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  • Alabama dump taking TVA’s spilled coal ash declares bankruptcy

    The landfill in Perry County, Ala. that has been taking coal ash spilled from the failed waste pond at Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant has declared bankruptcy — a move that leaves a planned lawsuit to halt the dumping up in the air. Arrowhead Landfill owner Perry-Uniontown Ventures I LLC, also known as Perry County […]

  • Congressional watchdog issues update on coal ash regulation efforts

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still does not know the exact number of coal ash dumps at the nation’s power plants, but it’s moving ahead with plans to regulate them. Those are among the findings of a report [PDF] released last week by the Government Accountability Office on the status of EPA’s efforts to improve […]

  • The risky plan to dump coal ash in an old Tennessee mine

    Since a dam burst at its Kingston coal-fired power plant last December and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge into a nearby community and river, the federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has decided to change the way it stores its coal waste, transitioning from wet landfills like the one that […]

  • Throwing out the throwaway economy

    Photo: Editor BThe stresses in our early twenty-first century civilization take many forms–social, economic, environmental, and political. One distinctly unhealthy and visible illustration of all four is the swelling flow of garbage associated with a throwaway economy. Throwaway products were first conceived following World War II as a convenience and as a way of creating […]

  • Umbra on landfills vs. incinerators

    Hi Umbra, Is there an environmentally preferable choice between sending your trash to a landfill or an incinerator? I know to think of the three R’s first, but what’s the better way to dispose of the remainder? Incinerators convert waste into energy but generate air pollution. Landfills (ideally) recover and utilize methane but much of […]