The Bush Legacy: Talkin' TVA Coal Ash Spill Emory River Blues

On December 22nd, the TVA Kingston Fossil Coal Plant belched billions of gallons of toxic coal ash into neighboring communities- including the Emory River. The 300 acres of contaminated land and 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic fly ash make this incident larger than the '89 Exxon Valdez spill. As of today's posting, only minimal efforts by the TVA have been made to clean up the spill, and only after a congressional hearing and several damning articles/reports.

A group of researchers and environmentalists, working in tandem with Sandra Diaz (National Field Coordinator for Appalachian Voices) and students and faculty from Appalachian State University took to the Emory in dry suits and kayaks collecting water samples. While navigating the "ash bergs" and dead fish, the group was able to determine that the water contained over 300x the allowable amount of arsenic, as well as dozens of toxic metals. John Wathen, Huricaine Creekkeeper and credited photographer for this article, said of the spill,

“This is the largest loss of material into a river I have ever seen,” said Wathen. “It could rank as one of America’s worst environmental disasters in recent history if not the worst. This tops the Susquehanna cave in, the Exxon Valdez, or the Martin County KY Tug River slurry spill.”

Arsenic and other toxins weren't the only hostile elements the team met while on the Emory.

Wathen said the groups have been denied access to public roads and escorted out of a waterway by private TVA security police who claimed they were given federal authority through the Patriot act. These are, Watham said, “gestopo tactics intended to scare people away from the truth.”

Along with Donna Lisenby and Sandra Diaz, Watham skirted police lines and took samples. “Cops (were) yelling from both sides,” he said. “The cops in cars could not get to us for the water. The cops in the boat could not reach us for the mud and debris in the river, and the helicopter couldn’t land in the muck to pick us up either.”

That's right, friends and neighbors, the Patriot act somehow gives private security police the right to escort researchers off of public land, which they gained access to by public roads. And who knows? It just might, but I can't find anyone who's read the fuckin' thing...

In 2002, George W. Bush cancelled a health regulation that would have returned the "allowable amount" of arsenic (really? arsenic?) in drinking water to 10ppb. Instead, we have an EPA that, while recognizing the hazards of both arsenic and coal plant waste in print, has no authority to scale back the amount of fucking poison in our drinking water or treat coal ash as a hazard. Under W., the EPA has been turned into a "name only" organization, and it is my sincere hope that the incoming administration will view this agency in a com-fucking-pletely different light.

Yesterday, a second spill occurred at the Widows Creek Coal Plant in Stevenson, Alabama. The TVA initially denied the existence of any toxins in the creek, but 24 hours can make on hell of a difference.

A silvery gray sludge coated the shore in the photos taken at Bellefonte Landing, near a site for which TVA is seeking a permit to build a nuclear power plant.

"This is the same stuff on the shoreline up there at Kingston," said Morgan, who speculated that it came from Widows Creek.

TVA spokesman John Moulton said he didn't believe that whatever Morgan had pictured in photographs was ash or gypsum from either the Kingston or Widows Creek spills.

Ya got that folks? Moulton doesn't think the pictures are from Widows Creek.

He probably thinks that Dick Cheney is a swell fella, too.

'Til Next Time,