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The 2008 coal ash disaster in Kingston, Tennessee
- owenthejumper 2y agoWithout spoilers...what a disappointing article. This feels like it should have been a long read, and yet, the article ends just as it started, with no explanation, investigation, or conclusion.
- tomrod 2y agoIt's a long form, unclassified advertisement for a book mentioned at the end. Decently written if a little too reliant on cliffhangers.
- animal_spirits 2y agoThis was recently an episode topic on the podcast 99% Invisible. It brought up a lot of interesting questions for me mostly about the systemic differences between public and private operations and pros&cons on both. Plainly shown TVA has been abysmal after it was forced to operate as a profit motivated institution. Though it was still federally owned it received nearly total immunity from the mishaps it caused through sovereign immunity laws. What is the check on disasters like this happening again? Will more regulation prevent it? The EPA's regulations incentivized it to further endanger workers during the cleanup. It needs to either be fully privately owned (still regulated) or fully federally owned and funded. - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/613-valley-so-low/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/613-valley-so-low/
- jillesvangurp 2y agoCoal plants being dirty, toxic, and generally not good for the health of nearby populations isn't exactly new information of course. But they were important for energy generation for a long time. That's the reason the resulting pollution and toxic waste is tolerated. Coal contains all sorts of stuff besides organic matter. When you burn it, the non organic stuff remains. It will typically contain metals, heavy metals, and other stuff that isn't good for you. That's also the reason coal smog isn't good for people. You don't want that stuff in your lungs. It's similarly bad as smoking is. The ash needs to go somewhere and the standard practice with a lot of coal plants has been to just dump it outside, try to contain it with some infrastructure, and not worry too much about it. Nobody really cared. Except now a lot of these plants are going out of business and the the toxic waste remains. And most of these plants needed cooling water so they tend to be close to water ways. So, there's that.
- Earw0rm 2y agoHow does domestic coal ash compare to this stuff? Do the higher temperatures and pressures in power station liberate more of the harmful stuff, or is it basically as bad? UK homes were commonly coal heated as late as the 1980s, a few still are. Its contribution to air pollution was well-understood, but this has got me wondering about ash exposure, as people would routinely handle the stuff with basically nothing in terms of protective gear.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoMore efficient burning means more the waste metals get concentrated in the ashes instead of in the smog. It has to go somewhere.
- wqaatwt 2y ago> That's the reason the resulting pollution and toxic waste is tolerated Yet nuclear despite inherently being much less harmful weren’t historically that well tolerated.
- gambiting 2y agoBecause people have a completely wrong impression of the scale of nuclear waste. In the Netherlands there is a museum inside their nuclear waste repository - you can literally walk right up to the barrels containing nuclear waste, it's open to the members of the public. https://www.covra.nl/en/radioactive-waste/the-art-of-preservation/ https://www.covra.nl/en/radioactive-waste/the-art-of-preserv... And I don't remember the exact number, but I'm sure I read somewhere that all of world's highly radioactive nuclear waste(spent fuel) could fit in several olympic swimming pools - while this coal power plant produced 1000 tonnes(!!!!) a day(!!!) of coal soot. The scale is just completely incomparable. But people look at Chernobyl or Fukishima and think that the exclusion zones created by those events are inherently a feature of nuclear power - when they are not.
- immibis 2y agoRadioactive clouds and exclusion zones are inherent features of nuclear power the way that buffer overflows and remote code execution are inherent features of C.
- latchkey 2y agoI am guessing this is coming up now due to the recent changes in regulations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43357447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43357447 "Prioritizing coal ash program to expedite state permit reviews and update coal ash regulations (CCR Rule)"
- DecentShoes 2y agoIf you want me to read your article, don't cover it with a stupid popup in the middle of the screen. I closed the page as soon as I saw that.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago[flagged]
- pjdesno 2y agoI think it’s likely the latter, not the former. If they didn’t like coal ash they’d have voted for someone else.
- monetus 2y agoYou felt the need to comment to tell people to be disinterested in compassion? Anyways, the ash spill is from well before Trump's ascendance.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoAnd never mind the TVA responsible for this is a government owned and operated organization with sovereign immunity.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> the ash spill is from well before Trump's ascendance The point is the survivors of this voted for Trump when he was talking, on the stump, about deregulating coal. One way or another, another coal-ash disaster didn’t strike them as a dealbreaker.
- pstuart 2y agoBut think of all the liberal tears they can savor.
- greenie_beans 2y agoare you aware of locals' perception about the TVA? lol
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI'm struggling to come up with a charitable, non-misanthropic, reading of that either/or.
- hinkley 2y agoMan that still feels like it was ten years ago. 17, really?
- wglb 2y agoWikipedia article with more detail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
- greenie_beans 2y ago[flagged]
- myrmidon 2y agoHow is linking wikipedia insulting? Those two are perfectly complementary. The article basically tells a story, while wikipedia (almost clinically) describes cause, effect and timeline.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wglb 2y agoMy intent was to augment the article.
