Pollan

Michael Pollan made many interesting and persuasive points in his piece on the ethics of eating meat. His discussion really brought to light the question of how far one should go in the defense of animals and their rights. By comparing the excuses that some make defending the mistreatment of animals to the excuses that slaveowners made about keeping slaves, Pollan makes the reader stop and think about what is right and wrong, and makes his audience question some of the ideas they have always had about animals. I thought that his point about how the problem with eating animals lies in the practice, not the principle, was very interesting. His statement that the invisibility of killing operations allows the continued mistreatment of animals is a logical one, and the transparency of operations that he suggests might lead to more public support for humane animal treatment. Overall Pollan presents all sides of the argument clearly and succinctly, and his proposal is interesting. It is important, in my opinion, for people to be more informed about where their food comes from. As long as it continues to come from mysterious factories and impenetrable slaughterhouses, it will be difficult to get humans to empathize with animals' rights and the need for methods of raising and slaughter that enable animals to pursue their "characteristic forms of life."

Dont Cry Over Spilt Milk- Cry Over Spilt Coal Ash

On October 11, 2000 in Martin County, Kentucky a coal waste impoundment broke through into an underground mine. 306 million gallons of sludge rushed down through the breach and flowed into the Wolf Creek and Coldwater Fork rivers, turning the clear waters into gloppy black slop for hundreds of miles. All living organisms in the rivers were killed and the drinking water for 27,000 people was contaminated (NationMaster). On December 22, 2008 in Harriman, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority's 80 acre coal ash storage pond gave way, spilling what was estimated at that time to be 500 gallons of coal sludge over 300 acres of land up to 5 feet deep and oozing into the Emory and Clinch Rivers (Simone). The amount of sludge that was released in the spill is now being reported as 1.1 billion gallons, almost double the original amount (Mansfield). The flow of waste from the plant was strong enough to damage 15 homes, leaving 3 uninhabitable and displacing all inhabitants indefinitely (Simone). Lives were altered, wildlife endangered, and homes destroyed, all as a result of an entirely preventable incident.

The Martin County spill was claimed to be 30 times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, an event that incited national uproar and action to protect the environment. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) spill was more than three times larger than the Martin County spill. We need the same calls for action, the same support for change from coal-based power and the waste it generates; an environmental disaster of this magnitude is a clear indicator that something is wrong with the way we handle the vast amounts of ash we produce. This dangerous substance is piling up in storage sites all over the country, and if steps are not taken to address this issue, future spills could be even more damaging than the TVA and Martin County incidents. If we cannot wean ourselves from coal power entirely, we must ensure that coal ash disposal is a closely regulated process, and the ash itself must be evaluated as an extremely unsafe material and treated accordingly.

Coal ash is the byproduct created when coal is burned for energy or other uses in coal-fired plants. There are three main types of this ash, and these include fly ash, which is light and powder-like; bottom ash, which is coarser and more like sand; and boiler slag, which is also coarse and granular ("What is Coal Ash?"). Once this ash has been created by a plant, it can either be stored in a landfill or a surface impoundment, also known as a storage lagoon or retention pond (Clayton 16). The amount of waste created by coal-fired plants has grown as a result of increased energy demands and more stringent emissions standards: in order to comply with stricter emissions regulations, plants have taken the fly ash that used to be released into the air and they now mix it with water to be placed in storage lagoons (Cappiello). These coal ash lagoons are usually held up by compacted coal ash, which is less stable than earth and reacts poorly with water; it seems like a recipe for disaster to shore up millions of gallons of toxic, wet material with a similarly toxic material that is degraded by water (Clayton 16). These ponds can grow to a size of 1,500 acres, or up to 18 times larger than the TVA storage lagoon (Dewan). Imagine the damage that could be inflicted by the rupture of a storage pond eighteen times larger than the TVA pond. The storage methods for coal ash that are currently in place are unsound, dangerous, and the amounts of waste produced continue to grow every year; it is clear that we cannot continue with these unsafe practices without further environmental disasters.

