Coal Ash Could Cause Cancer

  • Coal ash is sometimes used as an ingredient in concrete blocks (Photo source: Skepticsteve at Wikimedia Commons)

For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:

Transcript

For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:

A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice uses data from the US Environmental Protection Agency – including a study that had been kept quiet since 2002.

Among the findings, people who live near coal ash storage ponds that are unlined, and who get their drinking water from a well, have a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from arsenic contamination.

Lisa Evans is an attorney with Earthjustice.

“It by far presents the largest risk to human health and the environment and there’s no reason to manage the waste in this way.”

The groups are calling for these storage ponds to be phased out and cleaned up in the next 5 years.

The EPA says new regulations are coming soon.

Power companies are willing to stop using storage ponds – but don’t want the coal ash classified as toxic. That would make disposal more expensive.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Coal Ash Controversy

  • A broken dam caused this cement-like sludge to spill into the Emory River in East Tennessee. The coal ash sludge could dry out, putting toxic dust into the air. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)

This past December a sludge of coal ash broke out of an impoundment at a power plant in
Tennessee. It destroyed homes. It devastated a section of river. And it set off a firestorm
about the problem of coal ash disposal. Now two US Senators and a bunch of environmental
groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash. Tamara
Keith has the story:

Transcript

This past December a sludge of coal ash broke out of an impoundment at a power plant in
Tennessee. It destroyed homes. It devastated a section of river. And it set off a firestorm
about the problem of coal ash disposal. Now two US Senators and a bunch of environmental
groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash. Tamara
Keith has the story:

Coal ash is byproduct produced by coal burning power plants and it’s stored at more than 500
sites around the country.

Anti-coal activist Dave Cooper signed onto a letter this week with more than 100
environmental groups telling the EPA it’s time to get involved.

“What we want is for the EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.”

But Dave Goss with the American Coal Ash Association says safe storage is an issue, but a
lot of the ash is actually recycled into things like concrete and wallboard.

“If you stigmatize it by giving it some sort of a classification such as hazardous, that’s going
to have a dramatic impact on the ability to re-use the materials.”

The EPA has been studying this issue for years, and hasn’t responded to the latest calls for
regulation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Will Coal Ash Spill Get Into the Air?

  • Airborne toxins could be causing health problems for residents near this coal ash spill (seen in the background) in Tennessee. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)

Environmentalists don’t want a lot of new coal-burning power plants to be built. They’re concerned about more greenhouse gases from the plants and environmental damage from mining the coal. Late last year, another concern came to light. For decades a power plant disposed of coal ash in a pond next to it. The dam holding back the coal ash sludge failed. Matt Shafer Powell reports more than a billion gallons of the sludge caused plenty of damage to the soil and water. Now, there’s concern about the air:

Transcript

Environmentalists don’t want a lot of new coal-burning power plants to be built. They’re concerned about more greenhouse gases from the plants and environmental damage from mining the coal. Late last year, another concern came to light. For decades a power plant disposed of coal ash in a pond next to it. The dam holding back the coal ash sludge failed. Matt Shafer Powell reports more than a billion gallons of the sludge caused plenty of damage to the soil and water. Now, there’s concern about the air:

In December, the massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in East Tennessee made people aware of a hazard they’d never really considered before. And no one knows how much of a problem it’s going to be.

“We’re looking across the Emory River.”

Matt Landon is a volunteer for the environmental group United Mountain Defense. These days, he spends a lot of time near the Tennessee Valley Authority’s ash spill site. His double respirator mask, his personal video camera and his vocal criticism of the T.V.A. have all become fixtures here. It was on one of his recent rounds near the Emory River that he saw something that scared him.

“I drove around the bend here on Emory River Road and I witnessed a massive dust storm coming off the entire coal ash disaster site.”

