Thomas King 2/10/14
Earth Science C block odd Mrs. McCllelan
Wines, Michael. "Huge Leak of Coal Ash Slows at North
Carolina Power Plant." New York Times., 6 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.
In North
Carolina a coal drain pipe collapsed leaking 50000-82000 tons of ash into the
Dan River System. This occurred on
February 2. The impoundment that the drain pipe was in was closed down in 2012
by Duke Energy. The coal that collapsed
contaminated 27 million gallons of water which leaked into the river. The
contaminated water showed the presence of 28 toxic metals. Those metals
consisted of toxic levels of mercury, selenium, and arsenic. The Department of
Environment and Natural Resources said that the toxic water did not contaminate
the 5 communities that are downstream from the collapsed pipe. Officials in Virginia Beach closed the intake
of drinking water because the reservoir they take the water from is taken from
the Dan River System. The Waterkeeper Alliance took samples of water yards away
from the collapse and came up with samples ten times greater than the tests
Duke ran a couple miles downstream. The effects of the spill on wild life have
yet to be found. However, the fear is that this spill with high levels of arsenic
will harm the endangered Roanoke logprech. This is the most recent coal spill
and the EPA has said that 45 coal storage sites nationally have hazards
materials.
The
impact of the Dan River spill is yet to be seen. However, with the recent pipe
bursts that leaked a long list of hazardous chemicals into pounds across North
Carolina. As well as the report that there are 45 more such storage units
something needs to be done. If it is impossible to remove the pipes without
spilling the material into the water system. At least, set up a recon group
which inspects the pipes and storage units so that they do not spill. We may
have gotten lucky with the Dan River spill but, the next time we might not be
so lucky and severely harm another water system.
I have
no complaints about this writer’s style of writing in this article. I found
that it was very informative and flowed very well.
While reading your article, I found it very interesting that no communities' water supplies were affected negatively with the exposure to all of the toxins. Although it was not specified, I presume there would be some harm to sea creatures. I was also interested in learning how they would then purify the 27 million gallons of water that has been contaminated. Is this something that occurs naturally, or will the EPA take the responsibility of cleaning the contaminated gallons of water? I think you presented the facts in a clear and precise manner. It was easy to read and understand. One suggestion to better your article review would be to possibly expand upon your critique of the article. What do you think worked well in it? Did you fully understand what was happening with the Dan River spill upon reading it the first time? Otherwise, I think you did a great job with this article.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sernia's comments. She raises some interesting questions that perhaps could have been explored in the article, but the author left out. I guess the author was trying to remain neutral and just present the facts. So instead of speculating of what the damage to wildlife could be, there author simply states that the risks are unknown. But just because we aren't sure what the implications are, doesn't mean we can't have some clue.
ReplyDeleteAlso perhaps less impartial, since it is an environmental organization, the Riverkeeper Alliance has some articles on this topic that explore the issue a bit more in depth, and claim higher levels of poisoning than is reported in the New York Times article:
http://waterkeeper.org/?s=north+carolina
This was a good report Thomas and it was very informative. I liked how you touched on how much water was leaked into the river and how many toxic metals there were, because it is a shocking number. I also liked how you mentioned how much this leak effected people, as i learned that Virginia Beach completely shut down the intake of drinking water because of the contamination. I also liked how you included the fact about the coal storage sites and how there are 45 nationally that have hazardous materials. I found it interesting how the two samples that were taken from the river were drastically different. I also found it interesting how if we as humans are not careful with this kind of stuff, it could potentially lead to the death of many people. One thing that I would suggest to do for next time is to add more to critique by adding some more positives and trying to look hard for a negative aspect.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you managed to include very specific details about the event. Stating the amount of spilled materials helped me, as a reader, to visualize what happened. I also enjoyed how you discussed the implications of this disaster. This makes the reader analyze how it may affect their own life and overall makes the story feel much more significant. One more thing that I appreciated was the fact that you suggested a solution to the problem. Eventually, this problem of decrepit pipe systems in power plants is going to become an even more important issue. Creating possible solutions makes the reader think independently about other ways to solve the problem. This made the article much more enjoyable to read. I was really stunned by the amount of coal that actually flowed into the river. 82000 tons of coal is an extremely large amount. Not only is it contaminating the water, but that amount of coal is worth a very significant amount of money. As of February 18th, coal is worth 64.5 dollars per metric ton. This means that 82000 tons of coal would be worth five million and two hundred eighty nine dollars. Another thing that shocked me was the presence of dangerous toxins in the coal. Substances, like mercury and arsenic, are highly dangerous. The fact that these minerals were present in lethal amounts is very concerning. One fact that I found interesting was the differing levels of concentration of the spilled minerals at different distances downstream. Another thing I found interesting was the fact that this may not be an isolated incident. According to the review, there are 45 more storage units that pose a threat. This means that many different pipes and tanks are in significant disrepair. One way that you could have improved your review was elaborating on the Roanoke Logprech. The fact that it is endangered by the arsenic seems thrown out of the blue. This statement could improve the understanding of the significance of the article by the reader if you explained exactly what the Roanoke Logprech is and how it would be affected by arsenic levels. A picture would also have helped the reader to visualize the creature.
ReplyDeleteOverall Thomas I thought that you article was a very well written and informative one as well. One aspect of you article that i found to be rather shocking would be that the effects of the spill on wildlife have yet to be seen. This is especially out of the ordinary to me since it seems as if this spill is extremely dangerous. I agree with some of the other comments, that this author lacked the speculative aspect of this, since it is easy to assume that the toxins that were mentioned in this coal spill could have an enormous impact on anything living in the Dan River system. Additionally, it would be interesting to investigate how spills such as this impact ecosystems, because if the spills cause plants and other vegetation to die in the rivers then that might consequently cause other wildlife to lose their food sources; simply furthering the process of degrading an ecosystem. Aside from that, I would agree with Joe, that even though your summary was very informative and gave me a very good idea of what is occurring and its significance, your critique sort of lacked looking beyond the article to try and find some of the things that the article may not have covered in addition to what the author could have added in order to give his audience more knowledge on the subject. Besides that I think that your article is a great example of trying to demonstrate the severity of these kind of spills and I think that you did a great job relaying the important information from the article into your summary.
ReplyDelete