This ain't no movie: Erin Brockovich blogs TVA's coal ash

The country's most famous anti-pollution lawyer writes about the Tennessee coal ash spill. Here's TVA's front page, with its latest company updates onthe runaway coal ash. Here's TVA's aerial map of where they're testing air samples, also shows the extent of the ash coverage. The air pollutioln isn't likely to be a problem until the area dries out. Water pollution issues?

TVA says that by January 6 their water samples all met state standards for drinking water sources. The ash flow happened on December 22, 2008. While drinking water may be safe, fish in the affected streams are dying.

After the fact the state of Tennessee is acting tough. TVA is spending a million dollars per day on the clean-up. TVA's customers across several southeastern states will end up paying for this. Would it have made more business sense to prevent the buld-up of an unstable, unhealthy mountain? Like Katrina the question arises: build the levees before the disaster, or cope with the aftermath? We now learn there are over thirty states with at least one similar coal ash mountain. Back to that energy calculus. Is coal really a source of CHEAP energy?