Landon says the dust cloud was about 70-to-80 feet high and about a half mile wide. Coal ash can contain several toxic heavy metals — like arsenic, lead, and mercury. For Landon, the site of this swirling cloud was a sobering and frightening reminder that it wouldn’t take much for the toxic materials contained in the wet cement-like sludge to dry out and become airborne.

When Landon walks up to Diana Anderson’s house on the Emory River, her shih-tzus go nuts. And no wonder. Here’s this tall, lanky guy in a double-respirator mask headed their way.

Anderson has lived here for forty years now, just downwind from the plant. And she never worried about it. But since the spill, she’s begun to notice changes in her health.

“My sinuses are irritated, I have a raspy throat, and I do a lot of coughing and my head hurts and I feel very, very, very fatigued.”

Anderson has volunteered to let Matt Landon test the air near her home. So, the two head to her kitchen sink, where they wash and prepare Pyrex dishes.

They’ll set the dishes out on Anderson’s back porch to collect dust. After a while, Landon will send the dust samples off to a lab to find out what’s in the air.

The T.V.A. is also testing the air, with help from the state of Tennessee and the E.P.A. T.V.A. Spokesman Gil Francis says they’ve already collected more than 10-thousand air samples.

“We’re taking samples 24/7, the samples are coming back that the air quality is meeting the National Air Ambient Standards and we’re going to continue to work hard to make sure that’s what the case is going forward.”

That might be easier said than done. Francis says the T.V.A. has done a lot to keep the ash from drying out and blowing around. They’ve dropped straw and grass seed from helicopters and coated the ash in an acrylic mixture. But Steven Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy says nobody really knows what it’s going to take to clean this mess up. Or how the people who live downwind will be affected.

“There are still a lot of unknowns about this. We’ve never had an ash spill this size and I think people ought to err on the side of caution.”

If there’s one bit of consolation for the people living near the Kingston coal ash spill, it’s this: the National Weather Service says that during the summer months this region is among the least windy and most humid in the country.

For the Environment Report, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

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Westward Ho for the Ash Borer

  • Adult emerald ash borer (Photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)

The emerald ash borer has eaten through
millions of trees in the US and is spreading
west. Erin Toner has more:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer has eaten through
millions of trees in the US and is spreading
west. Erin Toner has more:

For six long years, the tiny metallic-green emerald ash borer has been a killing machine,
starting with millions of ash trees in Michigan and Canada, and then munching its way
into 10 states.

It was recently discovered in Missouri, and now, it’s in Wisconsin.

The prognosis is not good.

Darrell Zastrow is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“Our forests are not typically resilient against non-native species and that is true for
the emerald ash borer. It is generally considered to be a poster child for invasive
species.”

Officials in Wisconsin are doing what everyone else has done – restricting the movement
of firewood and telling people how to protect their trees.

Some promising treatments to fight the emerald ash borer are being tested, but so far,
nothing has worked at keeping the insect from spreading west.

For The Environment Report, I’m Erin Toner.

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In Search of Resistant Butternuts

A program is trying to save another
native tree that’s being wiped out by an invasive
fungus. People who like the butternut are hoping
that by planting more seedlings, and tracking
mature trees, they’ll find some are resistant
to a blight that’s killing the butternuts.
Lucy Martin reports:

Transcript

A program is trying to save another
native tree that’s being wiped out by an invasive
fungus. People who like the butternut are hoping
that by planting more seedlings, and tracking
mature trees, they’ll find some are resistant
to a blight that’s killing the butternuts.
Lucy Martin reports:


Butternuts are rich in history. Native Americans used the tree for
medicine and dye. They ate the nuts. During the Civil War, so many
Confederates used the tree’s yellow-brown dye to make home-spun
uniforms that their army picked up the nickname “butternuts.”


Wood ducks, finches and songbirds eat the tree’s spring buds. The fall
nut crop feeds woodpeckers, turkeys, squirrels and other wildlife.
The tree’s hard wood resembles walnut, but with a lighter, golden tone.
That’s why it’s sometimes called “white walnut.”