- greenie_beans 2y agoi think you are coming from a genuine place to be helpful. though it might be insulting to a writer for somebody to share their work then somebody offers a link like, "here read this instead"
- wat10000 2y agoWhat's insulting is getting a clickbait headline and then an ad thrown in my face when I start reading.
- greenie_beans 2y agoyou can subscribe to the oxford american and that won't be a problem.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- Carrok 2y agoThis article has some great writing overall, but ends with this > How could this happen? Ansol wondered. I wish it had dug into this. These sort of things don't just happen. There must be accountability, and journalists are who are supposed to start that process. This was clearly an environmental travesty of monumental proportions. How do we grapple with the fact this sort of thing is apparently just allowed to continue happening?
- alibarber 2y agoIt's an extract from a book - which I would hope digs into it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- leetrout 2y agoRelated I lived through a large coal slurry spill in 2000 in Eastern KY. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_sp...
- jollyllama 2y agoSee also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Blue_Run_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Blue_Run_Lake > Another lawsuit was filed in Federal Court by 15 Beaver County, Pennsylvania residents and 36 West Virginia residents who accused FirstEnergy of contaminating groundwater and leaking hazardous waste, including arsenic, sulfates, sodium, calcium, magnesium and chloride[2] into local waterways and groundwater systems.
- hannob 2y agoOh, I remember that one. At the time, the construction of new coal-fired power plants was a controversial topic in many locations in Germany. (Around 30 new coal power plants were planned at times. Some were stopped, but 10 of them were actually build, which is bad enough.) I also tried to raise awareness about this incident in Tennessee, trying to have a look at the environmental issues of coal on a more international level. But it didn't generate much interest.
- sierra1011 2y agoTerrifying that this could happen as recently as 2008 and, I'm sure, with better understanding of potential consequences. In 1966, something similar (although with a mining waste dump, instead of ash) happened in Aberfan, Wales (in the UK) with a more tragic outcome[1]. The question should be whether this occurred due to ignorance or ignoring the lessons of history, which rhymes if not repeats. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
- hydrogen7800 2y agoThis was featured in an episode of The Crown [0]. I had never heard of it and didn't know what the episode was going to be about. I think they did a good job conveying the magnitude of the tragedy. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/nov/17/television-drama-the-crown-portrays-aberfan-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/nov/17/televis...
- mrlonglong 2y agoYou were lucky. We in the UK had this back in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
- twic 2y agoI've heard of a few of these in the US, but have not heard of any in the UK, where we also burned a lot of coal. Did we manage the ash differently? I have a vague idea that we have a different kind of coal, which produces less ash. I couldn't find anything conclusive, but found this from 2015: > Storage, whether in lagoons, silos or landfills, rather than re-use, is the default solution for coal ash management in most countries. The UK’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates that, of the eight million tonnes of coal ash produced in the country each year, half is re-used, while over 300 million tonnes have been stored in lagoons or silos since the 1950s. [...] The American Coal Ash Association (ACAA) reports on US coal ash production and use each year. In 2013, 53 million tonnes of coal ash were generated, of which 23 million tonnes were re-used. Of the unused portion, the EPA says 36 per cent was stored in landfills, and 21 per cent in wet storage facilities. [...] Some countries are doing better, though: for example, the Netherlands recycles 100 per cent of its coal ash because landfill is not allowed in the country. In Germany, where around 10 million tonnes of coal ash are produced per year, around 97 per cent is re-used, with the rest stored only on a temporary basis. According to the European Coal Combustion Products Association (Ecoba), of the 48 million tonnes of coal ash produced in 15 EU countries in 2010 (the latest available figures), 13.8 million tonnes were re-used. https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/managing-coal-ash/ https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/managing-coal... The "re-use" is by processing it into materials which can be used for various construction and materials manufacturing processes. There's lots of other fascinating details about coal ash in there. Wikipedia is pretty good too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_combustion_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_combustion_products
- throwaway519 2y agoThe UK had the Aberfan disaster that led to better awareness and enforcement of above-ground tip management be it mine or combusted slag or ash. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
- jamiescoop 2y agohttps://tennesseelookout.com/2022/04/12/osha-officials-admit-to-shredding-documents-in-tennessee-valley-authority-coal-ash-case/ https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/04/12/osha-officials-admit...
- jamiescoop 2y agohttps://tennesseelookout.com/2022/04/12/osha-officials-admit-to-shredding-documents-in-tennessee-valley-authority-coal-ash-case/ https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/04/12/osha-officials-admit... https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/05/23/jacobs-engineering-settles-kingston-coal-ash-case/ https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/05/23/jacobs-engineering-s... These stories should give you the info you need to understand what happened to the Kingston workers. I spent years as an investigative journalist revealing this travesty through dozens of stories.
- sourtrident 2y agoFeels like disasters like this aren't just random accidents - they're symptoms of slowly ignoring the cracks until everything breaks open. Makes you wonder what else we're overlooking right now that's quietly falling apart around us.
- pmlnr 2y agoWe had a high-PH red mud slurry disaster in Hungary 15 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajka_alumina_plant_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajka_alumina_plant_accident