Dear EarthTalk: What were the environmental impacts of the huge coal ash spill in Tennessee this past December?
-- Dave S, Lynnfield, MA

Environmentalists’ call for an end to the age of coal—one of the dirtiest and most common of all the fossil fuels we now use—took on new urgency this past December when some 525 million gallons of wet coal ash, enough toxic slurry to flood more than 3,000 acres of nearby land, spilled into the nearby Tennessee River and surrounding areas when a retaining wall at a power plant in the town of Harriman gave way.

The sludge destroyed 12 homes, though no one was directly injured. However, an unprecedented fish kill occurred in the Tennessee River and area tributaries in the aftermath of the spill. According to John Moulton, a spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority which owns the plant, a test of river water near the spill site found elevated levels of lead and thallium, both of which have been linked to birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders. He reassured locals that, although these substances exceeded safety limits for drinking water, they would be filtered out by normal water treatment processes.

But some area residents aren’t so sure that they are safe from the effects of the spill, which is estimated to have been over 40 times bigger by volume than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Calling it an “environmental disaster of epic proportions,” Carol Kimmons, a local resident who works at the non-profit Sequatchie Valley Institute, told reporters that the nasty black ash flowed into “the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.” She added that the spill was 70 percent bigger than a similar one in Kentucky in October 2000 (306 million gallons) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) referred to at the time as “one of the worst environmental disasters in the Southeastern United States.”

More than a year after that Kentucky spill, researchers found levels of lead downstream from where the spill took place that were 400 times higher than the EPA’s safe limit. And levels of Beryllium were 160 times higher than acceptable EPA levels. “Coal contains huge amounts of heavy metals, and when coal is burned, the organic matter burns off, but many of the nasty chemicals stick around, in higher concentrations,” said Kimmons. “Also, coal is 'washed' using some really nasty chemicals, which are also left over in coal slurry.” The bottom line, she concluded, is that “coal slurry is really, really toxic stuff.”

Ironically, on the very same day as the huge Tennessee spill, a coalition of 39 non-profit groups delivered a letter to then President-elect Barack Obama asking him to overturn a pending Bush administration rule change that would ease regulations on coal waste disposal. The groups contend that coal ash has already polluted 23 states and that the proposed new rule would only allow more pollution and more risks to human health and the environment. Now-President Obama has pledged to undertake a comprehensive inventory of liquid coal ash waste and propose new regulations to ensure its safe disposal.

“This disaster proves that regulations around coal slurry impoundments need to be tightened, and not loosened,” says Kimmons. Only time will tell if verbal commitments from Washington materialize into help on the ground.

4 Comments

1. 1. WhitesCreek 03:23 PM 5/19/09

   Some errors in this report that I would not expect from Scientific American. The ash spill covered roughly 300 acres of lake, not 3000. There were fish killed but nothing massive. They were primarily killed by sediment and the mechanics of what was more like a geologic event than anything that could be described by the term "spill".
   
   This disaster started on Dec. 22 but certainly hasn't ended. It calls into question all of the assumptions of safety with regard to burning coal for energy. The nearby population has unexplained serious health issues and the fishery appears to be headed for disaster. This in a lake that currently holds roughly 40 world records for fish.
   
   If ever a community has taken a bullet in the battle against lobbyists it is Roane County TN, as big coal operatives force the TN legislature to turn tricks at their direction. Outrageously, the state senator who lives in Roane County introduced a bill (SB 1331) that would allow far more selenium to be discharged into the environment than is the EPA standard. Senator Ken Yager was heavily financed by the coal industry and charges ahead with his mission even as Appalachian State scientists released a report stating that the selenium concentrations found in the lake's fish are at the tipping point with higher levels leading to the end of their ability to reproduce.
   
   At this point the ash is migrating downstream and will continue to cause problems for some time, not only for the people who line in TN but as far away as central Georgia and Pennsylvania where TVA proposes to tansport and landfill the ash as it is dredged out of the lake.

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2. 2. americaspower 03:09 PM 5/20/09

   I know that energy is a complex issue, and I think most people would be surprised to know that coal currently provides half of the countrys electricity, with some states getting up to 95 percent of their electricity from coal. In addition to providing the country with reliable domestic energy, coal also keeps Americans at work. My team recently visited the Harriman Dispatching Center in Omaha, Neb., where 800 employees work around the clock to ensure the smooth operation of Union Pacifics entire rail operation. <a href= http://sn.im/factuality>Factuality Tour</a>

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3. 3. BuskyDubbs 06:34 PM 5/20/09

   This article did not answer the question. "WhitesCreek" was more informative than SciAm; "americaspower" sounds like a lobbyist trying to change the subject. In Texas we have natural gas, a whole lot cleaner, and it employs thousands of mad proud Texas-Americans. Any large scale operation employs many proud patriotic Americans. The question with coal, and coal ash, is whether those employees should want their children to grow up with lead-heads. I'd say the extra 4 cents on my bill is worth knowing I won't have a toxic tidle-wave poison area lakes and kill all the freshwater Bass and finger-lick'n good Catfish. For those states dumb enough to vote for Coal-Industry puppets, their question ought be 1) Petition to let coal be burnt raw, and thus spread its death in a less concentrated manner, or 2) What are our alternatives and how much would they cost vs. keeping filthy toxic baby-mutating coal which should have never been exumed from its monstrous unGodly fetid graves, or 3) What would it cost to burn coal in pure oxygen, capture the CO2 with chilled ammonia, and separate the toxic metals out for sale in scientific and manufacturing uses?
   
   Or... 4) How much is our health and ecology worth?
   Presumably, if they've thought this through in rural TN, not much. You reap what you sow.

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4. 4. cattman 07:23 AM 8/1/10

   Why does no one mention in these articles the significant amount of THorium, Uranium 235 and 238 and Other radiocative constituents in the ash. There is estimated to be enough fissile u-235 in the fly ash of a coal fired plant to power a simiar sized pplant as the one that produced the ash. We're talking tons from a 1GW plant. See Gabbard et al , an Oak Ridge paper, or US NCRP Paper 92 1987.

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