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The focal point of most of the safety concerns at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant recently has been the drywell, a steel barrier surrounding the plant's reactor vessel that is supposed to contain radiation in the event of an accident. The fear is that the 40-year-old drywell is continuing to erode to the point it could buckle, creating a potentially cataclysmic accident. That concern is well-warranted. Thanks to the tenacity of citizen activists, approval of a 20-year license renewal is being held up pending further analysis of the drywell's structural integrity. If it receives a clean bill of health, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is all but certain to approve a 20-year license extension for the plant, the nation's oldest commercial reactor.

Up to 1,000 people die or are wounded every year in accidents caused by low-quality, high-lead smuggled gasoline that consumes victims in fiery accidents, according to Benin's Ministry of Commerce. In 2007 the Benin government estimated that its oil-producing neighbour, Nigeria, supplied 551 million litres of contraband fuel, known as "kpayo" - "bad quality" in the local Fon language - compared to the regulated 81 million litres sold at gas stations in Benin.

Federal regulators said Friday that Fort Chicago Energy Partners LP's (FCE.UN.T) proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in the Pacific Northwest could be built without significant environmental losses, paving the way for possible approval. In a final environmental impact statement, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said the Jordan Cove LNG import terminal proposed near the Oregon coast, plus a 234-mile natural gas pipeline that would ship imported gas from the terminal to nearby interstate pipelines, could be built in a way that minimizes the potential threat of earthquakes, accidents and a terrorist attack, as well as potential harm to soil, wetlands and water resources.

The residue of millions of tons of coal burning at Kingston Fossil power plant in the Watts Bar Reservoir in Tennessee burst the bounds of the pond in which it was contained, burying as many as 400 acres of land in up to six feet of sludge. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the coal-fired power plant-first operated in 1955-announced that 15 homes were buried and no injuries were reported. A combination of rains and accumulating sludge likely contributed to the disaster-one of two major ash pond collapses in the past decade. All told, about 2.6 million cubic yards of so-called coal ash slurry escaped, the TVA says. The collapsed pond is one of three on the site.

An environmental disaster of epic proportions has occurred in Tennessee. Monday night, 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train. According to the EPA the cleanup will take at least several weeks, but could take years. Officials also said that the magnitude of this spill is such that the entire area could be declared a federal superfund site.

The sludge was a mixture of water and fly ash, a residue that is captured in the chimneys of coal-fired power plants. Fly ash is distinguished from bottom ash, which is removed from the bottom of the furnace. Fly ash is mostly made of fine, hollow, glassy particles of silica, the most abundant mineral in the earth's crust, as well as aluminum oxide, iron oxide, and lime, a white crystalline solid that humans have used for thousands of years. When airborne, some of types of silica particles have been found to be potentially harmful to people's lungs. But more worrisome are the trace concentrations of toxic metals - including arsenic, lead, barium, and chromium - that scientists think may damage the liver and nervous system and cause cancer. The ash also contains uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. Ounce for ounce, fly ash delivers more radiation into the environment than shielded nuclear waste.

The gunk on the water had thinned to a gray scrim in front of Mike Thomas' riverfront home -- a small sign of progress one week after one of the worst coal ash spills in American history. But as Thomas drove along the bluff over the Emory River, he pointed to big piles of sludgy, dark gray ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, that had been accidentally disgorged by the nearby electricity plant. The heaps jutted from the water's surface like ugly volcanic islands. By the shore, many neighbors' docks sat in ruins, destroyed by mammoth waves when the ash was released.

TVA admits to 'some' fly ash; maybe up to 20%, ex-plant worker says BRIDGEPORT - An unknown amount of toxic coal fly ash apparently washed into the Tennessee River at TVA's Widows Creek steam plant Friday when a gypsum storage pond overflowed, spilling thousands of gallons of waste. The Tennessee Valley Authority acknowledged in a statement Saturday that the pond contained "some" fly ash, although TVA spokesman Gil Francis told reporters Friday that Widows Creek stored fly ash and gypsum in separate ponds.

Compared to, say, the pitched battles over Yucca mountain, the storage of toxic fly ash produced by coal-fired plants has gotten virtually no coverage, even though it's arguably a far, far bigger health and safety risk. So I suppose one upside-if you can even call it that-of the recent (and massive) ash-spill disasters in Tennessee and Alabama is that we're starting to see more investigations like this one, by Shaila Dewan of The New York Times: The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States-most of them unregulated and unmonitored-that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.

Democrats on the Senate committee overseeing the Tennessee Valley Authority castigated the agency for failing to live up to its environmental stewardship mission during a hearing Thursday on last month's toxic sludge spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant. Led by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of California, Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee also called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fly ash, which is a byproduct of burning coal, as hazardous waste.

Gov. Steve Beshear recently released a new energy plan that serves as a starting point for a necessary discussion in our state. Kentucky, especially, needs this discussion. Our history as a coal-producing state makes us vulnerable in the new clean energy era. The state's low-price electricity, made possible by the presence of coal and reliance on old coal-fired power plants, has fostered a dependence at the expense of diversification into new sources of energy and greater efficiency.

