Legalectric

breaking news, more later…

Here it is in Huffington Post:

SECOND TVA SPILL: Dam Breaks at Alabama Coal Plant

Here we have in in the Tennessean:

Second TVA coal ash pond ruptures

By ANNE PAINE • Staff Writer • January 9, 2009

Alabama environmental officials were on their way as of 10:15 a.m.
Central Time to an spill at TVA’s Widows Creek coal-fired power plant in
northeastern Alabama.

TVA confirmed an ash-related spill at a second TVA plant, this time at
its Widows Creek plant in northeastern Alabama.

“I had heard that that’s the case,” confirmed Barbara Martocci, TVA
spokesman who was at the Kingston plant in Tennessee.

Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental
Management said, “The only thing we’ve got right now is that there was a
release from a gypsum treatment operation.”

“We do understand that some of the material has reached Widows Creek.”
The creek from which TVA’s coal burning plant gets its name, crosses the
plant property. Gypsum is one of the byproducts when special filters
capture and treat ash. It can be sold for use in wallboard, but markets
have been slow and it like more standard ash can build up in waste ponds.

“We’re in the process of gathering more info and getting a full report.”

Kingston is the scene of a TVA ash pond that ruptured: Early on the
morning of Dec. 22, more than a billion gallons of sludge flowed out of
the pond, damaging a dozen homes and creating environmental havoc along
the Emory River.

The Widows Creek Fossil Plant is located on Guntersville Reservoir on
the Tennessee River. It has eight coal-fired units and was completed in
1965. The plant consumes about 10,000 tons of coal a day. The ash from
that coal was in the pond that broke there.