the landfill is operating outside its licensed parameters, the attorney says.
We've heard reports from people who live near the landfill that they have to brush ash off their cars each morning and some days it appears to have snowed. But instead of dreaming of a white Christmas, most of these folks are wondering if Santa will bring them an air filtration system for their house or maybe just a respirator.
The county is caught in a bind. People need jobs and food now and the landfill helps provide that. But people also need clean air and water to be healthy - and the coal ash at the landfill appears to provide just the opposite.
The TVA sent a letter to the EPA last week announcing that it has changed several of their coal ash sites as "high hazard".
On Thursday, the utility sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency saying that "in the interest of taking a conservative, self-critical approach," it had reclassified four of its sites, Bull Run and Cumberland in Tennessee and Colbert and Widows Creek in Alabama, as "high hazard." Most of the others were reclassified as "significant" hazards, which means that dam failure would most likely result in economic loss and environmental damage.
The ranking system is not intended to measure the likelihood of failure, but the potential damage if failure occurs. The authority has hired Stantec, an engineering firm, to inspect all of the disposal sites, and has said that while many need repairs, none are in imminent danger of failure.
"We are doing and have done a lot of work at these sites, millions of dollars of work, with the intent of becoming the industry leader," Mr. Kammeyer said.
The E.P.A. list identifies disposal sites in 10 states, including 12 in North Carolina, 9 in Arizona and 7 in Kentucky.
As this news has been released, criticism of the decision to move coal ash from the spill into Perry County Alabama has intensified .
The same day that the New York Times story ran on the changed ratings, a story running on the Associated Press talks about Perry County accepting this coal ash for economic reasons.
Last week, the EPA approved a plan for the TVA to move coal ash from a spill in Kingston, Tenn to a landfill in Perry County, Alabama. Despite a number of concerns from residents, environmentalists and public officials a public hearing was never scheduled on this matter. Every two days for approximately a year 85 rail cars, containing coal ash containing heavy metals and other hazardous compounds, will trek from Eastern Tennessee through Birmingham all the way to Perry County, Alabama. This is at a minimum a 350 mile distance. While local officials contend that this will produce jobs and economic development in this poor community, others are not so sure of the long term impacts to the health and safety and even economic stability of this decision. Local residents have begun to weigh in with their concerns about the long term effects. Despite these vast objections the EPA issued this statement
Prior to approving the Arrowhead Landfill as the disposal site for the coal ash, EPA visited the landfill and met with local leaders and members of the surrounding community to review the disposal plan and answer questions.
So despite this plan being approved, it appears that this controversy is far from being over and rightfully so based on some legitimate questions about the process. Here's an interesting video clip of residents asking EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to protect them from the coal ash. Notice the diversity in the residents being interviewed.
It's called Enviromental Racism and it's coming to poor communities in sweet home Alabama. Surprised?
The Tennessee Valley Authority has begun shipping toxic coal ash from the massive spill that occurred last December at its Kingston power plant in east Tennessee's Roane County to landfills in the neighboring states of Georgia and Alabama as part of a test to determine a final resting place for the waste.
The counties where the ash is going have large black populations and high poverty rates, raising questions about environmental justice.
With Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III set to lead the Republican opposition against whoever President Obama's nominates to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, and with the still unresolved concerns about his racist past, we can now add the possibility that he's a homphobe.
Per a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, 69% of Americans do not want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade. That result comes as other recent polls have suggested that more Americans are pro-life rather than pro-choice on the contentious issue of abortion.
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