The coal ash spill at a Tennessee power plant in December 2008 has been making headlines for almost two weeks - but only a few local journalists realize that coal-ash stories abound in many communities. Here are some clues for finding them. There are roughly 1,500 coal-burning electric power plants spread across the United States today (and more coming), and each one of them produces coal ash, also known as "fly ash" or even "coal combustion products" (CCP). Not all of these wastes are poised above houses behind shaky earthen dams. But most do raise significant environmental issues.

Pharyngula has some great video of a containment wall in Tennessee failing, releasing a vast flood of toxic coal sludge - Let's talk about clean coal. When power plants burn coal to produce energy, the coal doesn't just vanish into the atmosphere to cause global warming. No, there's a substantial amount of left-over sludge called coal ash, a nasty mess that is enriched for toxic heavy metals. It is seriously nasty stuff. This glop has to be stored, somewhere, usually piled up and walled-off, because it's not healthy for anything. Behold what happens when the containment walls fail.

A tale of 2 power plants: Tennessee's experience shows how environmental concerns can be misdirected On Dec. 22, a deluge of coal-ash slurry broke through a retaining wall near the Kingston Fossil Plant, a power plant in eastern Tennessee. Black sludge inundated a valley and destroyed houses as it surged down to the Emory River, where hundreds of fish soon lay dead on fouled banks. Helicopter video footage showed a landscape resembling the moon's surface, with more than a billion gallons of sludge covering 300 acres. The disaster also temporarily halted an incoming train loaded with coal. This presumably came from other industrially ravaged landscapes to the east, where entire Appalachian mountaintops are routinely bulldozed into valleys to access seams of Paleozoic carbon.

A new study done by Duke University says exposure to the fly ash from the TVA spill could have "severe health implication." Duke University scientists collected water and solid ash samples at sites affected by the TVA spill on Jan. 9. Following preliminary analysis, the solid ash samples were incubated and underwent more detailed analysis. "Our radioactive measurements of solid ash samples from Tennessee suggests the ash has radiation levels above those reported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for typical coal ash," said Avner Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "Preventing the formation of airborne particulate matter from the ash that was released to the environment seems essential for reducing possible health impacts." More than a billion gallons of sludge coal waste spilled from a pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-burning power plant on Dec. 22.

The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States - most of them unregulated and unmonitored - that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.

15 states appear to have three or more Tennessee-like unlined "Surface Impoundment" sites For toxic coal-fired power plant waste. (WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Could another major coal disaster happen at one of the many Tennessee-like power plant coal pollution dumping sites across the United States? How much toxic arsenic, lead and other heavy metals that endanger drinking water are being dumped into those unlined "surface impoundment" sites each year? How did federal regulation of coal pollution break down to allow these threats to exist … and what needs to happen if the public and environment are to be protected against future Tennessee-like disasters, as well as the "slow-motion" leaching of toxic metals into drinking water, rivers and streams?

TVA is near the end of its first phase of response to a massive coal ash spill in East Tennessee last month, stabilizing and preventing further spread of the sludge at an estimated cost of $1 million a day. The giant public utility is considering options for what could be the costliest, lengthiest and most complicated operations: removing the ash from land and water and restoring the area to pre-spill conditions. Advertisement The state must approve the Tennessee Valley Authority's "corrective action" plans and has given it a mid-March deadline to submit details.

There are 44 coal combustion waste sites nationwide that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified as "high hazard," but the agency cannot make the locations of these hazardous sites public, Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters today. The California senator chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the federal environmental agency.

For years, residents of the tiny lakeside community near Kingston, Tennessee, watched as the local power plant mixed tons of leftover coal ash with water and pumped the heavy mud into a massive pond just up the road. "We never gave it a second thought," says resident Diane Anderson. To read more of Kelly Hearn's reporting on the TVA spill, check out "Toxic Coal in Tennessee," "Tennessee's Dirty Data" and "The Dredge Report." Share this article * * * * Add to Mixx! * * * Related * Also By * Radioactive Revival in New Mexico Environment Shelley Smithson: Navajos say "No!" as the return of uranium mining threatens to despoil their lands and health. * The Most Important Number on Earth Environment OntheEarthProduction : Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky and Terry Tempest Williams discuss the urgent need reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million. » More * Tennessee Spill: Regulation Hazards Environment Kelly Hearn: The recent coal ash spill in Tennessee reveals the toxic fallacy that states should regulate industrial waste. * Letters Subscribe Our Readers & Kelly Hearn * Tennessee Spill: The Dredge Report Environment Kelly Hearn: The TVA's efforts to clean up after its massive coal ash spill may create even more health hazards. But on December 22 the pond collapsed, triggering a billion-gallon mudslide that knocked houses off foundations and roiled into the Emory River. State officials and the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally funded utility responsible for the spill, scrambled to allay fears, saying that the ash wasn't toxic and that the drinking water was safe. But residents also heard about the litany of harmful substances in the ash, like arsenic and lead, and about studies linking it to cancer.