The site of a bluff collapse at the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant in Oak Creek, Wis. is shown Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. A section of cliff the size of a football field gave way Monday at the southeastern Wisconsin power plant, creating a mudslide that sent a pickup truck and other equipment tumbling into Lake Michigan and swept several construction trailers toward the beach. (AP Photo/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Mark Hoffman)From the "Charleston Gazette"
Did the Republicans say DEREGULATION?
How about regulations at all?
Wisconsin coal-ash spill renews calls for federal rules (click title to entry - thank you)
And leave our farmland in hands of whom exactly?
The Energy Sector?
I don't think so.
November 1, 2011 by Ken Ward Jr.
A super-saturated type of ash – used to help fill in a ravine more than 50 years ago at a We Energies power plant – may have triggered a massive landslide there Monday, sending that hazardous material and others funneling into Lake Michigan.
From "Dredging Today.com"
That appears (click here) to be the cause of the mudslide at the coal-fired power plant, said Frank Schultz, waste and materials management supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’s southeast region.Coal ash – which is the byproduct of burned coal and includes the tiny particles called “fly ash,” which used to vent out of smokestacks into the atmosphere – was used in the 1950s and 1960s to fill in a ravine that existed on the property, Schultz said. It was an unlicensed landfill then, he explained, and Monday morning’s mudslide began over that ravine.
“When (fly ash) gets too much water on it, the weight of the water helps it to flow down. (But) how did water get in there?” Schultz asked Tuesday. “The cap on the material was in place. Apparently, that capping wasn’t enough in this case.”...
