Jack Burns Lives!

The Disaster That Apparently Isn’t

photo credit: WBIR Knoxville

Tucked safely away on page 12 in the appropriately named “National Briefing” section of today’s New York Times is a single paragraph about the major spill in East Tennessee.

“Brief” is the right word to describe the coverage this event has received in the national media and why more people are not outraged is beyond my ability to understand. Yes, CNN did cover it. So are multiple blog sites and the local media in Knoxville, but overall, the coverage on this story has been really weak.

It should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that the water in that area may not be safe to drink. Yet, ignoring the EPA report, local officials vouched for the safety of Roane County’s drinking water and criticized environmental groups. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, “Kingston Mayor Troy Beets guzzled a cup of water, which he said came from the tap at his home and told reporters that since the spill, tap water was used to make formula for his 3-and-a-half-month-old great-grandson.

‘I want everybody to know that there’s no danger in drinking city water in Kingston,’ he said.”

Kinda reminds me of the local Chamber of Commerce official in the movie Jaws that insisted it was safe to get water and encouraged his own family to “jump in.”

Officials say TVA is taking “full responsibility.” I somehow doubt that, seeing how they’ve never taken full responsibility for any of the damage they’ve caused in that region, including high air pollution in the Smokies. I can remember many a hike along the Anakeesta ridge in awful air, as well as regular health warnings where people were actually told not to hike at high elevations in a NATIONAL PARK, due to high ozone level pollution.

The culprit? TVA coal-fired plants. Part of their so-called “green energy” program.

Well, let me tell you. Green energy doesn’t mean the same thing to me that it does to TVA. It means money to those guys, and keeping the spill as quiet as possible is good for business. Can’t have a little ole one billion gallon mishap get in the way of the ruse known as clean coal.