TVA now says flyash contains heavy metals.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/dec/22/officials-dike-burst-floods-hom...

Spouse said he saw his boss's boss (who is in charge of real estate stuff at TVA) in the elevator at lunch. Boss said "I'm on my way to buy some houses."

There's no other way to put it. Yes, fly ash contains toxic heavy metals and what Bushie's boys say means nothing in regards to the possible uses of the material.

I can't think of one single way that the use of fossil fuels isn't damaging to our environment and as for coal, to the workers who product it. Time to change.

I'd love to see Obama and the new Congress re-charter TVA to lead the way in clean energy, just like they led the way for rural electrification years ago. Time to shut down some old fossils. Most coal plants at TVA were supposed to be retired years ago anyway.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Now flyash contains heavy metals?

WTF?

During the NRR battle County Commissioners, including one Doctor and one Lumpy, said that the concentration of heavy metals in flyash was of NO concern.

But now it is a problem?

Now it is a problem?

400 acres is pretty big. That is a lot of wells and aquifer that could be affected. Isn't this the biggest failure of an earthen dam in this area in a very long time?

No one could have predicted the failure of the sludge levees!

(Meant to link these: http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/buffcreek/bctitle.html http://www.wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/ http://www.pww.org/article/view/763/1/62/ It's stuff you don't learn about in history classes.)

____________________________

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap! Special holidays, Sundays and rates!

It's stuff you don't learn about in history classes.

Who knew gravity and weird, GW-enhanced weather would team up on the side of evil terrorists?

Do you eat meat cooked on a charcoal grill?

What do you do with the ashes?

Do you have an SO2 scrubber on your grill?

What is the amount of VOC released from the lighter fluid you use?

How many people grill and throw their ashes on the ground?... how many tons of waste is that?

MS

Do you eat meat cooked on a charcoal grill? No.
What do you do with the ashes? n/a
Do you have an SO2 scrubber on your grill? n/a
What is the amount of VOC released from the lighter fluid you use? n/a
How many people grill and throw their ashes on the ground?... how many tons of waste is that?
They don't combine it and literally flood the region with a couple [EDIT: 5.4] million cubic yards of it!

Seems like you'd do a little better blaming TVA customers for "demanding" all the power used to create the ash. But thanks for making good humor of a serious situation. We can always use some levity.

It's a wood product. And I roughly estimate that Tennessee uses a little over 10,000 cubic yards of charcoal a year. That's raw material so the ash would be much less, say 10%? That's 1000 cubic yards of charcoal ash dumped into the environment in Tennessee by backyard enviro criminals. That's about 50 truckloads, which would take about four hours to haul away if we ran a truck every five minutes. At the same rate working 24 and 7 it will take nearly five years to deal with the TVA mess.

Isn't simple arithmetic fun? Don't you wish people would think before they post?

And hey, check my numbers and tell me what you think... I estimated wildly. USA consumption of charcoal is 1,038,000 tons.

I use gas.

Try to forgive us midge for sucking up your oxygen. I have a small farm that produces enough so I can share some with you.

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The Home

Obama said there are going to have to be sacrifices made in our nation. Great governmental firms like TVA are the form of the future, with the nationalizing of our banks and automakers underway. We need responsible journalists to report what is provided to them by the TVA press managers, not irresponsible rogues who jeopardize the public image of an autonomous, unregulated government-run operation. Granted, a few citizens will suffer and children may die of toxic exposure, but we must remember that the Change President Obama brings is for the greater good of the majority at the necessary expense of the minority.

Lord knows Fannie and Freddie have made this difficult enough, leading more than a few journalists down the path of asking uncomfortable questions about government corporations that are exempt from the regulations placed upon the private sector. As this is the model of the future, we don't need any more issues raised in the public eye.

Please get back to the agenda of blaming Bush for a failed Iraq policy (please note: this will change to a VICTORY in Iraq when Barack shows up there next week and remarkably creates peace and cooperation through his magnetic personality, compelling all of our enemies to change heart and join in peace with us). Also, I noticed there were insufficient "economy teetering into depression" stories on the Knoxviews site which is in clear violation of the Biden memo sent out to the media. We must set that expectation, people, so that we can report a dramatic upturn in Q2 2009 (without having to actually manage an economy). Get with the program!