While the storage sites for coal ash are hazardous and unstable, the real danger lies within the ash itself. According to Mara Hvistendahl in an article for Scientific American, the radioactive trace elements of thorium and uranium present in unburned coal are concentrated up to ten times in the fly ash that results after burning. She quotes a study done for Science in 1978, which concluded that people who were living near coal plants took in radiation from the environment at levels higher or equal to those who lived near nuclear plants. In addition, this study found that fly ash "carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Shaila Dewan states on NYTimes.com that coal ash also contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, and selenium; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined these materials to be hazardous to "human health and water supplies."

Ironically, however, the EPA decided in both 1988 and 1993 that coal ash was not a hazardous waste and therefore no federal regulations or guidelines apply to its disposal (Cappiello). In 2000, the EPA again approached the issue, but made no decisions as to whether or not coal ash should be reclassified, simply stating that they would “require safeguards for coal ash disposal” (Earthjustice). Seven years later, there were still no federal regulations for coal ash dumps, and in Tennessee a flood of black sludge covered 300 acres of land. The lack of oversight by the EPA has led to poorly managed and environmentally unsound storage practices; most storage ponds and landfills are unlined or inadequately lined with clay, which allows the toxic waste to leach into the groundwater and poison the surrounding environment (Dewan). Among 155 landfill and surface impoundment sites examined by the EPA in 2006, 142 had no liner or only a clay one, and two-thirds of the 155 were located near "key waterways," as storage ponds require vast amounts of water to combine with the ash (Clayton 16). This position near waterways, however, means that storage ponds and landfills are poised to do huge amounts of damage and can spread over large distances as they flow into rivers and streams. Earthjustice, an organization of lawyers committed to environmental preservation, cites a recent EPA report that discovered that "unlined coal ash waste ponds pose a cancer risk 900 times above what is defined as 'acceptable'" to those living around them. If the EPA determined that the metals present in coal ash, such as mercury, arsenic, and lead are toxic, then it stands to reason that coal ash, as a carrier of these elements, should be classified as hazardous.

While the best solution would be to find an alternate source of energy that does not depend on coal, for the time being it appears that coal ash is here to stay. If we cannot get rid of the ash altogether, the most important step is for the EPA to reclassify coal-ash as a hazardous waste material; the concentrations of toxic heavy metals and radiation contained in the ash are reason enough to take this step. Once coal ash is established as a hazardous waste, its handling and disposal will be guided by federal regulation and not left up to the individual states with little oversight or monitoring. Reuse of coal ash is another option, but one that needs to be carefully researched to determine the toxicity of the recycled ash. It has been used successfully in place of cement to make concrete, and has been formed into a base for roadways, both of which are viable options for recycling as long as the ash is safely contained and leaching is prevented (Dewan). However, it is a priority for the EPA to first establish clear rules for the storage of coal ash and the maintenance of these storage facilities, ensuring that retention ponds are phased out, as they are the most unstable and dangerous form of storage, and existing retention ponds are moved to dumps. Switching most of the storage to dry dumps lined with impermeable plastic as opposed to clay will reduce the dangers of lagoon spills and groundwater contamination for the time being. While transferring the coal ash to landfills is an expensive option, according to Mark Clayton the cleanup of the TVA spill will cost ten times what it would have cost to put the waste in a landfill (16). Preventing disasters before they occur is key to saving the environment and avoiding extremely costly cleanups.

In 2003, TVA could have transferred the coal ash stored in the retention pond to a dry dump at a cost of $25 million, but decided that it was too expensive of an undertaking (Dewan). TVA is now spending an estimated $1 million dollars a day on cleanup, and the company has reported that it intends to have these cleanup costs borne by increases in the electric rates of its consumers (Mansfield). Unless citizens want to continue paying for the mistakes of poorly regulated, dirty coal companies, action needs to be taken. If firmer regulations were enforced, companies could face fines for their lack of compliance, making safe storage an economic and environmentally-based incentive. Phasing out coal use altogether is ultimately the best option, but it is integral that we first determine what to do with all the toxic waste we have already created, instead of continuing to ignore its existence, or waiting for another wall to burst.