The trees are seriously threatened by butternut canker, an invasive,
airborne fungus. The blight was first noted in Wisconsin in 1967. In
some states, up to 90% of all butternuts are now affected, but there’s
work underway to try to save the butternut before it’s wiped out.


Tucked in an old orchard, a cold-storage room serves as a distribution
station. Each spring, this is where the Rideau Valley Conservation
Authority gives away seedling trees to the public. Project technician
Rose Fleguel gave me the tour:


“So, I think there’s about 100,000 seedlings here. These are boxed or
bagged so that the trees stay moist and dark. We’ve already spent two
days re-packing into individual landowner tree orders.”


At this time of year, the dormant seedlings just look like twiggy
sticks. Many are still wrapped in brown paper sacks. Conservation
agencies plant all kinds of trees. But sometimes they target very
specific problems, like butternut canker.


“My thing is the Butternut Recovery Project, whatever amount of land
can sustain 10 seedlings, then you’re free to take the seedlings and
plant them out. ‘Cause what we’d like to do is get the seedlings out on
the landscape, get them growing. Replace the ones that have been killed
by this disease, already, and that continue to be killed, and hope for,
I mean, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a shot in the dark, but hope
that maybe some of these seedlings might be resistant.”


“Hope” is the key word. It’s not clear whether any butternuts are
resistant to the canker blight. The seedlings being handed out are
from trees that are still healthy. This recovery program also maps
mature trees and keeps track of the ones that still seem to be canker-
free. It’s a long shot, called “find the resistance.”


Rudy Dyck is the Director of the local Watershed Stewardship Services.
He says you can usually see if a butternut has been attacked by the
disease:


“Look for black patches, black streaks, black sooty areas on
the main stem, at the root collar, and always look on the underside of
the large branches, because that seems to be where the canker first
infects.”


“And if you notice that, is there anything to be done?”


“No, there’s nothing you can do. We’re asking people to keep them, as
long as they can. But one of the reasons that butternut is in such
extreme danger of extinction is that it just does not regenerate very
well.”


Dyck says that’s why it’s important to conserve existing trees.
Butternuts don’t bear seed each and every year. And when they do, the
nuts tend to get gobbled up. Growing new butternuts takes a few tricks:


“You have to stratify them, or prepare them for growing, the next
spring. So they have to spend a few months in kind of freezing
temperatures, an un-insulated garage in a pot of peat moss, or
something. Another strategy some people do, is they bury the nuts in
the fall, and they cover them with chicken wire, and then that protects
them from squirrels during that fall period and, as they start to grow
next spring, you can transplant them.”


Dyck says US and Canadian agencies are sharing ideas and results
because diseases don’t stop at borders:


“There’s literally thousands and thousands of heavily cankered, dying
butternuts out there, and we really want to focus on looking at
healthy, canker-free trees. Because those are the trees we want to get
into our geo-data base, for future seed collection, those are the trees
that may hold some resistance and those are the trees we want to
track.”


Butternut canker isn’t a well-known problem. The beautiful trees are
too big for most yards. They’re usually sparsely scattered in forests,
or old farmsteads. But Dyck says the butternut has an important place
in nature.


“There’s no question, bio-diversity and having many, many types of
ecosystems, habitats, species. They all interact, they all count on
each other, and it all makes for a healthier environment and place for
us all to live.”


Many native trees such as the chestnut, elm, and now the ash, are under
attack from invasive diseases or pests. The butternut is yet another
tree biologists want to save for future generations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lucy Martin.

Related Links

Defending Against Ash Borer

The Emerald Ash Borer is being found in new places. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jeff Bossert reports officials are emphasizing different way to stop the small metallic-green bug:

Transcript

The Emerald Ash Borer is being found in new places. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jeff Bossert reports officials are emphasizing a different way to stop the small metallic-green bug:


The emerald ash borer is killing ash trees throughout much of Michigan, and it’s spreading. It’s been discovered in parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario.


