Polluted Rivers

Tennessee Rivers

    It was my intention to write often about rivers in this blog, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. I will pause here, however, to post a short note about one river since I was reminded of it by a recent article in the New York Times. The article was a depressing one and the number of such articles is likely to increase as the funding to the EPA decreases.

   It had to do with coal ash and the toxic sludge that seeps into the ground or escapes from the coal ash disposal ponds into rivers. The piece was mainly about the Gallatin Fossil Plant on the Cumberland River, pollution and lawsuits. There was also mention of an earlier episode in 2008 when  “an ash pond dike at its Kingston Fossil Plant in eastern Tennessee collapsed, releasing just over a billion gallons of coal ash water into the Emory River, which flows into two other rivers, including the Tennessee. The slurry released in that spill, which has been called the largest environmental disaster of its kind, buried 300 acres of land in toxic sludge. That sludge was taken to an unlined landfill in Alabama, just outside a predominantly African-American community, prompting challenges under federal civil rights law.”

The Emory RIver

    I recently read a book which mentions the Emory River and describes it just about 150 years ago. The following description is taken from a book by John Muir - A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. I will say more about the book and rivers later.

This will serve to remind us of what we have lost:

September 12.[1867] Awoke drenched with mountain mist, which made a grand show, as it moved away before the hot sun….Obtained fine views of a wide, open country, and distant flanking ridges and spurs. Crossed a wide cool stream [Emory River], a branch of the Clinch River. There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream, and this is the first I ever saw. Its banks are luxuriantly peopled with rare and lovely flowers and overarching trees, making one of Nature’s coolest and most hospitable places. Every tree, every flower, every ripple and eddy of this lovely stream seemed solemnly to feel the presence of the Creator. Lingered in this sanctuary a long time thanking the Lord with all my heart for his goodness in allowing me to enjoy it.

Sources: The current article: “2 Tennessee Cases Bring Coal’s Hidden Hazard to Light,” Tatiana Schlossbergapril, NYT,  April 15, 2017. The 2008 article: “Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards”

By Shaila Dewan, NYT  Dec.. 24, 2008. (Christmas eve, no less). The photograph is by Aubrey Bodine who worked for the Baltimore Sun. The Patapsco River is surely poisoned as well.