http://counterpunch.com/roselle01092009.htmlWhat Can Be Done to Save Appalachia?
Drowning in a Toxic River
-snip-
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which built and manages the 50 year old plant, had covered it up with red clay, planted grass on it and some exotic pine trees at the base, and from Sandy’s yard it hadn’t look very threatening. But he knew what was in that pile and he and other locals had been complaining that it was leaking for years. TVA responded by installing some more pipes to drain the seepage into the Emory River. But when the pile collapsed, no dam could have held it back. It was supersaturated and highly unstable. The dam was pushed across the river largely intact, across acres of riparian forests, and like a bulldozer scrapping everything in its path, it shoved what was a sanctuary for wildlife up against the hills above the opposite side of slough. Killed were not only fish, but frogs, turtles, rabbits, mink, muskrat and all of the wildlife you would expect to find in a slough where three creeks joina large southern Appalachian river.
-snip-
The avalanche of sludge that damaged Sandy’s house also wiped out the train tracks leading into the power plant. Seven out of nine generators have been shut down as the TVA feverishly works around the clock to replace the rails before they run out of coal. The coal trains will soon be bringing coal from Zeb Mountain to replenish the two piles that rise above everything on the site save the massive smoke stacks. This is the end of the line for the coal that is being ripped out of the Appalachian Mountains. From here, the clean invisible electrons will zip at dazzling speed through high tension wires to homes and factories across the country providing America with clean and cheap energy.
Except it isn’t clean and it sure isn’t cheap. Every day, plants like this one will consume 10,000 tons of coal and release three times that much carbon dioxide into the air, along with mercury, arsenic and lead. What they take out of the stacks will be concentrated in the ash, and that ash will eventually wind up in a river, and this is all that’s left of the mountain. All along the way, laws and regulations designed to prevent this disaster were ignored by the TVA managers. They spent millions lobbing against treating this ash as what it clearly is: toxic waste.
-snip-
On Sunday, the 25th of January, I will be organizing civil disobedience in East Tennessee. If you are able to be there with me, please come. If you can’t be there, contact me at roselle@lowbagger.org and find out other ways to offer support. For more information on the TVA ash spill and how you can get involved, go to www/unitedmountaindefense.org.
Mike Roselle lives in Rock Creek, West Virginia. He can be reached at:roselle@lowbagger.org
----------------------------
whose neighborhood is next?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
