Saturday, December 27, 2008

The TVA Christmas 2008 Disaster that the Mainstream Media has Managed to totally Ignore...Biggest Disaster in US History...How Clean is Coal?


On December 22nd there was a Massive Sludge Spill in Kingston Tennessee at 1 AM. The media , most MSM has barely covered this disaster. In many ways this is pure Criminal Negligence, there are thousands of Contaminated Acres at stake and Lives of the Citizens there as well. The local Media in the region has been telling people to BOIL their Water???? This is beyond dangerous. There should be Clean Safe Tankers of Water and Bottled Water being Delivered. The air water and soil should be being tested for ALL Heavy Metals, especially Mercury and Methylmercury and Arsenic. ( as well as thorium, copper, iron, and uranium, and thallium, and sulpheric acid and hydrochloric acid.) There should be Emergency Management TEAMS there monitoring the Health of the people and the water. This Disaster contaminated the River which is Drinking water for millions.
( Do click the title, and read more about the Mountain Defense Org. who is monitoring the situation).

Mercury is VERY dangerous, and one of the leading Wastes from Coal Mining. It causes Damage to the Heart, Brain and Kidneys. It can cause Irrepairable neurological Damage and renal damage, especially in infants, children and the elderly and pregnant women. Giving a Boil Alert is beyond Stupid, this means folks will Boil their water and being Concentrating the Heavy Metals and the Mercury, as well as Creating Mercury Vapors for them to Breath. ( sadly add the Heavy metal list up and it is a cocktail of heavy metals,arsenic, lead, iron,thallium,manganese,uranium,thorium,copper etc).( And don't forget that the sulpheric acid and hydrochloric acids are just as dangerous.....in Sunday December 28th papers it is revealed that TVA is doing the testing of water and soil and air.....Still NO statements or results revealed by EPA or ANY Government Emergency Team).

The four videos below are made by the United Mountain Defense Organization as well as locals in Canoes going out in Filming in the Area who are attempting to document the Damage....When you watch the videos, see if you can see ANY wildlife, a Single Bird even ? and also remember the Emory River that they show- remember that millions DRINK that Water....Please also note the Stacks emitting steam, where are they going to put the ash from that Steam Plant ? And last but not least- Count how many "offical" people do you see helping ???? Did you see any ?.....

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Aerials Tell the WHOLE story:

This video by the Mountain Defense Org is a Canoe tour, the guide paddles through the sludge and asks really good questions...

This 3rd video, please see at 4 minutes in the Large Cops appear to try to stear the locals away from the area,
talking about Signs about Keeping traffic out, interesting makes one wonder WHAT they don't want people to see ? HOW Bad is the damage ? ( must be bad when the cops are protecting the Evidence rather than the People of the Land).



Once again Bloggers are on top of this Situation, please do read ENCLAVE's posts on this, this Nashville Blogger is bringing up many signifigant issues , read more here. There are Citizen Journalists going out with the Mountain Defense Org and in Canoes filming as they paddle through the sludge, as you watch the videos you will see NO Government Employees or ANY Disaster Monitors ( EPA ? BLM? FEMA? Mines &Minerals Management Teams ? USGS ? ANY Emergency Management Teams ? It is a Government OWNED Site and Plant ...YET they are Absent).

And the Media is Once agin Complicit by NOT showing the Absence of Aid......This Disaster is Bigger than Katrina and Vadez combined....and there will be staggering Consequences due to this level of Negligence...the difference this time will be that the Government OWNS this disaster, Every Inch of it.
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This Section Below is taken from Enclave's Post of December 26th about the Toxic Contents of the Sludge that is now contaminating thousands of acres of Land, RiverBeds and the River and Creeks in the region.

"A commenter at NPR says that the Kingston ash sludge flood could contain a Pandora's box of nuclear wastes and that a savvy reporter with a Geiger counter might open it:
Your news piece on the coal ash spill in Tennessee had a laundry list of heavy metals that could be in the ash. I found it interesting that uranium and thorium were not listed as part of the heavy metals. That coal contains trace amounts of uranium leads to an annual release into the environment of 1,360 tons of uranium and 3,348 tons of thorium according to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This is more uranium than is consumed by the nuclear power industry in a year. A typical coal plant emits over 5 tons of uranium in a year. (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html) It would be interesting journalism to take a geiger counter down to the spill area in Tennessee and measure the millirems at the spill site versus normal ambient radiation.