Out of sight should not mean out of mind, and although these ponds or landfills may not be in your backyard, their effects on the environment are far reaching. The toxins they leak could infiltrate your groundwater, or a spill could find its way down a river to your neighborhood. While there is not much that individuals can do to with regard to the handling and actual storage of coal ash besides using less energy, it is important to know that these ponds exist and to support increased regulation and recycling. Coal dumps are filling up all over the country, and new methods need to be implemented to handle the volume of hazardous waste they contain without further damage to the environment. Of all the states in the country, Ohio has the highest number of coal ash disposal sites, with 48, including lagoons and landfills (Clayton 16). The next time one breaks it could very well be a little closer to home.

Cappiello, Dina. “Coal Ash Piling Up Most in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.” The Huffington Post.com. 9 January 2009. 29 January 2009. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/coal-ash-piling-up-most-i_n_156505.html>

Clayton, Mark. “Coal-Ash Danger Rises.” Christian Science Monitor. 14 January 2009: 16.

Mansfield, Duncan. "Tenn. Presses for details of ash spill cleanup." The Associated Press. 13 January 2009. 2 February 2009.

“Coal Ash Pollution Contaminates Groundwater, Increases Cancer Risks.” Earthjustice.com. 4 September 2007. 29 January 2009. <http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/coal-ash-pollution-contaminates-groundwater-increases-cancer-risks.html>

Dewan, Shaila. “Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation.” New York Times.com. 6 january 2009. 29 January 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/07sludge.html?_r=2>

Hvistendahl, Mara. “Coal Ash is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste.” Scientific American. 13 December 2007. 27 January 2009. <http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2>

“Martin County Sludge Spill.” NationMaster Encyclopedia. 27 January 2009.

Simone, Samira J. “Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water.” CNN.com. 24 December 2009. 29 January 2009. <http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/tennessee.sludge.spill/?iref=mpstoryview>

“What is Coal Ash?” University of North Dakota Coal Ash Research Center. 27 January 2009. <http://www.undeerc.org/carrc/html/whatiscoalash.html>

paraphrase

Original

“At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.

The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities.”

Paraphrase

According to Mara Hvistendahl in an article for Scientific American, the radioactive trace elements of thorium and uranium present in unburned coal are concentrated up to ten times in the fly ash that results after burning. She quotes a study done for Science in 1978, which concluded that people who were living near coal plants took in radiation from the environment at levels that were similar to or higher than those who lived near nuclear plants.

coal ash draft

On October 11, 2000 in Martin County, Kentucky a coal waste impoundment broke through into an underground mine. 306 million gallons of sludge rushed down through the breach and flowed into the Wolf Creek and Coldwater Fork rivers, turning the clear waters into gloppy black slop for hundreds of miles. All living organisms in the rivers were killed and the drinking water for 27,000 people was contaminated. (Wikipedia.com) On December 22, 2008 in Harriman, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority's 80 acre coal ash storage pond gave way, spilling over 500 million gallons of coal sludge over 300 acres of land up to 5 feet deep and oozing into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. (Simone) The Martin County spill was claimed to be 30 times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, which incited national uproar and action. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) spill was one and a half times larger than the Martin County spill. (Wikipedia.com) Dangerous coal ash is piling up in storage sites all over the country, and if steps are not taken to address this issue, future spills could be even deadlier than the TVA and Martin County incidents.

