EPA identified 431 containment units for coal slurry and has labeled 49 of them "high hazard"—meaning they pose a risk to human health and the environment.
It has been two years since an earthen dike holding back 1.1 billion gallons of coal slurry ruptured, unleashing a tsunami of dark gray sludge from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tennessee. The wave destroyed homes, surged into the yards of neighbors, and caused the nearby ponds and streams to overflow. More than 300 acres of land were covered in the stuff, and in the weeks after, the ash would travel as far as 30 miles downstream on the nearby Emory River. Locals refer to the "ash bergs" up to 40 feet tall that landed in their yards and floated down the river...what has happened read at AlterNet