Tennessee rivers contaminated

[boo]

I haven't seen anything about this mentioned on the site - can I really be the only one who is just sick over this? On Dec 22, toxic coal ash was released near the Clinch and Emory rivers in Tennessee.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/29/tennessee.sludge/index.html

http://blogs.discovery.com/news_animal/2008/12/tennessee-coal.html

http://www.streetalker.com/2008/12/spill-at-tennessee-coal-plant-creates.html

I may be a bit biased, however. My dad lives by the Clinch river, and the creek by his house has some of the prettiest, crystal clear water, teeming with fish. I dread to think of what it looks like now, after seeing the photos :(

[J Marcus]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Boo. What a horrid debacle! Just the sludge alone, without taking it's chemical toxicity into account, will suffocate huge numbers of creatures in those watercourses. It's such a great disaster that any part of the greatest-freshwater-pearl-mollusc-producing watershed in the world must be subjected to this. Folks--Isn't it time that we demanded that we get moving on deriving much more of our power from wind, solar and other non-fossil sources? These coal companies have been chewing away the mountains, destroying the lands and watersheds for too long and at such an immense magnitude that it's hard to imagine. Why would any sane nation give up and destroy such a tremendous amount of their natural resources when there are alternatives?

Another look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGmVCABMRRQ