http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/26/tennessee.sludge/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
However, this particular story, entitled “Tennessee Sludge Spill Grows to 1 Billion Gallons”, only came out four days after the so-called spill had begun.
In the CNN report, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the creator of this sludge over many decades, has strangely claimed that the toxicity of the sludge wasn’t killing fish as rumors claimed.
On the other hand, CNN did report, “Appalachian environmentalists compare the mess to another spill eight years ago in eastern Kentucky, where the bottom of a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy broke into an abandoned underground mine, oozing more than 300 million gallons of coal waste into tributaries. The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and aquatic life in the area perished. It took months to clean up the spill.”
Finally, CNN concluded with a quote from one environmentalist, Dave Cooper who noted, "If the estimates are correct, this spill is 1½ times bigger [then the Massey Energy disaster].”
BACK TO BBC—and the “CLEAN’’COAL COVER-UP.
Interestingly, despite the fact that this last week’s environmental disaster in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee dwarfs many times over the now-famous Exxon-Valdez disaster of two decades ago, the BBC has failed to cover the story at all.
This absence of news on the disaster by BBC is fascinating because the critiques of those environmentalists on DEMOCRACY NOW--and elsewhere on the web, included advocates from GREENPEACE and critiques of coal-as-source-of-future-energy production.
These concerned citizens and environmentalists all share the view that the disaster in Tennessee (under the coal-burning noses of the TVA) this last week represents the folly of depending on coal ever to become a clean energy source.
Why would BBC and Europe not be more interested in this story?
Why wouldn’t China, India, Poland or any other major coal users today not be interested in the TVA disaster?
Awareness of this disaster in Tennessee is needed all over Europe.
It is the only way to get all the governments to change to environmentally renewable energy development. Moreover, Americans need to keep in mind the dangers of fantasy-and-failing coal technologies. We all need to invest in solar, wind and other sustainable energy routes for decades and millennia to come.
Meanwhile the BBC should provide more news in the Middle East on the tensions in South Asia.
BBC is unfairly acting as a censor as long as it maintains huge holes in its news coverage. BBC really needs to make some new years resolutions to do better.
If the BBC is perverting the news, what is happening to news in your corner of the globe?
1 | 2
