Why Is Coal Ash Such a Problem?

One of the results of burning coal to produce energy is the creation of coal ash, a toxic product that can wreak havoc when it spills into nearby ecosystems. Learn more in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/deadly-problem-coal-ash.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff.
Lauren Bogelbaum here Shortly after Hurricane Matthews stormed through North
Carolina in October, swelling the Noose River to a level
never seen before. One Matthew Star ventured out on the
river to see some of the damage himself. In the

(00:24):
article this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke
with Star, the Upper Noose River keeper for Sound Rivers,
a nonprofit that monitors and protects the Noose and Tar
Pamlico River basins. He said, well, when the flood water receded,
I was out on the boat doing a patrol on
one of the inactive ash ponds, and it really looked
like a winter wonderland. Here was this white, very fine

(00:47):
ash up in the trees, on the water, on the trunks,
on the leaves. It was just everywhere. If you just
slightly bumped a tree, it would just rain down this
very fine ash. Fast forward two years later, not a
single shovel of ash has been removed. The ash Star
speaks of is whole ash, an ecological can that the state,

(01:12):
in the whole country has been kicking down the road
for decades. More than thirty thousand tons of coal ash
spilled into the Dan River, the two fourteen mile or
three kilometer river that crosses the Virginia North Carolina line
eight times and something the locals came to call the
heartbreak on the Dan. How Stuff Works also spoke with

(01:36):
Brian Williams, the Virginia program manager for the Dan River
Basin Association, who was one of the first on the scene.
He said the river ran gray for weeks after that.
People still ask me, is it's safe to go waiting
in the river. I don't know. I can't say the
same thing about it that I used to be able to.
Coal lash is just what it says on the box.

(01:58):
It's what's left over from burning coal. The coal consumption
has dropped dramatically in recent years. It peaked in two
thousand seven, and the electric power sector used less coal
in twenty seventeen than in any year since nine three,
but power plants throughout the nation still use a staggering
amount of it. About seven hundred and seventeen million tons

(02:20):
of coal were consumed in twenty seventeen, most used to
produce electricity. About thirty percent of the nation's energy still
comes from coal, and of course millions and millions of
tons of coal ash are left over from when the
US was more coal dependent. The Environmental Protection Agency or
e p A says that coal ash is one of

(02:42):
the largest types of industrial waste produced in the United States.
More than a hundred and thirty million tons of the
stuff was generated in fourteen alone. Though there are some
uses for the ash to strengthen things like wallboard and concrete, Mainly,
most is discarded into dry landfills or wet ponds near
the power plants where it's produced as it has been

(03:04):
for decades, and where it just sits until that is
something happens a flooding river or lake nearby, a dam break,
and then catastrophe rivers and streams the air. Coal burning
plants are used to cool machinery and produce steam, but
they also provide a way out for the ash if

(03:24):
it's not disposed of properly, and the problem with coal
ash getting loose in the environment is that it is,
in a word, toxic, to quote the Organization Physicians for
Social Responsibility. Coal ash typically contains heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium,
and selenium, as well as aluminum antimony, barium, beryllium, boron, chlorine, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, ballium, vanadium,

(03:55):
and zinc. If eaten, drunk or inhaled, these toxicants can
cause cancer and nervous system impacts, such as cognitive defects,
developmental delays, and behavioral problems. They can also cause heart damage,
lung disease, respiratory distress, kidney disease, reproductive problems, gastro intestinal illness,
birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children. The worst

(04:17):
coal ash spill ever came in December of two eight,
when a dike at the storage site at the Tennessee
Valley Authorities Kingston Fossil Fuel power plant burst, releasing five
point four million cubic yards of wet ash into the
surrounding land. The sludge covered some three hundred acres that's
a hundred and twenty hectors, befouling land and waters and
prompting a year's long cleanup. More than thirty workers charged

(04:42):
with getting rid of the coal ash have already died,
allegedly from long term exposure to the toxins. At least
two hundred more are sick or dying lawsuits are pending.
North Carolina has had a few spills after the Dan
River disaster. Rains from Hurricane Matthew in twenty six and
Hurricane Florence in September caused kalash to spill into other

(05:05):
North Carolina rivers, though Duke Energy, the state's largest utility,
says the damage from the Hurricane Florence spill is minimal.
A statement released in September by the Upper Noose River
Keeper and Waterkeeper Alliance disputes that claim. An analysis by
Pace Analytical not only found levels of arsenic nearly eighteen

(05:25):
times higher than the North Carolina standard for drinking water
supply and fish consumption, but it also found elevated levels
of lead and other heavy metals in the water. Williams said,
are we going to see twenty years from now heavy
metals in shellfish? Who knows? Probably, We just can't say
right away. We can definitely say that concentrated heavy metals

(05:47):
are not good in the environment, and this is not
a problem limited to the southeast. According to the e
p A kalash disposal occurs at over a thousand sites
around the US, and those are just the active sites.
As many as one thousand additional coal ash disposal sites
exist around the country. Some of the ashes stored in

(06:08):
pits where it's mixed with water, which helps to keep
the dusty ash settled, and some mistored dry. Some of
these sites are covered and some of the pits are lined.
Environmentalists note that even when the sites aren't flooded or
retaining walls aren't compromised, the minerals in the ash can
still seep into water tables and infect drinking water. Williams said,

(06:31):
we know everything's not okay. Just sweeping this under the
rug is not cutting it. What's going to fix this
is good ideas and admitting, yeah, this is a problem
and we've got to figure out a solution. Utilities, fearful
of the huge costs associated with cleaning up these sites,
favor ceiling off the landfills and the ponds that hold

(06:52):
coal ash. But that doesn't remove the problem. It only
kicks the can further down the road. The star expl
and this isn't without a fix. The fix is to
excavate all of the coal ash. Once you remove all
the coal ash, the threat is removed. Excavating the coal ash,
putting it away from our water resources. And putting it

(07:13):
into aligned landfill. Your kitchen garbage has more strict restrictions
on it. That's what you have to do. The fix
is to remove it. A rule dictating stricter federal standards
for coal ash disposal passed in under the Obama administration
was eased in by the Trump administration, but a US

(07:33):
Court of Appeals decision later not only threatens to gut
the Trump rollbacks, but calls on the e p A
to pass even tougher rules than called for during the
Obama era. Disposal of all the coal residue is going
to take years and years to pull off. All will
plants across the country continue to produce it. That means

(07:53):
coal ash will be a problem for everybody for the
foreseeable future. Today's episode is based on the article the
Deadly Problem of coal ash on how Stuffworks dot Com,
written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by
Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts to my

(08:16):
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