Michigan State University entomologist David Smitley suggests homeowners work to stop the spread of the insect by treating the ash tree while they’re still healthy.


“That’s really critical. You need to start with a healthy tree, and that’s why we’re trying to get the word out.”


Smitley says homeowners in Michigan should consider applying insecticides
this fall and every subsequent spring, but University of Illinois
entomologist James Appleby says that’s not enough. That’s because too many don’t know about the emerald ash borer, and will fall back on spraying when it’s too late.


“I hate to get that kind of publicity out. I think the main thing
here is that we just be aware that we not bring any firewood from Michigan
into Illinois or Indiana or any other state.”


Appleby says a recent survey in Michigan revealed fifty percent of those
questioned had never heard of the emerald ash borer.


For the GLRC, I’m Jeff Bossert.

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Ash Borer Threatens Native American Traditions

  • The emerald ash borer is rapidly destroying ash trees around the Midwest, impacting not only forests but humans as well. (Photo courtesy of invasivespecies.gov)

The emerald ash borer is an invasive beetle that has killed millions of trees in the Great Lakes region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the borer is now starting to threaten Native American customs. For them, the ash trees are more than just landscaping. They’re also used for making traditional ash baskets, canoe paddles, and medicine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer is an invasive beetle that’s killed millions of trees in the Great Lakes region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the borer is now starting to threaten Native American customs. For them, the ash trees are more than just landscaping. They’re also used for making traditional ash baskets, canoe paddles, and medicine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:


When I first saw Walpole Island, it was green and misty, out in the middle of the St. Clair River.


I had to take a ferry to get there. Walpole Island sits between the U.S. and Canada, but it doesn’t really belong to either one. It’s owned by the tribes. And they’ve lived there for close to six-thousand years. The island’s full of beautiful old trees, and has a lot of native plants and animals. Quite a few of which are rare.


After the ferry ride, it’s not too far to the Walpole Island Heritage Center. Inside, Kennon Johnson shows off the collection of baskets at the center. He’s the supervisor of the island’s Resource Protection Program.


“These would’ve been working baskets, this would’ve been used for collecting berries, mushrooms, all sort of things, and then some would’ve been for storage, and that’s typically your smaller ones.”


These baskets aren’t just museum pieces. People still make them and sell them. The stronger ones carry food and laundry, and the brightly colored ones are for gifts.


Reta Sands still makes the baskets. She’s a tribal elder. She learned basket making from her grandmother. The wood to make the baskets came from ash trees.


“My grandmother, when she needed money, that’s the time she decided she would go into the bush and chip, the ash trees that were there. She took a chunk out of the tree and looked at it and some way, somehow, she figured out which ones were good, which ones were the best ones to make whatever kind of baskets she was going to make.”


But now the basket-making tradition might be in trouble. The black ash trees in the Great Lakes region are being attacked by the emerald ash borer. The ash borer is an invasive pest that has shown up within the past decade. And it’s spreading like wildfire.


The insect hasn’t invaded Walpole Island yet, but the island is near some infested spots in Michigan and Canada. Kennon Johnson is already thinking about the possible effects of the bugs, when they arrive on the island.


“So we’re talking about some pretty scary issues here if we do get emerald ash borer, if it does what they say it does, if it’s going to wipe out all the ash trees five, ten years down the road, we’re looking at some more scary issues in that we’re going to be culturally impacted.”


Kennon says the tribes don’t know if they’ll have to end their tradition of making the baskets, or if they’ll be able to find a way to fight off the pest. Controlling the ash borer is a work in progress. There hasn’t been enough research on the pest and no one really knows how to get rid of it.


The native people want the freedom to try some of their own solutions on their land—not just at Walpole Island, but other places the tribes manage the forest. Nick Reo is trying to help the tribes be part of the decision making. He’s the American Indian Liason for Michigan State University’s Extension program.


