THE FIRST REACTION to this week’s coal-ash spill in Tennessee focused on what was spilled. Three hundred million gallons of coal-ash sludge and water — residue from a coal-fired power plant — flooded hundreds of acres, destroyed and damaged houses and polluted rivers and streams.
Coal ash is full of contaminants — heavy metals such as arsenic and lead — that are left concentrated in the ash when coal is burned. It is no wonder that the spill created an immediate backlash against the coal industry’s current “clean coal” campaign.
In an attempt to counteract publicity about air pollution caused by coal-fired plants, mining companies and power-plant owners are holding out the possibility that — one day — the technology will be developed to burn coal without releasing large amounts of pollutants into the environment, pollutants that are linked to climate change.
It is not certain whether the industry intends such technology to also remove pollutants from coal ash.
But the Tennessee spill is less a continuation of the environmental controversy than it is one more argument for addressing another serious national problem.
The coal sludge spilled not because it is coal sludge, but because the dam holding it in failed. The failure of the dam, like the August 2007 collapse of an interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis and the break of a massive water main in Maryland this week, is one more indication that the United States has serious problems with infrastructure.
Roads, bridges, dams, power lines, railroads and water and sewer systems across the country are aging. For too many years, local, state and federal governments and private industry have delayed necessary inspections, maintenance and replacement. One of the results of these delays has been an increasing number of dangerous and expensive — and sometimes fatal — failures.
One of the proposals by President-elect Barack Obama is a large federal investment in public-works projects. Such a program would provide badly needed jobs and economic stimulus.
Beyond that, if the money is wisely spent, such a program could also go far toward rehabilitating and modernizing the nation’s infrastructure.
In the 1930s, the public-works programs of the New Deal were often criticized as government “make-work” projects — unnecessary jobs to keep the unemployed occupied. But many of those projects created the infrastructure that has kept the nation going in the years since.
But now, that infrastructure can no longer support the nation that depends upon it. The problem is not the sort that can be solved by private businesses, which are slaves to bottom lines and profit motives. It is the sort of problem that governments were created to handle.
People will continue to debate the dangers of coal ash and coal power. But there can be no debate over the need to prevent the failure of those things we have built to keep us safe and prosperous.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor
ZaneRokklyn (anonymous) says...
Great article! Thank you.
December 28, 2008 at 7:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )