Tennessee Fly Ash Slurry Spill Largest Recorded
On December 22, 2008 in Roane County, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant had a dike rupture releasing more the 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory River. There were no recorded deaths or serious injuries , but the surrounding ecosystem was affected severely. The ash slurry contained heavy metals such as arsenic, barium, chromium, mercury, nickel and many more, all of which were released directly into water the ways. Preliminary tests of drinking water showed that the toxins did not affect it, however later individual organizations tests show high amounts of arsenic and other toxins in the water. Officials say that the discrepancy is due to original water test being done before the polluted water had a chance to reach Tennessee Valley Authority, water treatment plant. Authorities claim that the reason for the dam failure was due to the high rain fall and subzero temperatures. However, local residents are saying that they’d observed leakages ever since the plant was opened, as well as...
On July 9, 2011, a major fish kill (fish kill I) was observed by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (OKDEQ) in the Red River, near Ketchum’s Bluff, Oklahoma. The Red River, with headwaters in the Texas panhandle, flows for 917 kilometers, between the borders of Oklahoma (OK) and Texas (TX), before emptying into the Mississippi River. During this fish kill, hundreds of large bottom feeder fish (i.e., catfish and buffalo) were observed as either dead, struggling, or actively dying. Nearly two months later, on September 14, 2011, another fish kill (fish kill II) occurred further south along the Red River, approximately 130 km downstream from Ketchum’s Bluff near Lake Texhoma. Again, it was observed that hundreds of only the large bottom feeder fish were affected by an unknown toxin(s). OKDEQ believed that the two fish kills were related, with the unknown toxicant(s) traveling further downstream from the first fish kill (July 9, 2011), but causing fish mortality 60 days later downstream. The following year, on June 13, 2012, another fish kill (fish kill III) occurred, again near the area of Ketchum’s Bluff and Red Creek confluence. And a final fish kill (fish kill IV) occurred on January 31, 2013, in the same watershed, near Red River and Beaver Creek confluence. Environmental samples (i.e., water, sediment, and fish) were collected, by OKDEQ and the United States Envi...
In the document “How Tap Water Became Toxic in Flint , Michigan” by Sara Ganim the issue was that the residents could not get clean water from their taps . The state decided that they would save money and switch their water . As they switched , residents noticed that the water started to look funny and smell funny . Some thought it was sewage but it was really iron in the water . The Department of Environmental Quality was not treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent causing the water to have lead in addition to iron . The lead in the water lead to lead poisoning and several medical conditions .Due to all the health conditions the Doctors decided to take matters into their own hands . Patients reported having rashes and
On September 12, 2013, environmental groups filed a law suit against Duke Energy for their inability to properly clean up toxic ash, which has caused the pollution of Sutton Lake and severe groundwater pollution in the surrounding area (WWAY). In particularly, the environmental group claims that, “coal ash pollution threatens to destroy the fishery of Sutton Lake and is moving to the groundwater wells that supply the drinking water for the nearby by community.”
The main problem was lead, with seven well samples showing up positive. The calcium and nitrates both had four samples showing up positive. Hydrocarbons had 3 samples showing a positive. Heavy metals have two positives,and bacteria had only 1 positive. Many men, women, and children are getting sick from horrible water pollution and some of the water pollutants cause cancer! So through all thirty of the tests we ran we got twenty one samples back that gave us a positive result. In conclusion the water in Hickory Hollow is justified, showing various
Toxic substances and Areas of concern: includes pollution prevention, clean up of the most polluted areas in the Great Lakes. Although many so...
On January 9th, 2014, it was reported that a chemical spill has occurred from a storage tank owned by Freedom Industries. The spill occurred on the banks of Elk River in West Virginia, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without tap water. The company first reported that 7500 gallons of the chemicals had spilled into the river through a one-inch whole but had found that two weeks later, there was an estimated 10000 gallons of the toxic chemical in the river. The chemicals released include 4-methylcyclohexane (MCHM) and PPH. Methylcyclohexane is a chemical that is used in coal to reduce the amount of ash it produces(Field & Catherine, 2014). The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection are still calculating the exact amount of how much of the chemicals were spilled.
In December of 1982, the EPA found high levels of dioxin in Times Beach, forcing the locals to leave their town. “Dioxin used to be considered one of the most dangerous chemicals on the planet, but it is now under debate because of the differences between high and low-level contamination” (Chemical Conundrum).
