Appalshop Notes

A Tennessee Valley Authority sludge holding pond in Harriman, Tennessee failed on December 22, flooding hundreds of acres with the liquid form of fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal at the Kingston Fossil Plant. Fly ash contains heavy metals and other toxins; residents of Harriman and other downstream communities are now faced with the fear that their air and water has been contaminated as well as the physical devastation of their land.

The Harriman disaster has intensified a long-running national dialog about the future of coal power in Appalachia and the United States. Clear lines connect this incident with our national emphasis on inexpensive electricity and the enduring dream that coal represents or could represent the foundation of a healthy economy for the United States and Appalachia.

Setting aside these broader questions of policy, this disaster also represents the same failure of accountability and failure of our regulatory framework that we saw during the Martin County sludge spill of 2000. The greatest tragedy of the Harriman disaster may be that it could have been avoided. It is our fervent hope that our communities and governments learn from the Harriman disaster and the disasters which presaged it. Unlike the remote disasters Appalshop chronicles in Sludge and The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man, the Harriman sludge spill is adjacent to an interstate highway and just west of Knoxville, one of Appalachia's largest cities; this may become, as suggested by NPR, the Exxon Valdez of coal ash.

Appalshop's Work

... Sludge eerily portends the Tennesse environmental disaster the nation is slowly tuning into in the wake of the Christmas holidays.
- National Catholic Reporter

This spill is the latest chapter in a story that Appalshop has been sharing for 40 years as we have witnessed our region's complex and changing relationship with coal - a focal point for understanding Appalachia's history and thinking about its future. Since our founding in 1969, Appalshop's mission has been to tell stories that aren't told by cultural industries and to support communities' efforts to achieve justice and equity. This is an important moment for our region and our nation to share these stories, and to help ensure that the national dialog around Appalachia's environment and economy represents the social, cultural, and economic diversity of the Appalachian region.

During the month of January, Appalshop will make web streams available for Sludge and The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man, two important films which establish a context for this current crisis. Watch streaming video of Sludge and The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man.

Shortly after midnight on October 11, 2000, a coal sludge pond in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River into the Big Sandy. The Martin County sludge spill killed all aquatic life along 30 miles of river, damaged municipal water systems, and caused millions of dollars in property damage.

In Sludge, Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer follows the government agencies and community members through their clean up efforts and their attempts to understand the causes of a disaster thirty times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Filmed over four years, the documentary chronicles the aftermath of the disaster, the Mine Safety and Health Administration "whistleblower" case of Jack Spadaro, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the Appalachian mountains.

On February 26, 1972, a coal-waste dam owned by the Pittston Company collapsed at the head of a crowded hollow in southern West Virginia. A wall of sludge, debris, and water tore through the valley below, leaving in its wake 125 dead and 4,000 homeless. In The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man, Appalshop filmmaker Mimi Pickering juxtaposes interviews with survivors, representatives of union and citizen groups, and officials of the Pittston Company with actual footage of the flood and scenes of the ensuing devastation. As reasons for the disaster are sought out and examined, evidence mounts that company officials knew of the hazard in advance of the flood, and that the dam was in violation of state and federal regulations. The Pittston Company, however, continued to deny any wrongdoing, maintaining that the disaster was "an act of God."

Strip or 'surface' mining increased dramatically in the Appalachian region in 1961 when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) signed contracts to buy more than 16 million tons of strip-mined coal. Though cheaper for the buyer than deep mined coal, the damage done by strip mining is far reaching and has had immediate impact on coalfield residents. The Harriman Disaster is the latest chapter in the environmental history of the TVA - and America's - quest for inexepensive energy.

Appalshop's To Save the Land and People is a history of the early grassroots efforts to stop strip mining in eastern Kentucky, where broad form deeds, signed at the beginning of the 20th Century, were used by coal operators to destroy the surface land without permission or compensation of the surface owner. The film focuses on the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People, whose members used every means possible - from legal petitions and local ordinances, to guns and dynamite - to fight strip mining. The documentary makes a powerful statement about the land and how we use it, and how its misuse conflicts with local cultures and values.

Click here for more information about To Save the Land and People.