“Basically tribes have been left out of the process, and we’re used to that, I mean that’s the way things happen. People tend to work around us not with us, and I don’t think I’m overstating that. So, I’m trying to get us to the table. Somebody has to push the issue. That’s not just me, but I could be one of the people that’s pushing the issue.
Where the progress is really happening is within the tribal communities. Those are the people who are really going to make a difference.”


Reo says the native communities have centuries of experience with the trees. He says they know the ashes better than anyone else, and he feels someone ought to take advantage of that expertise.


“We have sophisticated natural resource and environmental departments in our tribal communities, we have cultural departments and historic preservation departments, we have basket makers and traditional folks who are going to be the champions, hopefully, in helping to factor in to figuring out solutions for this problem.”


For now, the tribes are waiting, and watching to see the extent of the damage as the emerald ash borer moves through the region. They’re brainstorming some of the ways they might fight the pest as the invasion gets worse.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

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Defense Department Re-Opens Cold War Barrel Mystery

  • The Department of Defense is working on cleaning up barrels dumped into Lake Superior. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Interior)

The Department of Defense will re-open the case of 14-hundred mystery barrels secretly dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. The barrels were dumped in an area where the Red Cliff Band of Chippewa Indians have territorial rights. The DOD now has an agreement with the Red Cliff Tribe to investigate the weapons dump site. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has this report:

Transcript

The Department of Defense will re-open the case of 1400 mystery barrels secretly dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. The barrels were dumped in an area where the Red Cliff Band of Chippewa Indians have territorial rights. The DoD now has an agreement with the Red Cliff Tribe to investigate the weapons dump site. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has this report:


Documents show barrels of weapons scraps manufactured by Honeywell from 1958 to 1962 were secretly dumped by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers a few miles east of the Duluth-Superior harbor.


Red Cliff Environmental Consultant Dave Anderson believes there is an imminent danger to Duluth’s water supply. The barrels are rusting away 100 to 300 feet deep near the city’s water intake. He says he’s found evidence of PCB’s and unidentified ash.


“Right now we know that there is more to these barrels than what has been disclosed in the past. That the barrels are not just scrap steel grenade parts. There are other wastes that are hazardous that are contained in the barrels and we now know that the barrels are leaking some of those substances.”


The DoD has awarded the Red Cliff Tribe a 105-thousand dollar grant to assess and further investigate this 20 mile square site and report the findings in October for possible clean-up.


For the GLRC, I’m Mike Simonson.

An Alternative to Waste Incinerators

  • A new process called alkaline hydrolysis is forecasted to be a cheaper, safer way to dispose of animal carcasses. (Photo by Dr. Beth Williams, University of Wyoming, courtesy of CWD Alliance)

Animal research labs usually get rid of carcasses by burning them in incinerators. Now, a new more environmentally friendly technology is being used to dispose of the diseased dead animals and the lab supplies they contaminate. The new method has worked well enough that hospitals are considering it as a way to dispose of medical waste. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert reports:

Transcript

Animal research labs usually get rid of carcasses by burning them in incinerators. Now, a new more environmentally friendly technology is being used to dispose of the diseased dead animals and the lab supplies they contaminate. The new method has worked well enough that hospitals are considering it as a way to dispose of medical waste. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert reports:


Until recently, the only safe way to destroy diseased tissue and other infectious waste was to burn it in an incinerator. But dangerous chemicals such as dioxins spew from the incinerator smokestacks, and burning leaves behind a toxic ash.


(sound of machine whirring)


Now, there’s an alternative to burning. Dr. Gordon Kaye stands in a spotless room beside one of the units manufactured at a company he helped found, WR Squared, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The unit will eventually be used to dispose of 5,000 pounds of dead animals – about the equivalent of five large cows – that were used for veterinary research.


But there will be no smoke. There’ll be no fire.


