New Day.. New Wurzel

It's hard to believe the grief Senator Reid is getting over this short statement. It is true... Coal makes us sick. I'm not sure what type of scientific evidence is needed to validate this claim. But I'm working on it. I've been accused of leading with my passion and the courage of my conviction and not having the facts. Of course I'm passionate but I want to show people the facts.

I'm going to cite a lot of facts (not opinions) from Jeff Goodell's book that I am currently rereading. For those that think the cost of constructing a power plant is cheaper than promoting efficiency or ::gasp:: wind farms or solars. Consider this:

*Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining has buried more than 1200 miles of streams, polluted the region's groundwater and rivers, and turned about 400,000 acres of some of the world's most biologically rich temperate forests into flat, barren wastelands.

*Coal fired power plants have plumes of toxic chemicals that drift from Ohio to Maine which means a molecule of mercury emitted from the stack of a power plant in Tampa ends up in the brain of child in Minneapolis.

*The giant slurry impoundments containing the wastes from mining sites also contains high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, and selenium. In heavy rains these dams break sending tidal waves of black, polluted water down over the people living below them.
And these impoundments collapse, a perfect example is The Martin County slurry spill of 2000, which had realised 300 million gallons of sludge into Appalachian streams. The spill covered 75 miles of the Big Sandy River with black sludge, killing 1.6 million fish, washing away roads and bridges, and contaminating the water systems of more than 27,000 people. The image to the right is of Marsh Fork Elementary School which sits just below a similar slurry impoundment. Seems real safe.