2008.12.29
The coal ash flood, one week later
Now it's a week and a day. NPR had this report this morning. (Dec. 30. 2008)
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I took a couple of days off for Christmas, so I haven't updated the Tennessee coal ash flood information for a while. In the interim, there has been some national news coverage and even a front page story in The Roanoke Times. I've put a few links below to recent news coverage, a couple of blogs and the official EPA and TVA pages. At least two things have become clear in the past few days:
The spill was much larger than the TVA originally said.
The EPA has determined that there are (not surprisingly) elevated levels of heavy metals in the path of the flood, including very high levels of arsenic.
The TVA has not backed down, so far as I know, from its early explanations for the fish kills downstream. 1) It's been really cold. 2) Maybe the flood splashed a lot of fish of on the bank.
Here are the links. Some have sound. Some have video.
The New York Times story from Christmas Eve
The Chattanooga paper, Dec. 27
The Louisville Courier Journal Dec. 27
Environmental activist Dave Cooper on the Huffington Post
The Knoxville News Sentinel Monday, Dec. 29
The Institute for Southern Studies
The TVA page, including video of a news conference.
And here's all the stuff I've posted previously about the flood.
-- Tim Thornton
Thanks, Tim, for keeping us up to date! We saw coverage on CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN over the Christmas holiday. Did not see on Fox News but they may be covering it, too.
Comment by Diana Christopulos — December 29, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
I was initially impressed that the Roanoke Times ran the TVA ash dam break story as the leader on page one December 27, but the AP story reads as though it was written by the TVA. How many municipal drinking water supply intakes are located downstream from this spill? Are the water utility officials there checking to see if their water source still can be safely used for this purpose? Who is doing that analysis? What are the results?
Comment by Rupert Cutler — December 30, 2008 @ 8:53 am
Tim,
This right here is the type of disaster that I and the Concerned Citizens of Giles County are trying so hard to avoid. It is like no one wants to accept the responsibility for any of this. Where are all our legislators at when we need them. They sit back, accept their big pay checks and the hell with the little people. These power companies have all the big bucks and none of them are going to accept responsibility for any damage to private property that they create. The sad part is that paying damages to private property is little compared to what effect all the damage does to our environment. 50 years from now when the United State does not have clean water to drink, someone is going to say "Why did our government let this happen" To little, way to late.
Comment by Teresa Melvin — December 31, 2008 @ 11:11 am
[...] SEJer Tim Thornton has a roundup of the news from around the web at the New River Notebook blog associated with The Roanoke Times. Tim has been following the coal ash issue for quite some time, [...]
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[...] previous blogging on the flood is here and [...]
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