Green Junction: The Toxic Legacy of Coal Ash

Damage caused by fossil fuels tends to focus on climate change outcomes, for good reason, and occasionally on massive disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010. Coal waste, mostly known as coal ash, is another untenable outcome of the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. Coal is a massive mixture of materials and has been used as a common energy source since the late 1800s. The carbon content of coal burns, which leaves a significant portion of unburned coal, or coal ash, after its combustion. According to the US Department of Energy, there are “2 billion tons of coal ash stored in over 1,000 impoundments scattered across the United States.”

In 1955, a huge coal burning power plant was completed near Knoxville, TN and it held the title of the largest coal burning plant in the world for over a decade. The coal ash generated at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant was stored in a huge, unlined pit and reached a height of 60 feet. The enormous toxic waste pile collapsed 16 years ago; it released over a billion gallons of coal ash slurry that covered 300 acres and contaminated two rivers. According to James Bruggers’ recent reporting, “It took seven years, but the disaster prompted the Obama administration to adopt the first national regulations managing coal combustion wastes in 2015, including a requirement for closing unlined ash pits like the one at Kingston.”

Just this past year, the EPA finalized a new rule that will require all coal power plants – including those that no longer accept coal ash - to clean up coal ash dumps. The 2015 rule did not require older pits to comply. Unlined coal ash pits commonly leak contaminants into groundwater. According to EarthJustice, “The EPA designated coal ash a national enforcement priority last year and has ramped up enforcement actions, acknowledging that there is widespread noncompliance with existing coal ash regulations.”

The workers who cleaned the coal ash damage from the Kingston plant suffered various illnesses as a result of their exposures to the coal ash toxins. Their employer, Jacobs Engineering, failed to protect its workers and settled a lawsuit for $77.5 million in damages for 220 out of the 900 workers, thanks to an incredibly courageous attorney. https://insideclimatenews.org/.../tva-toxic-disaster.../...

Two billion tons and counting as long as coal continues to be used as fuel…