Storming Heaven In 1883, the first carload of coal was transported from Tazewell County, Virginia, on the Norfolk and Western Railway. The railroad opened a gateway to the untouched coal beds of West Virginia. Towns were created as the region was transformed from an agricultural to industrial economy.(West Virginia Mine Wars) The lure of good wages and housing made the coal mining appealing to West Virginians, but all good things come at a price. In the novel Storming Heaven, Denise Giardina
revolution Coal mining came along long before the industrial revolution had even commenced, it was an easy and well paid job until the coal, was pushed further down into the ground. Coal mining came along in 1700; coal mining was an easy process in the early days as it was inexpensive and simple as coal was close to the surface. two forms of coal mines existed before the industrial revolution had begun, the drift and bell mines, both were small and produced a large quantity of solid coal, as the years
Tennessee coal ash spill occurred in December 22, 2008. A dike failed at Tennessee Valley Authority spilling billion gallons of coal ash. The ash had been stored and contained arsenic, selenium, lead and radioactive materials. These materials are very toxic. This spill is an example of environmental crime because it was caused by the Tennessee Valley Authority. An environmental crime is considered to be a white collar crime also known as corporation crime (Beder, 2002, pg 213). News media highly
Tennessee Coal Sludge Disaster What Happened? The largest environmental disaster in U.S. history occurred on December 22nd, 2008 when a 84-acre pit containing toxic coal combustion residue at the Tennessee Valley Authority Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tennessee gave way. According to a report by AECOM, the firm hired to perform the root cause report, a “combination of the high water content of the wet ash, the increasing height of ash, the construction of the sloping dikes over the wet ash, and
Tennessee Fly Ash Slurry Spill Largest Recorded On December 22, 2008 in Roane County, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant had a dike rupture releasing more the 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory River. There were no recorded deaths or serious injuries , but the surrounding ecosystem was affected severely. The ash slurry contained heavy metals such as arsenic, barium, chromium, mercury, nickel and many more, all of which were released directly into
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile
chemical treatments (decrease toxicity of solids and solutions) (2). 2.1Consumption 2.1.1 Energy Many hydrometallurgical process and operations rely on energy,these include pumping of slurries leaching, electrowinning and electrorefining and in South Africa this is energy supplied by Eskom which is produced from coal- a non-renewable and non-clean energy source (3). This means that these hydrometallurgical processes contribute indirectly to the air pollution produced during the generating of electricity