Kaye’s idea for a new type of disposal technology began 12 years ago when he was a pathology professor at Albany Medical College. He was frustrated with how much it cost to dispose of dead research animals. So, he started experimenting with a new technology. And alkaline hydrolysis was born.


“Well, there are no air emissions from it. It’s a sealed system. It takes place in a hermetically sealed pressure vessel. No dangerous products are produced in it because of the temperature which it takes place.”


Alkaline hydrolysis works like this: infectious waste goes into a tightly sealed vessel, along with strong alkalis which are very caustic. The waste is then cooked at temperatures well above boiling. A chemical reaction causes the waste to break down. The infectious components are neutralized. When it’s over, you end up with two products: a sterile, water-like solution, that can head to a sanitary sewer system, and sterile crushed bones, the consistency of powder, that can be used as fertilizer. Because the end products are clean, they don’t require complicated disposal, so the process is cheaper than incineration.


WR squared now has 60 units in 15 states, primarily at research facilities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has purchased several of them. New York was the first state to allow use of the technology. Ira Salkin directed that state’s medical waste program when it approved WR squared’s process.


“It has less potential problems than is being found with incineration and the use of incineration in the U.S. is decreasing and therefore their system holds great promise. As the numbers of incinerators decrease, one finds they have this alternative to be used to treat pathologic material.”


Environmentalists agree with Salkin that the technology is sound. Horhay Emmanuel is with Health Care Without Harm. He notes that it’s especially effective for one troublesome type of waste, cattle dead from Mad Cow disease.


“Not only does it destroy infectious agents, but it also destroys prion-contaminated waste. And prions are what are believed to cause things like Mad Cow disease, which are difficult to destroy, even by incineration, so WR squared has been shown to destroy these prions in the contaminated waste.”


Last April, The Environmental Protection Agency approved alkaline hydrolysis, along with incineration, as a way to treat Mad Cow diseased waste. And WR Squared’s Gordon Kaye sees that as a big future market.


Horhay Emmanuel, with Health Care Without Harm, says while alkaline hydrolysis is generally good for the environment, there is one concern. The fluid that’s produced could overwhelm some small town’s sewer systems. The company says in communities with small sewer systems, the solution can be released more slowly or during off-peak hours.


So, alkaline hydrolysis process is cheaper, it pollutes less, government agencies like it, and environmentalists find little to criticize.
Now, the company is broadening its reach to treat hospital waste. Many hospitals are using smaller, not very efficient incinerators that pollute more.


WR Squared’s Gordon Kaye says he expects big growth with this new method to dispose of medical and infectious waste as labs and hospitals look for ways to replace their incinerators over the next several years.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

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More Trees Lost in Ash Borer Battle

An invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer is spreading. It has already killed millions of trees in Michigan and Ontario, and the bug is continuing to spread into parts of Indiana and Ohio. Now, a team of scientists in Ohio has endorsed a new plan to counter the ash borer’s attack. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:

Transcript

An invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer is spreading. It has already killed millions of
trees in Michigan and Ontario, and the bug is continuing to spread into parts of Indiana and Ohio.
Now, a team of scientists in Ohio has endorsed a new plan to counter the ash borer’s attack. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:


Some ash trees in northwest Ohio have been infected with the ash borers… so the scientists are
supporting a plan by agriculture officials to order that ALL ash trees within a half mile radius of
the stricken trees be chopped down. Ohio insect expert Dan Herms is on the scientific panel
that’s urging quick action…


“12 million ash trees have already died in southeast Michigan, and so all these ash trees in Toledo
are inevitably doomed anyway. So the key is to try to get in front of this to prevent it from
spreading into the rest of Ohio and ultimately the rest of North America.”


Herms expects Ohio’s cut-down project to begin this winter. He notes ash trees are valuable as
timber… with Ohio’s crop having an estimated worth of one billion dollars.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.

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