acroyear: (fof earplug)
Joe's Ancient Jottings ([personal profile] acroyear) wrote2008-12-23 03:14 pm
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major disaster from collapse of man-make object...and NOT on River Road

I'm all for being impressed when local DC news (that's not political) makes the nationals...but this is MUCH bigger and more important...and therefore doesn't seem to be noticed by anybody...

Pharyngula: Let's talk about clean coal:
When power plants burn coal to produce energy, the coal doesn't just vanish into the atmosphere to cause global warming. No, there's a substantial amount of left-over sludge called coal ash, a nasty mess that is enriched for toxic heavy metals. It is seriously nasty stuff. This glop has to be stored, somewhere, usually piled up and walled-off, because it's not healthy for anything.

[youtube video]

This is happening right now, here in the United States. Yesterday, a retaining wall failed, and 500 million gallons of coal ash — the vile grey slime in the video — poured down into the tributaries of the Tennessee River, the water supply for Chattannooga and environs.

We're looking at a major environmental catastrophe, bigger than any oil spill, and most of the news media are silent about it. I checked CNN, MS-NBC, even Fox News…not a word