Images at the Kingston Fly Ash Spill
January 15th, 2009 by GuestStillness. Calming blue skies…….
Planes, boats, trucks, bulldozers, workers, activity at the Kingston Fossil plant area spill.
So why does a sobering stillness prevail? Perhaps it is the images.
Remaining intact is one side of the pond’s grassy, “stepped,” slopes leading up to the coal ash pond’s rim, so I can picture the pond as it existed before Dec. 22. Then I see the pond’s other side, a stark contrast. No grassy slopes. What lies before me can easily be a scene from a Cormac McCarthy novel or a science fiction movie. As I pick up a handful of wet, compacted particles, I remember the mud pies I once made as a child. But these clumps are coal gray, not brown, and many clumps rise like mini-skyscrapers in front of what was once the coal ash containment wall. Ironically, clear water from a natural spring meanders over the top of the spill’s smoother surface areas toward the river. Workers have begun to separate the largest spill area from the river by forming a new “wall” with rocks. As TVA personnel give Renee Hoyos, Executive Director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, and me a tour of the coal ash sludge spill on Friday, January 9, we see the 5.3 million cubic yards of coal ash—sizes of ash debris varies, but I had not expected the boulder-proportioned chunks that are more solid than I had imagined– and the massive clean up efforts taking place all around us; Renee takes pictures; we ask many questions, realizing that water quality questions are important to all of us, particularly the residents of the area. The clean up, which TVA promises to do, will take much time and money. A mix of machines and men now works on area roads and properties, within the ash sludge itself, and out in the Emory River.
After it is cleaned up, what should we do? Right now I see continued involvement as the key in monitoring the long term effects of the spill and in preventing another disaster such as this.
Janet King
February 4th, 2009 at 4:27 am
I just heard a rumor last night that the tennessee River at the Watts Bar area is going to be closed to swimming, jet skiing, fishing and general traffic due to this ash spill. The the ask has so polluted the river that it is totally unsafe.
Is there any truth to this terrible rumor???