Environment

Tennessee Spill: EPA Finds High Levels of Arsenic, Heavy Metals

by Geneva B | December 29, 2008 at 03:00 pm

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A week after a nasty sludge spill in Kingston, Tennessee, there are still numerous safety concerns surrounding the incident. There was enough sludge from the coal ash spill to fill 1,660 Olympic-size swimming pools and several heavy metals, along with arsenic, have been traced in the muck.

The EPA claims "further investigations are in progress" and The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) vows to clean up properly. Piles of dead fish can be found along the banks of the Tennessee River yet the TVA denies it is due to the sludge's toxicity. There are obvious concerns over whether the water is safe to drink.

KINGSTON, Tennessee (CNN) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has found high levels of arsenic and heavy metals in two rivers in central Tennessee that are near the site of a spill that unleashed more than a billion gallons of coal waste. The agency said it found "several heavy metals" in the water in levels that are slightly above safe drinking-water standards but "below concentrations" known to be harmful to humans.

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Tom Kruzen (not verified)

at 17:16 on December 29th, 2008

"TVA also serves the nation and the world by finding new and better ways to use our natural resources while protecting the environment."

The above statement has been proven a lie by the recent collapse of coal sludge from TVA's mismanaged impoundment in Harriman, Tennessee. In 2005 Missouri 's Ameren UE mismanaged their 15 billion gallon impoundment and the day after Christmas it collapsed onto the beautiful Johnson's Shut-ins State Park, destroying the park and the water quality in the Black river and Clearwater Lake. In three years the federal government has done nothing to regulate, inspect or improve thousands of eart-bermed "dams" across the nation. This is part of our crumbling infrastructure and a blind federal government who allows corporations to foul the publics air , water and soil. Humpty-Dumb-ty!!!