Posts tagged KY
Stories about America's second-largest waste stream.
VIDEO: LG&E coal sludge plant cited again for fly ash
Big Sandy also maintains a sprawling coal ash pit near the plant, created to store waste ash after the coal is burned, that the E.P.A. recently listed as one of 45 “high hazard” pits nationwide. That means it “will probably cause loss of human life,” the E.P.A. says, if a serious accident occurs. In Tennessee in 2008, a billion gallons of slurry from a coal ash pit washed out area homes and streams, though no deaths resulted.
Last week was a big, mixed week for coal ash
Coal ash made a lot of headlines this week, and here they are (with brief summaries):
“Coal Ash Recycling Rate Is Lagging, Says Industry Group” — POWER magazine
Regulatory uncertainty concerning the disposal of coal ash has stalled coal ash recycling in the U.S. and kept levels below those reported in 2008 for a third consecutive year, suggests a new report from the American Coal Ash Association (ACAA).
The American Coal Ash Association wasn’t in the news for this, but it’s worth noting: It’s Twitter account for the 2013 World of Coal Ash Conference is active @WOCA2013. The conference will be held in Lexington, KY, April 22-25, 2013. The registration fees are $750.00* per person (before March 22, 2013).
The Associated Press and The Huffington Post ran an article alleging that “Coal Slurry Pond Dangers May Increase As Companies Ignore Construction Standards” in the midst of a recovery effort in West Virginia. Last week, a worker for Consol Energy was helping to expand a coal slurry pond when both he and his bulldozer fell into the lagoon. The worker has been missing for more than a week. Read the article here.
Forbes magazine and the American Coal Council posted on its “Coal Blog” that it expects the Obama administration, via the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to further weaken its stance on coal ash regulations. Read the article here (dated Nov. 19, 2012), and the ACC’s blog post here (dated Dec. 4, 2012).
In contrary news, the S.S. Badger — a coal-powered car ferry on Lake Michigan, was a loser in Congress this week, according to The Chicago Tribune: “Badger ferry loses this round: Congress dumps special legislation for coal-fired ship.”
In different-state-difference-stance news: North Carolina’s Environmental Management Committee rejected a group of environmentalists’ push to force the state’s coal industry — which in N.C. boils down to Duke Energy — to clean up coal ash ponds that have contaminated groundwater. (There are 14.) From The (Raleigh) News & Observer: “N.C. board rejects coal-ash pit cleanup.”
And, in Michigan, environmentalists spoke out against House Bill 5953. (Read a draft of the bill here.) Watch:
*Help Rhiannon attend the 2013 World of Coal Ash conference by donating to Coal Ash Chronicles here.
Huge, mixed week for coal ash
Coal ash made a lot of headlines this week, and here they are (with brief summaries):
“Coal Ash Recycling Rate Is Lagging, Says Industry Group” — POWER magazine
Regulatory uncertainty concerning the disposal of coal ash has stalled coal ash recycling in the U.S. and kept levels below those reported in 2008 for a third consecutive year, suggests a new report from the American Coal Ash Association (ACAA).
The American Coal Ash Association wasn’t in the news for this, but it’s worth noting: It’s Twitter account for the 2013 World of Coal Ash Conference is active @WOCA2013. The conference will be held in Lexington, KY, April 22-25, 2013. The registration fees are $750.00* per person (before March 22, 2013).
The Associated Press and The Huffington Post ran an article alleging that “Coal Slurry Pond Dangers May Increase As Companies Ignore Construction Standards” in the midst of a recovery effort in West Virginia. Last week, a worker for Consol Energy was helping to expand a coal slurry pond when both he and his bulldozer fell into the lagoon. The worker has been missing for more than a week. Read the article here.
Forbes magazine and the American Coal Council posted on its “Coal Blog” that it expects the Obama administration, via the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to further weaken its stance on coal ash regulations. Read the article here (dated Nov. 19, 2012), and the ACC’s blog post here (dated Dec. 4, 2012).
