Burning the Future: Coal in America

Coal Slurry Impoundments and the Environment

As we showed in Burning the Future: Coal in America, coal slurry is the result of liquid “cleaning” of coal.  This process serves two purposes: to reduce the amount of rock and rock dust in the coal; and to remove some of the impurities like mercury, lead, sulfur, etc.  While it doesn’t make the coal actually burn “clean,’ it does have the effect of reducing the impurities and the ash created at the power plant.  The irony, is that the toxic mess that has been removed is dumped into the Appalachian mountains, in unlined fills, where it is exposed to the elements, to leakage into groundwater and surface water, and even to catastrophic dam failure.

Anywhere coal is mined, liquid slurry impoundments are found.  It is simply part of the business of mining coal, whether mined traditionally or by surface mining.

The threat to the water table from slurry impoundments is widespread.  Hundreds of these toxic lakes, each with over a billion gallons of sludge, dot the mountains from Pennsylvania to Alabama.  And of course, in the Midwest, Texas, Montana, and other places where coal is mined, more impoundments can be found. 

The region of ground and surface water potentially threatened by slurry impoundments in Appalachia alone provides fresh water to a growing megalopolis that stretches from Atlanta to DC, from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, from Nashville to Tallahassee.

When these impoundments fail, as happens periodically, the environmental effect is devastating including: loss of life; miles of permanently fouled waterways; toxic drinking water supplies; and loss of aquatic wildlife.  And when they do fail, there is very little public knowledge – hardly any press at all – increasing the danger of exposure.

Learn more here, and at the Sludge Safety Project.