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Three environmental groups want the state to throw out a permit it just issued that would allow TVA to dump water tainted with mercury, selenium, arsenic, and other chemicals from the Kingston coal-fired power plant into the Clinch River. The Clinch, which lies below the power plant, has already received ash moving down the Emory River from the massive ash spill last December. Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, and the Sierra Club on Thursday filed an appeal of a water discharge permit that the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation issued four weeks ago. They say letting TVA pipe one million gallons of wastewater a day from a pond with gypsum into the river isn't wise. The material will be a byproduct of the plant's new air pollution system.

Three environmental groups want the state to throw out a permit it just issued that would allow TVA to dump water tainted with mercury, selenium, arsenic, and other chemicals from the Kingston coal-fired power plant into the Clinch River. The Clinch, which lies below the power plant, has already received ash moving down the Emory River from the massive ash spill last December. Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, and the Sierra Club on Thursday filed an appeal of a water discharge permit that the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation issued four weeks ago. They say letting TVA pipe one million gallons of wastewater a day from a pond with gypsum into the river isn't wise. The material will be a byproduct of the plant's new air pollution system.

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.

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.

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.

The Tennessee Valley Authority wants proposals from companies to supply up to 2,000 megawatts of power from renewable and clean energy sources - almost as much as could be produced by 1½ nuclear power plants. Anyone that could provide at least one megawatt -enough to power about 350 homes - is asked to respond. Advertisement TVA, which supplies virtually all of Tennessee's electricity, gets less than 1 percent of its power from solar, wind or methane, while its hydroelectric dams are responsible for 6 percent to 10 percent, depending on rainfall.

A South Carolina environmental cleanup expert says the TVA Kingston steam plant spill will cost millions of dollars and will take many weeks to clean up. "They're going to have to do an extensive cleanup, that's for sure," said David Hitchens, CEO and chemist for AEO Advanced Environmental Options Inc. in Spartanburg, S.C. "It could get into the millions. If you've got 400 acres, and they're going to have to clean it up, and dispose it in a landfill, and the landfills charge $30 to $40 a ton, you're looking at approximately 2 (million) to 2.5 million tons."

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.

When the TVA Board of Directors gets together in Knoxville Thursday, it will be their first announced gathering since the Dec. 22 Kingston coal ash disaster put the nation's largest public utility in an unwanted spotlight. One part of the Tennessee Valley Authority's operation that has received almost no attention is the board itself, which oversees the $10.4 billion a year federal corporation.

I was going to write about Tom Paine. The upcoming 200th anniversary of his death on June 9 certainly needs to be acknowledged, but if the people of Cumberland County can pull together to prevent the despoiling of their God-given land, they will do more to honor Tom's memory than my feeble words, so I'll defer for now. When coal burns, most of it turns into gas (carbon dioxide), but heavier minerals are left behind in the ash. Therefore, coal ash contains concentrated amounts of toxic metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and heavy radioactive elements. As I said in an earlier column, Wake Forest University found Emory River arsenic measurements hundreds of time higher than allowable levels after the TVA ash spill. Radioactivity in the ash is over 50 percent above allowable levels in uranium mining waste.

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.

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.

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.

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?