We’ve been criminally negligent around at Delaware Liberal about the Kingston Fossil Plant disaster which has been called “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States” by experts in the New York Times. Luckily some of our blogger sisters and brothers in Tennessee have been mired in the muck..
Cup of Joe Powell has a few posts about the spill and I’ll point to this one in particular.
My Grandson became sick yesterday… Cough…. stuffy nose…. sneezing….. flushed….. didn’t want to eat….. not wanting to nap either….
It was windy yesterday just like the day before… and the ash had to be flying.
I took him to the ER as recommended by his physician. I took the information that TVA had given me, as well as a MSDS sheet about fly ash.
He had to endure a nasal wash & suction, x-rays, monitoring of his oxygen levels. The conclusion? Irritation from the fly ash, specifically airborne.
TVA is aware, and we are currently at a local hotel. The Doctor recommended that he not go home… we not go home….avoid the area altogether.
I didn’t realize how I would feel once someone told me I couldn’t go home. I didn’t sink in until this morning. Due to the stress and the lack of sleep… I began to meltdown. “don’t go home”…. keeps rolling through my head.
No, we didn’t lose our home to visible damage…. but we can’t go home.
Cup of Joe Powell also points to an article in the Institute of Southern Studies about broken federal promises about coal waste.
When Earthjustice Attorney Lisa Evans testified earlier this year before a congressional committee about the looming threat from coal combustion waste, she warned that the federal government’s broken pledge to regulate disposal of the potentially dangerous material threatened the health and safety of communities across the country.
Enclave reports about problems with inspections.
A reporter with an online engineering magazine interviews a former national mine health and safety engineer who argues that past inspections had red lights flashing and sirens blaring about the possible collapse of the Kingston fossil fuel plant dike.
There is a lot more blogging going on about this disaster and we will be follow in the next day or two.