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It Was the Worst Industrial Disaster In US History, and We Learned Nothing

Posted by Soulskill on from the par-for-the-course dept.

superboj writes "Forget Deepwater Horizon or Three Mile Island: The biggest industrial disaster in American history actually happened in 2008, when more than a billion gallons of coal sludge ran through the small town of Kingston, Tennessee. This story details how, five years later, nothing has been done to stop it happening again, thanks to energy industry lobbying, federal inaction, and secrecy imposed on Congress. 'It estimated that 140,000 pounds of arsenic had spilled into the Emory River, as well as huge quantities of mercury, aluminum and selenium. In fact, the single spill in Kingston released more chromium, lead, manganese, and nickel into the environment than the entire U.S. power industry spilled in 2007. ... Kingston, though, is by far the worst coal ash disaster that the industry has ever seen: 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash, containing at least 10 known toxins, were spilled. In fact, the event ... was even bigger than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, which spewed approximately 1 million cubic yards of oil into the Gulf of Mexico."

13 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Not even close to the worst. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The worst industrial disaster in US history is an ongoing event and involves the release of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning.

    1. Re:Not even close to the worst. by Teun · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The shills (and uneducated) might have downmodded you but I'm happy to spend some karma on supporting your statement.

      And I work in the energy industry...

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    2. Re:Not even close to the worst. by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      bullshit, more lives saved and extended and given modern life of luxury through the use of fossil fuels than any other technological action of man

    3. Re:Not even close to the worst. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but the point you guys need to come to terms with is that fossil fuels aren't the only source of energy production and transport, and it's becoming apparent that the harm outweighs the minor increases in fiscal cost of many other technologies.

      We do indeed have those that think that somehow things were better before industry, but those aren't the people you should be discussing the future with. Just like I shouldn't be discussing energy plans with people who think oil is a divinely provided renewable resource.

    4. Re:Not even close to the worst. by ericloewe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothing that nuclear power can't fix with a much lower impact.

    5. Re:Not even close to the worst. by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i agree, however we're not smart enough like other nations to be researching or building the reactors that can't melt down, make no long -term waste (as in decay in decades rather than millenia), and that can even burn our enormous cache of cooling pond and cask "spent fuel"

    6. Re:Not even close to the worst. by bunratty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. That's why we want to switch from fossil fuels to energy sources that do not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, such as solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels, etc. "Not breathing" is not the answer to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, nor is moving back to caves or pre-industrial times.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    7. Re:Not even close to the worst. by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      hyperbole that equates controlled use of energy resources to industrial accidents

      Melting the north pole may not an accident but it is certainly an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  2. There real reason ... by drsmack1 · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Is that the media decided not to cover it because it was not on either coast and they didn't have a clear way to blame it on the Bush administration.

    --

    Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind

    1. Re:There real reason ... by BullInChina · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just remember, every vote against nuclear is a vote FOR coal.

    2. Re:There real reason ... by gewalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've read a number of different estimates for deaths related to coal pollution, 10-15K annually in the US, 150-300K globally. Even if those estimates are 10 time actual, it is hard to beat coal pollution as the top killer for industrial activity. Disasters like collapses of mines, dams, coal ash pond get a lot more attention.

      Turning off every coal plant today would be a much bigger disaster -- people freezing, starving, diseases, etc. would be far worse, but hey, I am all for replacing coal with safer nukes, etc. All major systems will results in accidents and deaths, it is kind of the way it is. Even today, $/kwh from coal is generally cheaper than the viable alternatives. Arguably, a new generation of nuclear power could be cheaper than coal (fuel costs on the order of 15-25% of coal), but this is certainly not guaranteed.

      You still need transportation fuels (hard to replace jet planes with battery operated or nuclear).,

  3. Re:We've learned nothing? by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not a matter of "how much" it's a matter of "Who lives down river"

    I'm going to hazard a guess that in this case it was poor people.

  4. Oh shuit up you just hate frreedom by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You just hate freedom. You want to take away my right to pollute the atmosphere so badly that it causes massive socio-political upheaval s around the world completely re-ordering the geopolitical landscape , uniting our enemies and making new ones under a unified belief that THIS is what America did to us, unleashing waves of suicide terrorism both abroad and domestically, all fueled by the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocent people, and unified by the theme that "this (desertification, devastating ocean rise unsurvivable heat waves, crop failures and finally, the death of large ocean life as the acidification takes out the lowest levels of the oceanic food pyramid, causing all above to collapse - THIS is what America did to us".

    You just hate America and you're against freedom. That's all.