Moving Toxic Coal Ash From Tennessee Spill to Impoverished Alabama Town Creates a New Problem

GREEN IS GOOD
by Margaret Smith

On Dec. 22, 2008, disaster struck the Tennessee Valley Authority. 

Well, actually, spilled is more like it. All over 300 acres of Eastern Tennessee.

That was the day a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant accident near Knoxville sent more than 5 million cubic yards of coal ash over the eastern half of the state. The coal ash, or the residue left over after coal-fired power plants generate electricity and strip out pollutants, contained heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium that are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Scientists are still examining the spill's immediate effect to the surrounding area, although a recent study done by scientists and graduate students at Duke University found that the coal ash could pose a significant threat to local communities and aquatic ecosystems.

"Our findings emphasize the fact that although you may stop the emission of toxic elements from coal-fired power plants into the air, they remain in the fly ash that gets stored in power plants' contaminant ponds, and may still end up in the environment," said Avner Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences at the Nicholas School at Duke University.

It was clear that the coal ash needed to be removed from Tennessee, and quick. But where can you put 300 acres worth of coal ash?

For the TVA and the EPA, the answer was Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County, a rural area of Alabama. For residents of Uniontown, AL -- Arrowhead Landfill's closest population center -- it was just another problem. One that happens to weigh a billion gallons in toxic sludge.

The Arrowhead Landfill, located in central Alabama 75 miles west of Montgomery and 80 miles southwest of Birmingham, was not chosen on a whim, however. After careful consideration, both the TVA and EPA chose the site as a dumping ground because it is reachable by train, surrounded by an isolated area (if you consider 4 to 5 miles from Uniontown "isolated") and most importantly, can handle all the ash.

Local officials supported the ash contract, as well. In a community where the unemployment rate is 17 percent and a third of all households are below the poverty line, the idea of $3 million added to the county's budget and the 30 more jobs that the coal ash contract has so far created was quite an appeal.

Even environmentalists have to acknowledge that the Arrowhead Landfill is an ideal site to dump most of the spill's coal ash. Most of the problems from coal ash begin when the residue permeates wet, unlined ponds, such as the case of the Emory River in Tennessee. The Arrowhead Landfill, however, is a dry site dug 600 feet above the water table. It's also lined with clay and polymer and equipped with a leachate collection system to suck up any water that filters through the ash and dislodges contaminants.

Tennessee gets rid of its ash and places it in an environmentally-safe area, rural Alabama gets an influx of jobs and money in the county budget. Problem solved.

Not quite.

Residents of Uniontown are afraid of the coal ash for many of the same health-related reasons those in Tennessee are, but there's also the fear of equipment failure, flooding, tornadoes and a lack of oversight at the landfill. And the amount of evidence piling up against coal ash isn't easing any of their concerns.

Here's the solution, and already we have another problem.  It's a situation that seems to get to the heart of the current environmental debate: With the state of our Earth today, will the best fix ever be good enough?

Besides toxins such as arsenic and lead, coal also contains uranium and thorium that could be potentially harmful. Both have been deemed radioactive elements, and when they're a part of natural, or "whole," coal, this isn't an issue. It's when coal burns into fly ash, like the coal ash from the Tennessee spill, that uranium and thorium become a problem. When coal combusts and generates fly ash, one of the two types of ash that are jointly known as coal ash, both elements are concentrated up to 10 times their original levels. In fact, according to a study done by Scientific American, "the fly ash emitted by a power plant... carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same energy."

For Uniontown citizens, it's just another concern and another problem.

"I have to return to my persistent question: If this stuff is so safe, why bother cleaning it up when it spills?" wrote W. Compson Sartain, a columnist for the Perry County Herald. "I won't feel comfortable until I see a delegation from the EPA and the TVA standing on the courthouse square, each member stirring a heaping spoonful of coal ash into a glass of Tennessee river water this stuff has already fallen into and gargling with it. Go ahead. Put our money where your mouth is."

Local officials as well as the EPA don't seem to be taking of their concerns seriously, either. The Perry County Herald quoted EPA official Franklin Hill saying to residents in a meeting over the coal ash contract, "I'm not here asking, quite frankly, for approval."

"Money ain't worth everything," said Mary Gibson Holley, a 74-year-old black retired teacher in Uniontown, in an interview with the New York Times. "In the long run, they ain't looking about what this could do to the community if something goes wrong."

GREEN IS GOOD