Sunday, December 28, 2008
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Huge environmental disaster in Tennessee - Coal Ash spill
Friends,

There was a huge and terrible environmental disaster in Tennessee yesterday.



The Tennessee Valley Authority, better known as TVA, has a
coal-burning power plant located near Harriman, Tennessee, along
Interstate 40 between Knoxville and Nashville. The stuff that is left
over after TVA burns their coal is called coal ash.

Coal ash contains mercury and dangerous heavy metals like lead and
arsenic - materials found naturally in coal are concentrated in the
ash.

TVA has a huge mountain of this coal waste material stored in a
gigantic pile next to their Harriman (Kingston) power plant, alongside
a tributary of the Tennessee River.

On Monday morning Dec. 22 around 1:00 am, the earthen retaining wall
around this mountain of coal ash failed and approximately 500 million
gallons of nasty black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the
Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of
people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

This Tennessee TVA spill is over 40 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez
spill in Alaska, if local news accounts are correct.

*** This is a huge environmental disaster of epic proportions.

To see an amazing aerial video of the spill - the big hunks and chunks
in the river are mounds of coal ash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGmVCABMRRQ

There is better aerial footage but you have to watch an Applebees
commercial first - go to the link below, then scroll down to the "Most
Popular" section and find the button that says "aerial footage"

http://www.wbir.com/video/default.aspx?aid=74330

The local media are downplaying the spill, but the Nashville newspaper
(The Tennessean) has a decent article, posted below.

When I first saw the 300 million gallon Martin County coal sludge
spill in Kentucky in October 2000 I was outraged.  I was sure that it
would be a national news story, but it never was, because the coal
companies and local law enforcement blocked the road leading to the
spill and kept the media out.  The national media was confused because
they didn't know what "coal sludge" was.  And ....the big national
environmental groups didn't do enough to bring media attention to the
Martin County disaster.

Thats not going to happen this time, because we have

1. You Tube
2. Bloggers
3. Digital cameras
4. You!

Please help - we need volunteers to take pictures and video of the
spill and post them on the web.  We need first hand accounts and
documentation of the spill.  We need letters to the editor.  We need
calls and emails to our leaders in Washington and Nashville and
Frankfort and to President-Elect Obama.

Please fwd this email to other concerned people and the news media.

*** There is no such thing as clean coal!  Look at the video of this spill.

"Clean Coal" is The Big Corporate Lie.

This horrific disaster in Tennessee can be the turning point in our
nation's struggle to build a new network of clean modern renewable
sources of energy, like wind and solar power - but we have to raise
awareness of this disaster immediately.  Thanks for reading.

Here is the Tennessean's coverage:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081223/GREEN02/812230370/1001/RSS6001
Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike
Collapse poses risk of toxic ash
By Anne Paine and Colby Sledge

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