All Posts
Citizen Journalists Encouraged to Report on TVA disaster
Citizen journalists are encouraged to register at this blog site and describe their experiences with the TVA disaster. (Photos by Tennessee Green). Just follow the simple registration procedures and write text and reference photos and videos. Please write with questions: editor@appvoices.org Thanks — Bill Kovarik
Read MoreInjury reported as TVA waits for water test results
At least one man may have been hospitalized from drinking tained water along the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers near Watts Bar, witnesses said. “We met a man who had been vomiting for the past 12 hours after drinking a couple of pots of coffee made from the tainted water,” said Matt Landon of United Mountain…
Read MoreTVA responses to coal waste spill questions
Wednesday Dec. 24 — Q — We understand residents are being told to boil water before drinking. This is not going to protect people from heavy metals, arsenic and other contaminants found in fly ash. A– It is my understanding that there are a limited number of residents that the local water utility has advised…
Read MoreFly ash floods Tennessee River
A six-foot wall of coal fly ash mud broke loose from an earthen dam early Monday morning near Harriman, TN, washing out a road, isolating a dozen homes and posing a possible threat to drinking water downstream from Watts Bar dam on the Tennessee River. No injuries have been officially reported, although environmental observers said…
Read MoreReversal of Bush’s Stream Buffer Zone Rule Change Predicted
When investment bank FBR Capital Markets looks into their crystal ball, they don’t see the recent stream buffer zone rule change lasting very long under the incoming Obama administration. According to Platts, an energy markets blog, research analyst Kevin Book of FBR sees the eleventh-hour regulation by the Bush administration forces action by the Obama…
Read MoreNew Energy Secretary Chu: “Coal is my worst nightmare”
President-Elect Obama’s new Secretary of the Department of Energy has not been shy about the fact that the United States has to transition away from coal to survive. In fact, Chu says: Coal is my worst nightmare. Dr. Chu, currently Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Stanford University professor, also says he…
Read MoreA Harlan County Fishpond
Courtesy of our friends at KFTC and the MIT Community Innovations Lab:
Read MoreAugean Cleanup on Aisle Six
It’s been widely observed that the next president will be left with an enormous cleanup task. At one point, Vice President-elect Joe Biden compared it to cleaning the Augean Stables. He was referring to the humblest of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, a Greek myth dating from before 600 B.C. Hercules took on the impossible…
Read MoreCarbon Emissions to Drop Under VA Climate Plan
Virginia could cut new power plant construction — and save money in the process — under a new plan to reduce carbon emissions and promote energy conservation. The plan emerged from the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change this November, and legislation from the planning process will be proposed at the state level in 2009. “This…
Read MoreExcerpt from a Letter
MEMO TO: President-elect Obama FROM: The Appalachian Alliance Dear President-elect Obama, … We are dealing with the devastating effects of the cycle of coal, from extraction, cleaning, transport, burning and the disposal of coal combustion waste. Coal industry abuse has cost many of us our homes, our health, our loved ones, and sometimes our entire…
Read More