is there an unregulated coal ash dump in your neighborhood? 1,300 of them

[ensho]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/07sludge.html?_r=2&th&emc=th



Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation


The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.

Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.

-snip-

In fact, coal ash is used throughout the country for construction fill, mine reclamation and other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year — 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990.

-snip-

Numerous studies have shown that the ash can leach toxic substances that can cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems in humans, and can decimate fish, bird and frog populations in and around ash dumps, causing developmental problems like tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with severe spinal deformities.
-snip-
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well, we all know the rest of the story.

bring our military home, train them in the ways of HAZMAT and have them clean up our country. fight toxins for a change.

[MADem]

1. Why should military people have to clean up HAZMAT?

That's like frying pan to fire....if you don't die of a bullet, we'll getcha with arsenic or asbestos!

Let them get out of service and use their GI Bill to go to college.

[ensho]

2. the military should at least clean up their own bases of toxins

every place in the world, including the US, our military leaves a toxic footprint.

[MADem]

3. Don't blame the kids who joined six years ago for the crap that

was deposited during the Cold War forward.

Our GOVERNMENT made that mess. Not individual soldiers, Sailors, airmen and Marines, who signed up to serve their nation. Our GOVERNMENT should hire professionals, skilled in that sort of hazard abatement, to repair the damage, not impress kids like slaves to unbuild the pyramids.

[ensho]

4. we train these kids to kill people, so they should be able to learn HAZMAT

nt

[MADem]

6. You will never get it.

Those kids aren't "them"--they're US.

And in this economy, more and more of "US" will be seeking to join the military, like it or not.

But hey, look down your nose if it makes you feel better.

[Ikonoklast]

5. Not with the militarys record with hazmat.

Their idea of a cleanup is dig a hole and hide it.