Swan, Noelle. "Toxic Coal Ash Poses Persistent Threat to US Waters." Christian Science Monitor. 30
The water crisis in Flint Michigan began as early as was as April of 2014. The crisis is concerning a small town called Flint, located at the bottom right of michigan were the majority of the population is African American. The issue began when the town 's water supply witch in past use to come from the detroit river water supply was switched over to the Flint river water supply. People soon began to complain about the taste, smell, and color of the tap water, and of symptoms such as hair loss and rashes from bathing in the water. Even though there were many signs that the water was indeed contaminated, such as when a General Motors plant in Flint stopped using municipal water in October of 2014, claiming that it corroded car parts, the government officials stated that the water was not a threat to the public 's health and safety. However it was later revealed that the water was in fact unhealthy, and contained too much lead. The issue was brought to the eyes of the public when Lee Anne Walters, a Flint resident. This mother of four had seen her family suffer from various alarming symptoms, including abdominal pains, hair loss, and rashes; she also has a son who showed signs of developmental problems. She decided to switch her family to bottled water, and the symptoms abated. Finally, in February of 2015, she demanded that the city test the tap water. A federal investigation was launched and the results came back shocking. The water was extremely toxic containing 400 parts per billion of lead. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, but the maximum allowed by law is 15 parts per billion. Virginia Tech professor and engineer Marc Edwards, an expert on municipal w...
Natural gas drilling can cause water contamination. In his Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland, filmmaker Josh Fox conducted interviews with families in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Wyoming whose drinking wat...
The most known chemical being dumped is a type of pesticide named Kepone (Reich). Manufacturers on the James had been dumping this in the river for about a decade in Hopewell, Virginia (Kepone: More News). An ironic thing about this situation is that in 1972, The Clean Water Act had been passed; clearly there weren’t many efforts to enforce it (Jravirginia). Sixteen months before everything was shut down, one of the sole polluters started manufacturing the chemical Kepone for a larger corporation; this manufacturing plant got away with poisoning many of it’s employees and the environment surrounding it (Reich). In 1978, a news article estimated the cost of cleaning the river to be in the billions; but, since at the the time they didn’t have the right technology to go through with the cleanup, they would have
Canada is the country with the third most renewable freshwater, making up roughly seven per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater (The Council of Canadians, 2015, p.5). The cause for this unfortunate water crisis is found within the privatization of water and its distribution. Each province is in charge of distributing and funding for their water within the province. While the federal government provides funding for the First Nations communities and these communities are responsible for delivering the water back (White, J. P., Murphy, L., Spence, N., 2012). This type of distribution has shown to be ineffective to the First Nations community because of their poor watershed infrastructure that contain high levels of uranium (The Council of Canadians, 2015, p. 6). If the federal government funds these infrastructures, there shouldn’t be an issue with high chemical levels. Clearly, there is an
In this case, PG&E deceived the entire town of Hinckley by allowing them to believe that their water source was safe. Deception was clearly portrayed throughout the film, with a particularly good example toward the beginning of the movie. The film described how PG&E held a meeting with 200 people from Hinckley to explain the benefits of PG&E using chromium 3 at their plant. Chromium 3 is similar to hexavalent chromium, but its effects on the human body are quite benign in comparison, however the deception is clear when the film goes on to show that PG&E was not actually using chromium 3 at their plant, and was actually using the harmful hexavalent chromium instead. As explained previously, hexavalent chromium is extremely dangerous and harmful to humans. This deceit continued for far too long, allowing the community to believe that children could safely play in pools and all members could safely drink water out of their faucet. It was even proven toward the end of the film that PG&E were aware of their actions because there were internal PG&E documents dated 1966 that described how it would be “better for all if documents were not discussed…” (Soderbergh, 2000). This company ended up losing the largest direct-action lawsuit in United States history, therefore in some sense it was resolved with the $333 million paid to the people of
Most people in America find themselves drinking a nice glass of water that has a clean and refreshing taste to it. Most people do not have the privilege of drinking safe water. Contaminated drinking water has been linked to illnesses and deaths within the United States each year. We can solve this problem by finding new ways to clean water such as filtration and using diluted chlorine. Using these methods can lead to a much healthier way of living for those who suffer from contaminated drinking water in the United States. Contaminated water can be classified as water that contains pathogens, mercury, and even arsenic.
Pollution of NC Water and Air Reported by Media. Riverlaw Blog, 10 Sept. 2011. Web. 9