Posts Tagged ‘Coal Ash’
Rally to Save Ison Rock
Hundreds of citizens gathered at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16 to call on the EPA and White House to block a proposed mountaintop removal permit that would destroy Ison Rock Ridge in Wise County, Va. More than 2,000 residents living in the five communities that surround the mountain would…
Read MoreThe Scoop on Coal Ash at Asheville Plant in North Carolina
Big Thanks to Hartwell Carson, French Broad Riverkeeper for his help with this post. Bird’s Eye View of Coal Ash Coal contains heavy metals by its very nature. Heavy metals are toxic and oftentimes, a little dab will do ya. For example, just one teaspoon’s worth of mercury can contaminate a 20 acre lake to…
Read MoreHappy Birthday, Clean Water Act!!
We recently took the Red, White and Water campaign to the Festival Latino in Wilmington, NC. Festival goers signed photo postcards to their member of Congress Representative Mike McIntyre asking him to stand up for our clean water protections. Hispanic communities suffer disproportionately from the impacts of coal pollution. 32 coal-fired power plants across the…
Read MoreWho Cares About Coal Ash? “Have A Sip, Take a Dip, Eat Some Fish”
Yesterday, we wrote about a bluff containing coal ash pond breaking, allowing a football field chunk of debris into Lake Michigan. According to a We Energies spokesman “it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash”. The dangers of coal ash have been made apparent through the coal…
Read MoreDangerous Coal Ash Ponds Extremely Common
There should be zero “significant” hazard coal ash ponds in the United States. The catastrophic collapse of TVA’s Kingston coal ash pond should be a one-time event. Congress should be fighting to protect citizens from another spill. Unfortunately, there are 181 “significant” hazard coal ash ponds, according to EPA’s latest assessment of coal combustion waste…
Read MoreHeath Shuler and Others Who Stood Up Against Dangerous Coal Ash Legislation
Today, Congressmen Heath Shuler (NC), David Price (NC), Mel Watt (NC), Brad Miller (NC), John Yarmuth (KY), Gerry Connolly (VA) and Frank Wolf (VA) voted against H.R. 2273 , the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, a bill that does nothing to protect our communities from the dangers of toxic coal ash. Though we are…
Read MoreTell Congress We Can’t Afford The Status Quo on Coal Ash!
This Friday, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, a bill that puts the profits of coal ash polluters above public health. H.R. 2273 subverts public support of the EPA’s proposed federal coal ash rules by leaving coal ash pollution in the hands of states with…
Read MoreA Cup of Arsenic in the Morning Does a Body…Good?
In what some folks would call the “no-duh” factor, the TVA has found contaminated groundwater near some of their coal fired power plant coal ash sites. Following the 2008 coal ash disaster at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tenn., the topic of toxicity in coal ash has raged hotter than a coal-stoked furnace. According…
Read MoreGreat Film on the TVA Coal Ash Spill Disaster Two Years Later
In September, 2010 I traveled back to Harriman, Tennessee to meet the Blue Planet Expedition crew and our research partners at the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute to tell the story of the TVA coal ash spill disaster two and half years after it happened. We spent a long day on the Emory River electroshocking fish…
Read MoreEPA Hears Comments about Potential Coal Ash Regulation as Hazardous Waste
Yesterday in Knoxville, TN the EPA held a public hearing on whether or not to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste. Coal ash or coal combustion residuals (CCRs) are the stuff that is left over after coal is burned and constitutes one of the nation’s largest streams of waste. Coal ash contains many heavy…
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