The World According to Greg » Toxics

The Other Stuff

ghile — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:38:31 +0000

With the news of a second coal ash spill, this time in Alabama, a lot more attention needs to be paid to the issue. Devilstower, writing in Daily Kos, has an important must-read personal account of fly ash in his home town. Devilstower concludes:

Right now most of [the] cost is paid by the people in small towns like Kingston, TN and Larado, WV and Inez, KY. It’s the towns near the plants that stockpile ash, and the towns near the mines that impound sludge. Towns like the one where I grew up. That’s where people pay the price so that politicians can talk about “clean coal.”

It Ain’t No Santa Claus

ghile — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:27:41 +0000

Annika Mengisen of The New York Times Freakanomics blog has this informative array of pictures from the Tennessee coal ash disaster, taken by a reader, Dorothy Griffith, a photographer who lives in Banner Elk, North Carolina, on Christmas Day.

It’s worth a look …

UPDATE (January 8, 2009): Tennessee Republican Congressman Zach Wamp, who is said to be planning a run for governor in 2010, has called the spill “Katrina-like,” while Senate Democrats said Thursday they want stricter rules for toxic ash from coal-fired power plants.

It’s Not Pretty …

ghile — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 02:33:51 +0000

Dave Burdick of The Huffington Post has a solid review of the status of the Tenessee coal ash spill, and what comes next. Check it out …

Another Good One Gone

ghile — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:28:06 +0000

Last week, friends of the environment lost a leader at the much-too-early age of 53. Joseph Egan was a nuclear engineer turned lawyer who, among other cases, led the state of Nevada’s effort to block a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Now ten years after the facility was to have opened but for the efforts led by Egan, he wrote his own obituary and will have his ashes spread at Yucca Mountain with the words, “radwaste buried here only over my dead body.” The cause was gastroesophageal cancer, and he will be missed.