Just a Minor Spill, No Big Back Room Deal

Sorry to go literary on you. I believe the term is poetic justice. I recently suggested giving every Clean Coal Congress critter a pail and sand shovel, a one-way ticket to Roane County and no health coverage, and elsewhere commented on what a mockery our “elected” representatives were making of their duty to act in the interests of our country.

(Stop that Smirking Right Now, Joseph) Romm reports on a fly ash spill into the North Branch Potomac River. “On the same day the EPA announced plans to regulate coal ash and leaked a document that the CO2 “endangerment finding” is coming April 16, some 4,000 gallons of coal ash escaped its confinement” in West Virginia.

“Toxic coal sludge on its way to pollute DC waters, how ironic.”
“Will it be as bad as this, Dad?”
“No, son, not at all.”
“And, if they get sick from it…”
“They get free health care, paid for by American taxpayers.”
“So, it’s not really the same is it?”
“No, son, it ain’t. But maybe they’ll get a taste…”

And, as if Obama needed another challenge, the EPA will begin the process of regulating coal ash waste ponds. So, now Grist boyz & grrls, we may get an idea of the size of the problem that has been ignored.

Some Related Posts from Climate Progress:

This entry was written by jcwinnie, posted on 2009-3-10 at 7:30 pm, filed under energy, environment, politics and tagged coal, emissions, water. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

2 Comments

jcwinnie

Posted 2009-3-14 at 7:22 am | Permalink

“Although the water he drank was not exactly coal slurry,” reports Juliana Williams, “it wasn’t pristine bottled water either.” West Virgina State Senator Randy White (D-Webster) stood up on the state floor (video in link) yesterday “and asked his fellow Senators to join him in drinking the discolored water that average citizens have to drink every day. Not a one joined him.”

White says if people have to drink water with coal slurry in it, lawmakers should have to drink it as well. White says lawmakers are no different.

The public may feel removed from the impacts of global warming, but there is no doubt that clean water hits home. So while the coal industry is touting clean coal to the public, we need to be counter loud and often with clean water. Stop poisoning our water and killing the people of this land. (My emphasis)

Gee, Juliana! That seems a lot to ask for from our elected representatives.
jcwinnie

Posted 2009-9-15 at 8:16 am | Permalink

Thanks to NY Times reporter Charles Duhigg, the rest of the United States got a glimpse of daily life in the Saudi Arabia of coal–in the coalfields of Appalachia, where coal companies are “pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals–the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.” And the coda: “But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.”

As part of the Times’ gripping “Toxic Waters,” series, Duhigg’s portrait of the Clean Water Act violations in West Virginia–and the indifference of state agencies–blew the cover on one of the worst kept secrets in Appalachia: Coal slurry injected into abandoned mines and dumped into waterways has contaminated the watersheds of American citizens and their drinking water…and no government agency did anything about it for years until the community finally fought back.

Jeff Biggers

After Gutenberg