Clean Coal? Not really, say Tennessee Valley residents

Sam — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:02:22 +0000

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, goes the old saying. Well, it has been proven once again in Tennessee. This week, on the Industrial Plant Safety blog, we will go slightly out of the plant and into the surrounding areas, to see what happens in case of a failure of the Safety & Environmental systems, in a power plant.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil plant (about 40 miles west of Knoxville,TN), released a waste coal sludge of staggering proportions-all of 1 billion gallons of muck, to be precise, on Dec 22, 2008. The sludge damaged about 300 acres of land in Roane County. Three homes were completely destroyed and about 42 others were severely damaged. These afflicted residents have now sued the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for about $5 million in a Knoxville court, reports Bloomberg.

The muck is not the type that you would take a mud bath in, to enhance your beauty. It contains toxins like arsenic, thallium, antimony, lead, cadmium, mercury and boron, according to the complaint. Have a look at the video below (posted on Live Leak).

Once again, the horrific pictures reiterate one fact-Plant Safety has to be taken seriously at all levels of the company’s management-it’s not just the Safety Manager who is responsible.

Irresponsible actions of even a handful of industrial plant managers/owners make the life of the rest of the industry miserable, as public opinion then inevitably swings against ALL industrial plants-not just the polluting or unsafe ones. This is something that no economy can afford to do.

Useful, intelligent comments as usual are welcome!

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Industrial Plant Safety » Clean Coal? Not really, say Tennessee Valley residents

Clean Coal? Not really, say Tennessee Valley residents