Coal use for 50% of our nation's electricity comes with many environmental externalities not currently accounted for in its cost however the radiation danger is one of them not normally discussed as yet another danger. (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste)
Instead of just uncritically passing along TVA public relations material, why can't mainstream reporters earn the title "journalists" and do some more snooping around to confirm or deny independently the toxicity of the ash spill?
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Where is the Outrage, the Concern? Why Isn't Oak Ridge Sending people to educate and test the waters and soils ? The list of Contaminants is a Mile long, and the Amount of Heavy Metals, especially mercury and arsenic must be staggering. Sludge and Slag ALWAYS contains HUGE amounts of these Metals.The Fish and wildlife that are showing up dead, should be tested as well.
The First report I saw on the news "claimed" that the Mercury was Barely noticeable ? What the hell does THAT mean? Fish Kills Mean that there is REAL Danger....for ALL Living Creatures in the Region.

6 comments:

Fran said...

Holy crap! What a colossal mess. Seriously.. how does anyone clean up such a huge, widespread, sludgy mess?
It does not look like they are even trying. One back hoe? I never subscribed to the "clean coal" idea, and now even less.

I was concerned about one video in the canoe, the guy was taking a sample without gloves on. Ech!
Once that sludge spreads out like that, it leaches into the groundwater & no turning back.... once a plume is contaminated, that's it.

No way I'd be drinking water from that area. This is a true disaster & even though there can be litigation..... it can't fix the contamination issue.
Whoah!

D.K. Raed said...

Today I saw some blurry photos of a guy pulling out a water sample & declaring it is safe to drink. I wish someone would've dared HIM to drink it! And yeah, WHERE are the investigative journalists? Where is the fed govt? Just another mess being handed to Obama.

libhom said...

"Clean Coal" = Another lie that has blown up in our country's face

How much more of this are we in for?

Fran said...

DK~ Right on! They should have said- Really ? safe to drink-- go right ahead- we want it live on camera.
Personally it looks more like people should be wearing contamination white suits... as in biohazard.


The current president is busy having farewell parties.... can't be bothered, besides, he declared coal to be clean - he has to 'stay the course".

THIS IS ONE AWFUL UNNATURAL DISASTER.

People should be officially calling 9-11 AND Homeland security. Clearly TVA is trying to just keep it quiet..... ROAD CLOSED, no picture taking.

Who in gods name would let a dog run around that area & eat the piles of dead fish? I wonder if that dog is now deceased?

No way I would canoe around in that toxic mess.
But I do appreciate them documenting it.
It will be interesting to see what the lab reports come back saying-- if the local labs are not corrupted by the TVA.

They might want to send samples to far away independent labs as well.


I'd start buying bottled water, and save the receipts for the lawsuit.

Fran said...

DK~ Right on! They should have said- Really ? safe to drink-- go right ahead- we want it live on camera.
Personally it looks more like people should be wearing contamination white suits... as in biohazard.


The current president is busy having farewell parties.... can't be bothered, besides, he declared coal to be clean - he has to 'stay the course".

THIS IS ONE AWFUL UNNATURAL DISASTER.

People should be officially calling 9-11 AND Homeland security. Clearly TVA is trying to just keep it quiet..... ROAD CLOSED, no picture taking.

Who in gods name would let a dog run around that area & eat the piles of dead fish? I wonder if that dog is now deceased?

No way I would canoe around in that toxic mess.
But I do appreciate them documenting it.
It will be interesting to see what the lab reports come back saying-- if the local labs are not corrupted by the TVA.

They might want to send samples to far away independent labs as well.


I'd start buying bottled water, and save the receipts for the lawsuit.

enigma4ever said...

Fran::
you are right on all counts...it is truly a huge mess...I have thought the person they should contact is Gore- as that is his home state....and his old family home is not far from there....

About the samples...I hope they do send far away....Hmm, I might write to them, give them my health survey too...they need it...

About caneing through the sludgey mess...well, I confess I have done even dumber things....in an effort to get samples etc...

DK::
oh how I wish someone would have asked him to drink it......the fact is that water is not safe to even be near, or canoeing through, much less drink...or bath in...

in 2001 I went to a water meeting about our Contaminated water in the NW- the Biggest Drinking water Lake in the West...and confronted officials about the water, and yes, I brought a giant milk bottle with the water in it...and slammed it on the table and dared them to drink it....and there is sat the WHOLE meeting .....and we kept filming it and the nervous people staring at it....gulping...

October 2002 We had the NExt Water meeting - this time held by the EPA at a hotel...and again I confronted them about the water....our EV group held the meeting and here's the funny part....they again they did not drink the water, except this time, they drank soda and we got billed for it....ALL of it-it totalled more than the room....chickens....big chickens...they drank the cans of soda thinking that would protect them....I wrote them informed them that the soda was bottled locally...

Once water is ruined at a place all the people are in danger...and the soil, and the animals....it's done...

and looking at this mess...the videos...I am not sure what could be done to remediate this level of toxic burden....

Libhom..
and yes, there is no clean coal....because somewhere there is the Dirt...the Sludge...and the earth is scarred where it came from...