Coal ash is the waste created when coal is burned for energy or other uses in coal-fired plants. There are three main types, and these include fly ash, which is light and powder-like; bottom ash, which is coarser and more like sand; and boiler slag, which is also coarse and granular. ("What is Coal Ash?") Once this ash has been created by a plant, it can either be stored in a landfill or a surface impoundment, also known as a storage lagoon or retention pond. (Clayton) The amount of waste created by coal-fired plants has grown as a result of increased energy demands and more stringent emissions standards: in order to comply with stricter emissions regulations, plants have taken the fly ash that used to be released into the air and they now mix it with water to be placed in storage lagoons. (Cappiello) These ponds can While the storage sites for coal ash are hazardous and unstable, the real danger lies within the ash itself. According to Mara Hvistendahl in an article for Scientific American, the radioactive trace elements of thorium and uranium present in unburned coal are concentrated up to ten times in the fly ash that results after burning. She quotes a study done in 1978, which concluded that people who were living near coal plants ingested radiation at levels higher or equal to those who lived near nuclear plants. In addition, this study found that fly ash "carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." (1) Shaila Dewan states that coal ash also contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, and selenium; the EPA has determined these material to be hazardous to "human health and water supplies." ("Hundreds Lack Regulation")

Ironically, however, the EPA decided in both 1988 and 1993 that coal ash was not a hazardous waste and therefore no federal regulations or guidelines apply to its disposal. (Cappiello) This lack of oversight has led to poorly managed and environmentally unsound storage practices; most storage ponds and landfills are unlined or inadequately lined with clay, which allows the toxic waste to leach into the groundwater and poison the surrounding environment. Earthjustice, an organization of lawyers committed to environmental preservation, cites a recent EPA report that discovered that "unlined coal ash waste ponds pose a cancer risk 900 times above what is defined as 'acceptable'." These coal ash lagoons are usually held up by compacted coal ash, which is less stable than earth and reacts poorly with water; it seems like a recipe for disaster to shore up millions of gallons of toxic, wet material with a similarly toxic material that is degraded by water. Among 155 landfill and surface impoundment sites examined by the EPA in 2006, 142 had no liner or a clay one, and 2/3 of the 155 were located near "key waterways." (Clayton)

It is clear that something needs to be done to remedy this situation. First of all, the EPA needs to reclassify coal-ash as a hazardous waste material; the concentrations of toxic heavy metals and radiation contained in the ash are reason enough to take this step. Once coal ash is established as a hazardous waste, federal regulations can then be put in place to better monitor the disposal of this material. Retention ponds must be phased out, as it they are the most unstable and dangerous form of storage- their need for water necessitates their placement near waterways and if they break they are poised to do the most damage as they flow into rivers and tributaries. Dry dumps are safer only if lined with an impermeable barrier, for example plastic as opposed to clay. Switching most of the storage to lined dry dumps will reduce the dangers of lagoon spills and groundwater contamination for the time being, but ultimately the debate comes down to coal power itself and the need for alternate sources of energy. While transferring the coal ash to landfills is an expensive option, according to Mark Clayton, the cleanup of the TVA spill will cost ten times what it would have cost to put the waste in a landfill. Ohio is the number one state with coal ash disposal sites, at 48: 26 lagoons and 22 landfills. (Clayton) The next time one breaks it could very well be a little closer to home.

Sources:

Cappiello, Dina. “Coal Ash Piling Up Most in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.” The Huffington Post.com. 9 January 2009. 29 January 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/coal-ash-piling-up-most-i_n_156505.html

Clayton, Mark. “Coal-Ash Danger Rises.” Christian Science Monitor. 14 January 2009: 16.

“Coal Ash Pollution Contaminates Groundwater, Increases Cancer Risks.” Earthjustice.com. 4 September 2007. 29 January 2009. http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/coal-ash-pollution-contaminates-groundwater-increases-cancer-risks.html

Dewan, Shaila. “Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation.” New York Times.com. 6 january 2009. 29 January 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/07sludge.html?_r=2

Hvistendahl, Mara. “Coal Ash is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste.” Scientific American. 13 December 2007. 27 January 2009. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2

“Martin County Sludge Spill.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 17 January 2008. 27 January 2009.

Simone, Samira J. “Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water.” CNN.com. 24 December 2009. 29 January 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/tennessee.sludge.spill/?iref=mpstoryview

“What is Coal Ash?” University of North Dakota Coal Ash Research Center. 27 January 2009. http://www.undeerc.org/carrc/html/whatiscoalash.html