The local Sierra Club chapter has another big idea for 2012: bolstering Progress Energy’s coal-ash ponds in Skyland to avoid a disaster like the massive spill at Kingston, Tenn. back in 2008.
The local utility’s two coal-ash ponds are unlined and contained by earthen dams; activists worry that toxic contaminants are leaching into local ground water and the nearby French Broad River.
“We need to get those ponds lined and covered,” says WENOCA Sierra Club leader Judy Mattox, “and to stop coal ash from blowing into neighbors' homes and yards.”
