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Report Finds Widespread Contamination at Nation's Coal Ash Sites (washingtonpost.com)
Nearly all 250 coal-fired plants in operation in the U.S. have leaked chemicals and contaminated the local groundwater supply with toxins [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; you can check the alternative source, and original report (PDF)], according to a report released this week by environmental groups Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice. From a report: The report found that 91 percent of the nation's coal-fired power plants reported elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, lithium, chromium and other pollutants in nearby groundwater. In many cases, the levels of toxic contaminants that had leaked into groundwater were far higher than the thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the groups said.
The examples span the country. At a family ranch south of San Antonio, a dozen pollutants have leaked from a nearby coal ash dump, data showed. Groundwater at one Maryland landfill that contains ash from three coal plants was contaminated with eight pollutants. In Pennsylvania, levels of arsenic in the groundwater near a former coal plant were several hundred times the level the EPA considers safe for drinking. The voluminous data became publicly available for the first time last year because of a 2015 regulation that required disclosures by the overwhelming majority of coal plants.
The examples span the country. At a family ranch south of San Antonio, a dozen pollutants have leaked from a nearby coal ash dump, data showed. Groundwater at one Maryland landfill that contains ash from three coal plants was contaminated with eight pollutants. In Pennsylvania, levels of arsenic in the groundwater near a former coal plant were several hundred times the level the EPA considers safe for drinking. The voluminous data became publicly available for the first time last year because of a 2015 regulation that required disclosures by the overwhelming majority of coal plants.
Seriously, this is a fact. There is toxic coal ash from coal plants in the groundwater of just about every single state. They claimed this could never happen, we needed to deregulate, now here it is. Prepare for the lies, here they come.
We need to dig this stuff up and extract that vital resource.
He will just repeal the act making them publish the data.
Here is a link to a website by the company that did this report https://ashtracker.org/ Cool stuff.
Or did the companies use the wrong soap to clean their coal?
True. But Fukushima isn't the water table in 48 states, from which we are now drinking. Coal contamination is a big problem, assuming you don't want a nation of Mercury/Lead contaminated Republican blank-shooting retards exclusively.
The green lobby is so fanatically anti-nuclear they'd prefer we continue burning coal than switch to nuclear. We could have stopped burning coal decades ago if it weren't for them standing in the way of progress.
Now they want us to switch to expensive, inconsistent, polluting renewable. I say polluting because renewable cause significant pollution during mining of the vast resources required to construct of large wind/solar farms, cause further pollution during manufacture and then yet more during disposal after their short lifespan is up.
Despite the obvious benefits of nuclear, the green lobby continue with their irrationality. A quick google search reveals an anti-nuclear article by Earthjustice, who carried out this study:
https://earthjustice.org/blog/2009-september/renewable-nuclear
The green lobby's anti-nuclear stance has done massive damage to the environment, and for that reason alone we should ignore them. We need an adult debate based on rational decision making, not fanatical, tree-hugging hippies.
Just lower the regulations. They clearly have been over burdensome to business and a ploy of the socialist Democrats that want to ruin this great country.
Make coal great again!
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Organic coal is made from all-natural ingredients without chemical toxins like arsenic, lithium, and chromium. Energy made from organic coal has a positive aura and with some added essential oils, can brighten your day.
would also have checked all the coal plants that have been shutdown. If you add all them in, you could get closer to 100% contaminated.
Lots of contamination (like a messy desk) means business is good, and what's good for business *Makes America Great Again*! All you little snowflakes can wear a gas mask and drink bottled water if you don't like it. The rest of us breathe deep all that carbon to make our lungs big and strong, and drink lots of water to condition our stomachs. See, pollution is like a vaccination, builds resistance, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Shocked I say!!!
I think the solution is to give the Republicans coal slurry to drink, and clean drinking water goes to people who value that. Problem solved. Everyone gets what they wanted.
Republican cowards want environmental segregation, let's give it to them - in a tall glass.
I think Google has contaminated more of the planet than just coal power plants with Chromium...
He's running distraction for coal intentionally. This is the GOP playbook under Trump - everything that happens is everyone else's fault but the Republicans doing it deliberately in front of your eyes.
No quarter. Kill the propagandist faggot Assthong.
These places literally glow in the dark and will kill life within minutes.
What a load of shit.
Plenty of people have investigated the "ghost town" of Chernobyl since 1986. There are people alive today who returned to areas near Chernobyl shortly after the accident, so it's hardly as deadly as you claim.
It's actually worse than any nuclear accident.
just need a crack crew of trump golf club members to publish a 'scientific' study showing that coal ash is healthy.
problem solved.
Fuck off, Coal Shill. Your UID is Ash - Ton. How fucking stupid do you think we are?
....Lithium shortage expected... ...Chromium prices jump on severe supply shortage....
(https://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/17068/Lithium-Shortage-Expected-Due-to-Lack-of-Mines.aspx)
https://www.metalbulletin.com/...
Sounds like that's not an ash pile, it's a gold mine.
-Styopa
These places literally glow in the dark and will kill life within minutes.
More radioactive material is emitted by coal plants than by nuclear plants worldwide. Does spreading out the health consequences over the nation, rather than having a really bad problem in one area, make it better? Oh, coal also has really bad problems in specific areas: the various "mouth of Hell" sites where a mine caught fire, and the site will keep burning for decades, perhaps centuries.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
A foreign agent is introduced to our water supply to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. I realized this after shooting blanks... How do you know it was republicans? That's the way your hard core commie works.
