Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash

phantom power

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Aug-31-09 04:43 PM
Original message

Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash

I wonder how much uranium got released with that three million cubic yards of ash.

UNIONTOWN, Ala. — Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.

To county leaders, the train’s loads, which will total three million cubic yards of coal ash from a massive spill at a power plant in east Tennessee last December, are a tremendous financial windfall. A per-ton “host fee” that the landfill operators pay the county will add more than $3 million to the county’s budget of about $4.5 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30ash.html

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

NNadir

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Aug-31-09 06:53 PM
Response to Original message

1. Well it says it creates jobs...

Although it doesn't sound for a minute like they've identified a permanent repository for the waste that will be stable for billions of years.

Dangerous coal waste stays toxic for millions of years, sort of like, um, cadmium and selenium, dangerous solar cell waste.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Po_d Mainiac

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Aug-31-09 07:10 PM
Response to Original message

2. And I thought that Maine was the only State dumb

enough to import out-of-State toxins! And to think it was a regiment from Maine that kicked Ala's ass at Little Big Top....go figure?

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

phantom power

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Sep-01-09 10:26 AM
Response to Reply #2

3. To find where waste of any kind gets dumped, follow the poverty.

Appalachia is a generally poor region. The local residents are frequently poor and not well educated, and geographically isolated.

A lot of what we called "environmental progress" in the 80s and 90s was really more like exporting our pollution to other countries where the people were poor and the environmental regs were lax. We exported a lot of our manufacturing pollution to China. We exported a lot of our extraction-industry pollution to south america and Asia.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

DU AdBot (1000+ posts)

Wed Apr 24th 2024, 03:35 AM
Response to Original message

Advertisements [?]

Top

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators

Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.