Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbaum here Shortly after Hurricane Matthews stormed through North
Speaker 1: Carolina in October, swelling the Noose River to a level
Speaker 1: never seen before. One Matthew Star ventured out on the
Speaker 1: river to see some of the damage himself. In the
Speaker 1: article this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke
Speaker 1: with Star, the Upper Noose River keeper for Sound Rivers,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit that monitors and protects the Noose and Tar
Speaker 1: Pamlico River basins. He said, well, when the flood water receded,
Speaker 1: I was out on the boat doing a patrol on
Speaker 1: one of the inactive ash ponds, and it really looked
Speaker 1: like a winter wonderland. Here was this white, very fine
Speaker 1: ash up in the trees, on the water, on the trunks,
Speaker 1: on the leaves. It was just everywhere. If you just
Speaker 1: slightly bumped a tree, it would just rain down this
Speaker 1: very fine ash. Fast forward two years later, not a
Speaker 1: single shovel of ash has been removed. The ash Star
Speaker 1: speaks of is whole ash, an ecological can that the state,
Speaker 1: in the whole country has been kicking down the road
Speaker 1: for decades. More than thirty thousand tons of coal ash
Speaker 1: spilled into the Dan River, the two fourteen mile or
Speaker 1: three kilometer river that crosses the Virginia North Carolina line
Speaker 1: eight times and something the locals came to call the
Speaker 1: heartbreak on the Dan. How Stuff Works also spoke with
Speaker 1: Brian Williams, the Virginia program manager for the Dan River
Speaker 1: Basin Association, who was one of the first on the scene.
Speaker 1: He said the river ran gray for weeks after that.
Speaker 1: People still ask me, is it's safe to go waiting
Speaker 1: in the river. I don't know. I can't say the
Speaker 1: same thing about it that I used to be able to.
Speaker 1: Coal lash is just what it says on the box.
Speaker 1: It's what's left over from burning coal. The coal consumption
Speaker 1: has dropped dramatically in recent years. It peaked in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, and the electric power sector used less coal
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen than in any year since nine three,
Speaker 1: but power plants throughout the nation still use a staggering
Speaker 1: amount of it. About seven hundred and seventeen million tons
Speaker 1: of coal were consumed in twenty seventeen, most used to
Speaker 1: produce electricity. About thirty percent of the nation's energy still
Speaker 1: comes from coal, and of course millions and millions of
Speaker 1: tons of coal ash are left over from when the
Speaker 1: US was more coal dependent. The Environmental Protection Agency or
Speaker 1: e p A says that coal ash is one of
Speaker 1: the largest types of industrial waste produced in the United States.
Speaker 1: More than a hundred and thirty million tons of the
Speaker 1: stuff was generated in fourteen alone. Though there are some
Speaker 1: uses for the ash to strengthen things like wallboard and concrete, Mainly,
Speaker 1: most is discarded into dry landfills or wet ponds near
Speaker 1: the power plants where it's produced as it has been
Speaker 1: for decades, and where it just sits until that is
Speaker 1: something happens a flooding river or lake nearby, a dam break,
Speaker 1: and then catastrophe rivers and streams the air. Coal burning
Speaker 1: plants are used to cool machinery and produce steam, but
Speaker 1: they also provide a way out for the ash if
Speaker 1: it's not disposed of properly, and the problem with coal
Speaker 1: ash getting loose in the environment is that it is,
Speaker 1: in a word, toxic, to quote the Organization Physicians for
Speaker 1: Social Responsibility. Coal ash typically contains heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium,
Speaker 1: and selenium, as well as aluminum antimony, barium, beryllium, boron, chlorine, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, ballium, vanadium,
Speaker 1: and zinc. If eaten, drunk or inhaled, these toxicants can
Speaker 1: cause cancer and nervous system impacts, such as cognitive defects,
Speaker 1: developmental delays, and behavioral problems. They can also cause heart damage,
Speaker 1: lung disease, respiratory distress, kidney disease, reproductive problems, gastro intestinal illness,
Speaker 1: birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children. The worst
Speaker 1: coal ash spill ever came in December of two eight,
Speaker 1: when a dike at the storage site at the Tennessee
Speaker 1: Valley Authorities Kingston Fossil Fuel power plant burst, releasing five
Speaker 1: point four million cubic yards of wet ash into the
Speaker 1: surrounding land. The sludge covered some three hundred acres that's
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty hectors, befouling land and waters and
Speaker 1: prompting a year's long cleanup. More than thirty workers charged
Speaker 1: with getting rid of the coal ash have already died,
Speaker 1: allegedly from long term exposure to the toxins. At least
Speaker 1: two hundred more are sick or dying lawsuits are pending.