The problem with nuclear is that if they do it on a market budget, they risk more dangerous pollution than 100 years of coal ash, and it would last ~10,000 years. And they do it on a market budget, because otherwise it's "socialism" right?
The reason for those supply shortages are probably the same reason ash piles won't help much--dealing with all the toxic leftovers from the extraction process. To that end, coal ash is probably about the same as electronics as a gold mine: technically true because of the relatively density, but most anyone who does it does it in a third world country to avoid having to actually pay for any of the required environmentally mandated containment regulations. I'm actually sort of surprised that these places haven't sent all their coal ash to China. I mean, they too have tons of coal plants, and they really don't seem to give a shit about poisoning their own people with a government that generally prevents any dissent.
If you had left out the insults I might have modded you up.
Next time keep it short, simple and non-toxic:
"The green lobby is so fanatically anti-nuclear" - That doesn't have anything to do with coal ash over the last 50 years, which the "green lobby" has fought the entire time.
At least he said "lobby" and didn't accuse all environmentalists. I'm as much of a tree-hugging dirt-worshiper as the next hippy which is why I've always thought we should have more nuclear power. There are too many extremists among us and in many ways they are just as idiotic as the people "rolling coal" in their over-sized pickup trucks.
Some "environmental activists" are just terrorists and those who aren't need to start thinking beyond bumper-sticker slogans and panda bear pictures, especially if they want to be taken seriously.
"NO NUKES" isn't exactly a very persuasive argument. I don't think trying to discredit the source is very persuasive either. Even if Earth Justice is anti-nuclear does that mean there isn't contamination from coal ash sites all over the place?
... by altering the "safe," levels of contamination. [/s]
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
No need for Trump to get involved.
No one cares about the problem.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
That's the plan. If you gut the pension funds, then the pensioners are forced to vote Democrat to get SS increased to cover the theft from the leftists.
85% of the cost of nuclear construction is due to malicious "environmental" lawsuits and ensuing delays. Just the ongoing regulatory paperwork cost ... just the paperwork ... is on the order of $30M/year per plant in costs and fees to the NRC. That's paperwork, not engineering or design or fabrication or maintenance.
Think about this: Only nuclear has the externalities built in. Every kwh of power produced by a nuclear plant has money going into the shutdown and cleanup of the plant. Coal? Nope. Gas? Nope. Wind? Nope. Nuclear is "unaffordable" because it's been regulated and sued to death, not because it's "unaffordable". Stop lying.
In many cases, the levels of toxic contaminants that had leaked into groundwater were far higher than the thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the groups said.
The EPA thresholds are clearly too strict. Never fear, Trump will get that changed, and then the pollution will be gone, and America will be great once again.
Some forms of contamination is mining like heavy metal pollution has no half life its just permanent. People think of radioactivity as the worst pollutant while regularily polluting with even more permanently toxic materials
Both disasters together are better than one week of coal burning contamination?
Actually, they do NOT glow in the dark. While not recommended, there are people living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone eating food they grow and hunt in the area..
And have broken children.
About that 10,000 years thing, it's FUD.
If we actually reprocess the "waste", we get mostly fuel ready to use and a small amount of actual waste that needs to be contained for 200-500 years depending on how cautious you want to be.
The part that lasts 10,000 years is the same stuff found in naturally occurring rocks, but we can get rid of it by "burning" it in a reactor.
Such is life in the Zone. As they say, you gotta fight with what you've got.
Helen Caldicott? Is that you?
I'm thinking a village in Australia is missing their idiot.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Hi, USians! You are through rough times, currently. Nevertheless, I do appreciate you, a diverse, creative bunch (no shit!). The home to Martin Gardner, Don Knuth. The home to many who were evicted from their original homes by racist and identitary scum -- to get a wonderful second chance (look up Andrew James Viterbi to see what I mean). The home to Noam Chomsky. And many others. I love you.
But... please get your act together and tar & feather the Koch brothers, will you?
Where do I pick up my prize?
Pure bullshit.
Fukushima radiation is now barely over the average US background radiation in most places.
The dammage is very local and will be gone within 10-15 more years.
This shit however will persist for centuries.
It is FUD on many levels.
Radioactive waste doesn't stick around for 10000 years and then *poof* is gone.
It decays in a 1/t manner.
It is physically impossible for something to be both highly radioactive and stick around for a long time.
For something to be dangerous a long time you need it to be less radioactive but have a lot of it.
People don't pollute, it's all corporations and governments.
Anyway I blame China
--
WindBourne
That's okay, San Antonio gets their drinking water from an artesian aquifer to the north! (which is also uphill)
These places literally glow in the dark
These places literally do no such thing.
Actually the wildlife around Chernobyl is doing better than before the disaster. While radiation is bad for the wildlife, people inhabiting the area is far more deadly to them.
Time to build Nuclear power plants that have temps of 800C or so. That can be used to efficiently melt and separate the elements in the ash. IOW, using nuclear power, we can mine the ash and clean it up. Any waste elements such as mercury, lead, etc should be put in designated mines that can handle 1 type of element. IOW, 1 mine just for mercury. Another for lead. Another for tungsten. etc. etc. etc. Like Helium, these can then be sold at global market prices, or sold locally at 10% below global.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
correct. If we will get nuclear power plants with 800C or above, we can actually separate those elements out FISCALLY and environmentally sounds. Ideally, we would then use old mines for storage of separated elements.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That ain't English Ivan