TVA, a federally-owned independent corporation, initially estimated the amount of coal sludge released at 1.7 million cubic yards. But after completing an aerial survey of the inundated area, it revised its estimate upward to 5.4 million cubic yards. That's
more than
1 billion gallons of waste
containing potentially dangerous levels of heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead, as well as radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium -- impurities typically found in coal.
This is what WP is reporting today --
...TVA has determined there were
9.4 million cubic yards
of wet coal ash in the storage pond...
It would seem that TVA is mathematically challenged if they can't get the estimates close to correct knowing the dimensions of the pond. It's a giant leap from 1.7 million cubic yards to 9.4 million cubic yards.
.TVA continues to assure that water quality is safe and unaffected by coal contamination, but as Greenpeace noted, they're doing their own testing. Independent testing would add credibility to TVA's claims. It is unreasonable to expect a polluter to accurately proclaim the environmental devastation they caused.
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