Trouble at Kingston Coal Plant

If you live and fish in East Tennessee, there is a good chance that you've fished the Clinch River at some point. The river was one of the better tailwaters in the area for many years before declining. Lately it seems to be on the comeback trail probably largely due to new special regulations such as the ones that have made the Caney Fork such a spectacular fishery. Just when things were looking up, news of a potential environmental disaster is coming from the very banks of the river. The Kingston Coal Plant is a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-fired powerplant that apparently just polluted a rather large area.

According to the story from CNN, a large area of sludge broke free from the containment area, eventually covering around 400 acres in the potentially hazardous material. While TVA officials say it can't yet be called toxic,

One environmental attorney called that statement "irresponsible." The ash that gives sludge its thick, pudding-like consistency in this case is known as fly ash, which results from the combustion of coal. Fly ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and benzine, said Chandra Taylor, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Wow, mercury, arsenic and benzine...sounds great for the Clinch. Fortunately for the trout fishery, this spill occured well downstream of the prime trout water. Still, as the Clinch is a major tributary to the Tennessee River, this is clearly a bad situation. Of course, I'm probably a little more bitter than normal since TVA is generating on most of the area tailwaters making a tailwater trip highly unlikely in the near future (unless its the SoHo)...that and the fact that the spill has already been killing fish in the area... I guess at this point the best thing to hope for is that the cleanup can be done quickly and thoroughly...