Word: coal
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...American coal-fired power plants produce 130 million tons of fly ash every year. Industry reuses some of it for asphalt, cement, and brick manufacture, but 57 percent of fly ash is disposed of in hundreds of landfills across the country. Astonishingly, the Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate fly ash, which contains arsenic, lead, mercury, and uranium, as a hazardous material. It recommends that coal plants store fly ash in insulation-lined landfills to prevent leakage but has no mandate to actually enforce this suggestion...
...just in Kingston. A 2007 EPA report concluded that fly ash had contaminated surface and ground water at 67 sites. Last month, the Department of the Interior found that 27 percent of American freshwater fish contained unsafe levels of mercury; fly-ash pollution is a likely contributing factor. The coal industry’s failure to safely dispose of fly ash has put hundreds of American towns in harm’s way. A rapid and meaningful response from the federal government is needed to prevent future disasters...
...director, Lisa Jackson, announced a plan to inspect disposal sites, order cleanups and repairs, and develop safety regulations to be announced by December. Furthermore, Representative Nick Rahall has proposed legislation that would federally mandate engineering standards for fly-ash impoundments. The TVA is now preparing to convert its coal waste disposal from slurry form to dry storage, which is much less likely to leach into soil and cause toxic spills...
...Finally, the next national energy bill should strongly discourage the building of new coal-fired power plants, even those that include carbon capture and sequestration. Until all fly ash is recycled and/or safely disposed of, the danger of polluted groundwater and sludge spills will still loom large. New coal plants will only serve to exacerbate a serious and unsolved problem. Besides, solar, wind, and nuclear energy do not emit greenhouse gases, as coal currently does...
...Thirty years ago, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident spurred Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make nuclear power plants safer. Similarly, the Kingston spill has revealed a need for government action and greater responsibility from coal-burning utilities. The coal industry must be pressured by the public and elected officials into becoming as “clean” as it can be. Despite what the industry may publicly proclaim, there is no such thing as clean coal, at least not yet. Nobody knows this better than the people of Kingston, Tennessee...