Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
The horror is unimaginable. A community suffering severe health effects, with more than a thousand residents blaming coal ash contamination for causing their sickness, including grisly birth defects in their children. This, according to a recent investigative story in the Miami Herald. Go to the article to see a...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Without a doubt coal is dirty and dangerous. Consider that the nation's power plants spew out 130 million tons of coal combustion waste every year. Much of this so-called coal ash, which is what's left at the bottom of the smokestacks after coal gets burned...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Kudos to Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) for bird-dogging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the need to regulate pollution from coal-fired power plants. Yesterday, Rep. Markey sent a letter to EPA requesting information on the agency's findings related to the...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
On the heels of last month's jaw-dropping New York Times expose of widespread water pollution in the U.S., the newspaper just published this follow-up story focusing on one of the culprits: pollution from coal-fired power plants. The NYT story highlights...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Last night "60 Minutes" aired an in-depth story on the problems with coal ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal at power plants. Leslie Stahl focused on last year's nightmare before Christmas, when an impoundment pond containing 50-year's worth of coal ash...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Solving Global Warming
The Environmental Protection Agency is grappling with two critical issues regarding how to protect America's water supplies from dirty coal: permitting mountaintop removal coal mining and regulating toxic coal ash. Mountaintop removal coal mining continues to ravage Appalachia's communities and...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Information obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reveals the existence of nearly twice as many toxic coal ash dumps across the country as the agency previously indicated to the public. The results of NRDC's recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request -- filed jointly with Sierra...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Since late December last year, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation's largest public utility, has been spending about a million bucks a day cleaning up more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge that spilled out of a holding pond...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
A few weeks after the December disaster in Tennessee, in which a ruptured waste "containment pond" at a TVA power plant spilled over a billion gallons of liquefied coal ash into the Emory River and over 300 acres of the surrounding community, I blogged about the health...continued→
Posted by Rob Perks in Solving Global Warming
So far, the Tennessee Valley Authority has spent $168 million toward the cleanup of its massive coal ash spill in Tennessee last December. That includes $65 million in settlements with Roane County residents who suffered property damage, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The nation's...continued→
