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| What coal slurry looks like when it flows into a stream |
Yet another coal-related spill in Appalachia. This time it’s
coal slurry. More than 100,000 gallons of the black liquid poured into a stream
in Kanawha County, West Virginia. Kanawha County is one of the counties that
was also affected by the toxic spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol in the Elk
River just over a month ago. The coal slurry came from a Patriot Coal
processing facility.
Like
the Elk River spill, no one is quite certain how toxic coal slurry is. Despite
there being thousands of impoundments of coal slurry, one of which in West Virginia is
so large the earthen dam that impounds the sludge is as tall as the Eiffel
Tower, there have never been sufficient tests as to its toxicity. The EPA says
the toxins could originate from the coal, the coal matrix (the other rock and
minerals dug up with coal in a mine), the chemicals used to “wash” the coal,
such as kerosene and fuel oil, or chemicals like polyacrylamide that used to
aide coagulation of the coal slurry.
If these were incidents of schools
shootings, the press would be all over these stories. If they happened to be a
dozen or so folks burning flags on two or three occasions, then talk radio and
Fox News would blanket the airwaves with ceaseless blather on the subject. But
these are toxic spills in Appalachia, an industrial sacrifice zone. No talking
head on Fox News will mention this.
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| The Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment in southern West Virginia shown in relation to the Eiffel Tower |
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