More than 1 billion gallons of toxic sludge were released into a Tennessee community when a dam collapsed last December, causing a massive coal-ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-burning power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Coal ash is known to contain dangerous elements including arsenic, lead, and selenium, yet the TVA refused at first to issue any health warnings about contamination from the spill. The agency, which weeks later admitted prior leak problems at the plant, also refused initially to declare as uninhabitable the houses in the area, like the one pictured here, that were physically relocated by all the sludge.
Coal ash is known to contain dangerous elements including arsenic, lead, and selenium, yet the TVA refused at first to issue any health warnings about contamination from the spill. The agency, which weeks later admitted prior leak problems at the plant, also refused initially to declare as uninhabitable the houses in the area, like the one pictured here, that were physically relocated by all the sludge.
