Coal...water...not a good mixture

what is this?

By Shaila Dewan
The New York Times
January 6, 2008

There are pools of ash all across the country are going unregulated and unmonitored. One such pool ruptured and sent billions of gallons of toxic sludge across several hundred acres of Tennessee in December. Some of this toxic sludge got into water supply, which obviously contaminated it and sent concentrations of arsenic, lead and mercury in the the water supply.


There is a problem here. How can a coal ash pool overflow? It just seems to wrong to have something that was thought to be contained and controlled rupture and contaminate a large chunk of Tennessee. This just proves that there are certain areas of the country's waste control is definitely going unobserved. If these pools were being monitored, there wouldn't have been a spill because the supervisor would have known to spot filling it. This is really frustrating; I don't understand why people don't pay more attention to things like this. I mean fresh water is limited in the world and we need it to survive. We need to take better care of it. I know that no one knew that the pool would overflow and get into the water, but precautions could be taken, it isn't too much to ask is it?

Until next time...