The Tennessee Valley Authority Players

Arsenic is making a big comeback this week. An A.P. story the other day about arsenic levels in an area about 150 miles from Los Angeles that are approximately 460,000 times the federally accepted safe levels. Link to the story here.

"But while the poison can cause cancer in people and harm wildlife, little has been done to remove the costly waste here or similar hazardous waste at thousands of other abandoned mines around the nation.
"Worst case scenario, we'll have to clean up everything, which could do more environmental damage than leaving it and monitoring it," said Richard Forester, who oversees the Rand Mining District cleanup for the Bureau of Land Management.
Forester and others worry that particles of arsenic scattered by the area's stiff wind could be slowly poisoning the estimated 300 residents of Randsburg, Johannesburg and Red Mountain."


Now, news of the enormous toxic ash spill courtesy of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The residue of millions of tons of coal burning at Kingston Fossil power plant in the Watts Bar Reservoir in Tennessee burst the bounds of the pond in which it was contained, burying as many as 400 acres of land in up to six feet of sludge. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the coal-fired power plant—first operated in 1955—announced that 15 homes were buried and no injuries were reported.

A combination of rains and accumulating sludge likely contributed to the disaster—one of two major ash pond collapses in the past decade. All told, about 2.6 million cubic yards of so-called coal ash slurry escaped, the TVA says. The collapsed pond is one of three on the site.

A link to the United Mountain Defense site.


From a Scientific American story on the breech: "We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide," said Tom Kilgore, TVA president and CEO in an official statement today.


Such slurry worries environmentalists and public health activists because it is the residue of coal burning. The burning concentrates the impurities in the coal, including arsenic, lead and mercury, among many other potentially toxic contaminants. Coal ash is also radioactive.


But dealing with the 129 million tons of coal ash produced in the U.S. every year is not easy. Some 25 million tons of it is dumped in old coal mines, and some companies incorporate it into cement. The rest is typically dumped in landfills or stored in large coal-ash ponds like the one that collapsed. But many environmentalists argue for only disposing of it in lined landfills, to prevent contaminants from leaching out.


"A risk assessment released by the U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] revealed that coal ash poses extremely serious threats to human health and the environment when disposed in waste ponds and landfills," says Lisa Graves Marcucci, a founding member of the Jefferson Action Group, a Pennsylvania environmental group that is among 38 environmental organizations calling for the incoming Obama administration to review coal ash disposal rules. "Significant pollution from mine disposal has been documented in New Mexico, West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, as well as Pennsylvania."

A YouTube video of the enormous spill here .

Civil Disobedience courtesy of blogger - nice work - check it out!

Environmentalists and TVA argue about hazards while government does nothing. Here.

Free Tim DeChristopher!

Interesting AP story about a young guy from Utah who disrupted the oil lease auction this week. A patriot who performed a mission akin to pouring good british tea into Boston Harbor. Yes, it was probably illegal but Bush should have the decency to let the incoming administration make environmental policy and not jam all of these last minute edicts and sweetheart gifts to his buddies in the energy business down our throats.

I have hiked all through the national parks in southern Utah and there is something sick about the Bush Administration's plans to drill in these unspoiled areas that border our national parks. There is a strange tendency for employees of the BLM and EPA for that matter, to act like they work for private industry rather than the american taxpayer. Since when is it the province of the BLM to concern themselves with providing jobs to local economies as Ms. Sierra from BLM has recently stated? I hope that we have a thorough housecleaning and soon.

Activist accused of tainting drilling lease sale

By PAUL FOY – 1 day ago

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An environmental activist tainted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases Friday by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them, a federal official said.

The process was thrown into chaos and the bidding halted for a time before the auction was closed, with 116 parcels totaling 148,598 acres having sold for $7.2 million plus fees.

"He's tainted the entire auction," said Kent Hoffman, deputy state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah.

Hoffman said buyers will have 10 days to reconsider and withdraw their bids if they think they paid too much.

Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student, said his plan was to disrupt the auction and he feels he accomplished his goal.

DeChristopher won the bidding on 13 parcels, auction records show, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land.

"I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," the Salt Lake City man said.

Some bidders said they were forced to bid thousands of dollars more for their parcels, while others fumed that they lost their bids.

"We were hosed," said Jason Blake of Park City, a consulting geologist who was outbid on a 320-acre parcel. "It's very frustrating. I hope the guy is prosecuted."

Several bidders said they hadn't decided whether they would withdraw their bids. Some said they may reluctantly hold on to their leases — despite the higher cost — out of concern that the parcels might not go up for auction again under President-elect Barack Obama's administration.

BLM criminal investigators questioned DeChristopher, who says he expects to be charged. He was released and the case was referred to federal prosecutors for possible fraud charges, said Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.

"I'm willing to deal with that," DeChristopher said.

Other bidders at the auction had complained about DeChristopher as unfamiliar and bidding in an unconventional fashion, which raised suspicions, said Terry Catlin, leader of the BLM's Utah Energy Team.

DeChristopher snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks but said he could afford to pay for only a few of those acres. He owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.

The sale of the leases has drawn complaints from environmental groups and scathing criticism from actor Robert Redford.

Activists said the sale would threaten Utah's wild lands and spoil the view from some of the state's spectacular national parks with drilling rigs.

"If we're going to sacrifice public lands, let's do it with some deliberation, not in a hasty way," said Joseph Flower, a University of Utah biology student who was among about 100 protesters outside the auction.

The bureau already had pulled some parcels from the sale in response to complaints from the National Park Service and others. Ultimately, the agency dropped more than half the 359,000 acres first proposed for auction.

Selma Sierra, who heads the BLM in Utah, said only 6 percent of lease parcels would ever see drilling because of the "costly and speculative" nature of the business. The federal government also typically imposes environmental safeguards on drilling parcels, Sierra said.

"Facts of the lease sale have been mischaracterized in the public forum, sowing confusion and misunderstanding," Sierra said.

Conservation groups sued Wednesday challenging 80 of the 132 lease parcels set to go up for bid, but the groups reached an agreement with the BLM one day later allowing the auction to go forward, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

The agreement filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., stipulated that the government wouldn't issue leases on the 80 parcels for 30 days, giving a federal judge time to consider whether to block the leases.

This one will be interesting to watch. The leases go into effect two days before Obama goes into office.