Speaker 1: North Carolina has had a few spills after the Dan
Speaker 1: River disaster. Rains from Hurricane Matthew in twenty six and
Speaker 1: Hurricane Florence in September caused kalash to spill into other
Speaker 1: North Carolina rivers, though Duke Energy, the state's largest utility,
Speaker 1: says the damage from the Hurricane Florence spill is minimal.
Speaker 1: A statement released in September by the Upper Noose River
Speaker 1: Keeper and Waterkeeper Alliance disputes that claim. An analysis by
Speaker 1: Pace Analytical not only found levels of arsenic nearly eighteen
Speaker 1: times higher than the North Carolina standard for drinking water
Speaker 1: supply and fish consumption, but it also found elevated levels
Speaker 1: of lead and other heavy metals in the water. Williams said,
Speaker 1: are we going to see twenty years from now heavy
Speaker 1: metals in shellfish? Who knows? Probably, We just can't say
Speaker 1: right away. We can definitely say that concentrated heavy metals
Speaker 1: are not good in the environment, and this is not
Speaker 1: a problem limited to the southeast. According to the e
Speaker 1: p A kalash disposal occurs at over a thousand sites
Speaker 1: around the US, and those are just the active sites.
Speaker 1: As many as one thousand additional coal ash disposal sites
Speaker 1: exist around the country. Some of the ashes stored in
Speaker 1: pits where it's mixed with water, which helps to keep
Speaker 1: the dusty ash settled, and some mistored dry. Some of
Speaker 1: these sites are covered and some of the pits are lined.
Speaker 1: Environmentalists note that even when the sites aren't flooded or
Speaker 1: retaining walls aren't compromised, the minerals in the ash can
Speaker 1: still seep into water tables and infect drinking water. Williams said,
Speaker 1: we know everything's not okay. Just sweeping this under the
Speaker 1: rug is not cutting it. What's going to fix this
Speaker 1: is good ideas and admitting, yeah, this is a problem
Speaker 1: and we've got to figure out a solution. Utilities, fearful
Speaker 1: of the huge costs associated with cleaning up these sites,
Speaker 1: favor ceiling off the landfills and the ponds that hold
Speaker 1: coal ash. But that doesn't remove the problem. It only
Speaker 1: kicks the can further down the road. The star expl
Speaker 1: and this isn't without a fix. The fix is to
Speaker 1: excavate all of the coal ash. Once you remove all
Speaker 1: the coal ash, the threat is removed. Excavating the coal ash,
Speaker 1: putting it away from our water resources. And putting it
Speaker 1: into aligned landfill. Your kitchen garbage has more strict restrictions
Speaker 1: on it. That's what you have to do. The fix
Speaker 1: is to remove it. A rule dictating stricter federal standards
Speaker 1: for coal ash disposal passed in under the Obama administration
Speaker 1: was eased in by the Trump administration, but a US
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals decision later not only threatens to gut
Speaker 1: the Trump rollbacks, but calls on the e p A
Speaker 1: to pass even tougher rules than called for during the
Speaker 1: Obama era. Disposal of all the coal residue is going
Speaker 1: to take years and years to pull off. All will
Speaker 1: plants across the country continue to produce it. That means
Speaker 1: coal ash will be a problem for everybody for the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future. Today's episode is based on the article the
Speaker 1: Deadly Problem of coal ash on how Stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts to my
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