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Fly ash is a by-product of coal combution. The pond was to store the fly ash...it's rupture is the largest of it's kind in US history (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?ref=us)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/sooty_Christmas.jpgShalia Dewan - New York Times – Dec. 24, 2008

Is this the Three-Mile Island of Clean Coal? -- Ed.

Kingston, Tenn. — What may be the nation’s largest spill of coal ash lay thick and largely untouched over hundreds of acres of land and waterways Wednesday after a dam broke this week, as officials and environmentalists argued over its potential toxicity.

Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no official word on the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, displaced residents spent Christmas Eve worried about their health and their property, and wondering what to do.

The spill took place at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a Tennessee Valley Authority generating plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville on the banks of the Emory River, which feeds into the Clinch River, and then the Tennessee River just downstream…http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?ref=us

Ponds and dams associated with coal mines have been a problem for a long time. This incident will focus more attention on that.

By the way, higher-quality fly ash, the kind with less soot, is used as an additive in Portland cement concrete. It helps in concrete durability and reduces reduces reactivity, a source of concrete deterioration.

Harry

The interesting irony is that this particular generating plant was once slated to be nuclear. The environmental impact on the snail darter, a tiny minnow like fish, stoped the nuclear option. The plant became a coal plant.

To me the message is that there will be some environmental impact of all energy reprcessing. The evil is the massive demand for energy, not how it is generated. All generation/conversion will cause problems. Nuclear is probably the cleanes of all the options.

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By the way, higher-quality fly ash, the kind with less soot, is used as an additive in Portland cement concrete. It helps in concrete durability and reduces reduces reactivity, a source of concrete deterioration.

Harry

That makes me wonder if the permit for the facility treated the ash as a by-product rather than as a waste to allow laxer rules. Something in the back of my mind also says coal ash (like petroleum) has special rules exemptions. Since this was a "pond" I suspect that this mostly was bottom rather than fly ash.

The disaster must have unfolded nearly the same as a volcanic lehar:eek:. This seems likely to become a superfund site. I'd expect to find metals levels (and alkaline pH's?) that would represent a chronic but not acute hazard (i.e. it might be an OK spot to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.) I hope I'm wrong though.