Last week, more than a billion gallons of coal fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal, spilled across 300 acres of land in Tennessee after a dike burst at a retention pond used to store the ash.

Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, termed the event “the largest coal ash spill ever to hit the eastern U.S.”

Just how dangerous is coal sludge’? And what’s the difference between the sludge contained at a Marsh Fork facility in Raleigh County and the fly ash currently blanketing hundreds of acres in Tennessee?

The Environmental Protection Agency has suggested residents temporarily avoid activities that could “stir up dust, such as children playing outside,” since the dust can contain metals which could precipitate health problems.

Tennessee residents are demanding answers on whether their health is being compromised by the fly ash, and environmental groups are urging authorities to properly warn these residents of whether the muck poses a concern.

- - -

Assertions that children attending Marsh Fork Elementary School face health concerns due to coal sludge contained at a nearby Massey Energy facility has been circulating for years. The facility is situated 400 yards from the school, and environmentalists contend the 2.8 billion-gallon sludge impoundment at the facility is leaking and is dangerous not only to the school, but the community as well.

What’s the difference between the coal fly ash in Tennessee and the sludge in Marsh Fork?

“When you mine coal, surface or deep, you can’t just put the material in a coal car and send it off to a market — it’s got a lot of waste material in it that you cannot mix with the coal,” said Brian Long, manager of the dam safety program for water and waste management at the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Long said the sludge impoundment near the school is like a “coffee filter.”

At a waste disposal facility, the clean coal is separated from waste material, which Long says “in some way has to be disposed of.”

“They pump the real fine mixture called slurry in a pipe, behind the embankment,” Long said.

“Once the coal is sold and put into the boilers to create electricity, they also wind up with waste materials such as fly ash.”

- - -

Jim Pierce, an engineer for mining and reclamation at the DEP in Charleston, says trying to compare a fly ash and coal refuge facility is not “comparing apples to apples.”

“The materials you’re impounding are different. Saying it has the same potential, I don’t think is a fair characterization,” he said.

There are approximately 130 coal slurry impoundments similar to Marsh Fork around the state which Pierce says are regularly inspected.

“We have our guys out there — our inspectors have to be out there every 30 days. If we have to be there more often, we are, and our engineers go out yearly with the inspectors to look at these site,” Pierce said.

Although the Tennessee dam failed, Pierce says West Virginia has much more rigorous requirements to warrant a dam’s stability.

He says “anything can happen with any manmade structure,” but “West Virginia is much better off than Tennessee.”

Pierce says West Virginia stability guidelines require that dams can hold large amounts of water behind them, and that embankments are high enough to pass any rainfall without topping the dam.

“The chance of one failing is very, very low,” he said.

The DEP is conducting a study on coal slurry. Pierce says the agency is looking at chemicals contained in slurry to understand if any health effects could occur.

Regardless of the findings, Pierce says although you may find a concentrate of heavy metals such as arsenic, “it won’t be to the same degree you’d see in ash.”

Jeff Gillenwater, spokesman for Massey Energy, said in a statement to The Register-Herald, “The Marsh Fork impoundment continually undergoes weekly monthly and annual inspections by company engineers, impoundment experts and state and federal officials to ensure its safety.”

— E-mail:

jayres@register-herald.com