The Tennessee Valley Authority was fined $11.5 million on Monday for a massive coal sludge spill in December 2008. The spill was the worst environmental disaster since the Exxon Valdez spill… until the Deep Horizon one, that is.
A privately owned dam failed in British Colombia, causing mudslide that destroyed five houses. There are over 2,000 dams in British Colombia, most of which are “maintained” by private ranches, etc. Not only are dams like these ecologically disruptive, but their failure is extremely destructive.
In recent moves, China has indicated that it cares more about energy security than climate change — the country is importing more oil than ever and, as its metropolitan population continues to explode, sees coal as its breadbasket.
Philidelphia corporation, FMC, operated a chemical phosphorous plant for decades until shutting it down in the 2001. Lying on the Eastern Michaud Flats area west of Pocatello, on the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation, its ponds continue to produce phosphine gas that reeks of rotten fish and is hazardous to respiratory, nervous and gastrointestinal systems, as well as the heart, liver, and kidneys. In 1998, one of these ponds caught fire, forcing them to cap them, and pay over 11 million dollars in fines. As of this week, the EPA has once again demanded that FMC extract and treat hazardous gases from leaking out of the ponds. Environmental justice at last?