Tennessee coal ash spill three years ago

So much has happened since that terrible day three years ago when more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge burst through a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, about 150 miles from Nashville.

For starters, the Environmental Protection Agency, which had promised to move swiftly to protect the public from future coal ash disasters soon after the TVA spill, has still not finalized a national rule.  In the absence of EPA action, more contamination has been uncovered at 19 new sites and additional disasters have occurred, such as the October 31, 2011 25,000-ton coal ash spill in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where a bluff collapsed sending coal ash and debris from We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant into Lake Michigan.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) opposed H.R. 2273, calling it a "green-light pass for utility companies to dispose of their waste without regard to public health or the environment."

It’s been a hard year for those of us who dream of our drinking water being free from coal ash contamination.  We waited for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to release standards for regulating toxic coal ash and were dismayed to find out they would be delayed until the end of 2012 or even 2013. Then in October, the House of Representatives passed a bill that allows for coal ash to keep polluting our drinking water. That same month a 50-year-old coal ash fill in Wisconsin collapsed, sending toxic waste directly into Lake Michigan.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, the Senate has an identical companion bill, S. 1751, that they will be voting on imminently.

But despite all this, we are grateful.

Coal ash spill into Lake Michigan

We’re closing in on the 3-year anniversary of the TVA coal ash disaster and there are still no federal regulations in place protecting us from coal ash. And now, another spill: in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a bluff collapsed, sending coal ash and debris from We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant into Lake Michigan.

Writing this off as a “freak accident” or “mudslide” is a dangerous err in judgment. Coal ash has toxic levels of arsenic, hexavalent chromium, mercury, lead and other chemicals. Would you want that in your drinking water? No, and sadly, that is a reality to people who live near these sites in Wisconsin.

We’re still waiting on details from this spill (how many tons of coal ash, how far does it extend, etc.) and there are many questions. Maureen Wolff lives a mile from the power plant and walked to the shoreline shortly after the incident. She saw the dark color of the debris and wondered if it was coal ash.

“All this is going along the coast line and they’re telling people all it is is just a few trailers and possibly some tools. No one is saying what exactly is in it,” she is quoted saying in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Massive clean-up operations in the aftermath of the 2008 Kingston coal ash spill. (TVA)

The anticipated vote on H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, will be upon us Friday. The bill (sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (WV-R)) would prevent the EPA from establishing a strong national rule to protect American’s health and drinking water from the nation’s second largest industrial waste stream: coal ash.

There are myriad health hazards associated with coal ash disposal sites, due to the many toxic chemicals that are contained in the ash such as arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead and mercury, just to name a few.  From high cancer risk from poisoned drinking water, to blowing toxic dust, to the risk of catastrophic collapse, too much is at stake to not properly regulate this toxic waste.

But we know now that a strong coal ash rule includes another benefit: 28,000 new American jobs every year.