In contrary news, the S.S. Badger — a coal-powered car ferry on Lake Michigan, was a loser in Congress this week, according to The Chicago Tribune: “Badger ferry loses this round: Congress dumps special legislation for coal-fired ship.”
In different-state-difference-stance news: North Carolina’s Environmental Management Committee rejected a group of environmentalists’ push to force the state’s coal industry — which in N.C. boils down to Duke Energy — to clean up coal ash ponds that have contaminated groundwater. (There are 14.) From The (Raleigh) News & Observer: “N.C. board rejects coal-ash pit cleanup.”
And, in Michigan, environmentalists spoke out against House Bill 5953. (Read a draft of the bill here.) Watch:
*Help Rhiannon attend the 2013 World of Coal Ash conference by donating to Coal Ash Chronicles here.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has had tell the LG&E to stop construction activities where it wants to put a coal combustion waste landfill near its Trimble County power plant.
A couple of months ago, some neighbors heard and saw some construction activity and notified authorities with the Corps, which is reviewing the proposal to make sure it complies with the Clean Water Act and other federal laws.
Lee Anne Devine, a Louisville-based regulatory chief for the federal agency, told me today that the site was inspected then, and the corps found some work being done on transmission lines in the area.
“They don’t have a permit,” Devine told me. “Their whole project is within our scope. They weren’t impacting any U.S. waters, but they need to comply with all federal laws before they are working on that project.”
(Source: blogs.courier-journal.com)
Black dust from the giant coal ash heap across the street from Kathy Little’s Louisville home swirls in the wind, coating her windows, her car, and blows indoors to settle on the furniture.
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“It’s a constant struggle and it’s a sad situation because there’s not a lot of people that know that goliath is over there,” Little said of the ash dump near her home — at Louisville Gas & Electric’s Cane Run Station.
An independent review of mine safety enforcement concluded that proper law enforcement would likely have prevented the Upper Big Branch disaster and saved the lives of 29 miners.
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A Tennessee mining company faces a $50,000 fine for illegally dumping a million gallons of coal slurry into the New River in Tennessee, reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel. The spill was in January. The company did not report it; instead citizen complaints tipped off state officials.
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The chief mine safety official came to Kentucky last week and said his agency needs better legal tools to make the mines safer. … Main said too many companies put production ahead of safety.
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Another former official at the Upper Big Branch mine has pled guilty to criminal charges stemming from the deadly explosion of 2010. The Los Angeles Times reports Gary May, a superintendent at the mine, admitted to being part of a criminal conspiracy to hamper federal regulators.
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Georgia Power is buying up homes around a giant coal plant it operates, according to CNN. The Scherer plant near Juliette, Georgia, is one of the largest coal plants in the world. Residents of the area say it’s making them sick.
The University of Northern Iowa gets its coal for the campus power plant from the Dodge Hill Mining Company in Kentucky. There, huge tractors excavate large swaths of land to get at small seams of coal in the earth’s crust. Once the coal is ripped out of the ground, it is loaded on semis, then trucked and trained to barges on the Mississippi River. An average barge burns 2,000-2,400 gallons of diesel fuel a day. The barges unload in Muscatine and the coal is trucked to Cedar Falls. Once the coal gets to campus, it enters a boiler and is burned to create steam and electricity. This releases sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, carbon, particulate matter and other pollutants that contaminate our air, land and water. The leftover concentrated, toxic ash is trucked outside of Waterloo and dumped in an unlined quarry.
At the meeting, no one spoke against converting Cane Run to gas. Terri Humphrey lives in Riverside Gardens, near the Cane Run plant.
“We urge you to allow them to build this new facility because quite frankly, we are sick to death of coal,” she said. “We’ve had our fill of it, we’re tired of it, there’s too much sickness in our neighborhood from it and we want it to change over to gas.”
But many, like registered nurse Virginia Bush thought the company should do it sooner than the four year timeframe.
“We’ve known since about 1998 that the coal ash small particulate dust that is in these neighborhoods causes heart attacks,” she said. “It causes pulmonary conditions and now the toxins, we know cause birth defects, neurological deficits, cancer.”
Many also urged the PSC to use natural gas as a transition from coal to renewable energy.
