FEATURE_UNION
HUFFINGTON
06.17.12
Rolling prairie and farmland define the
local landscape, but Uniontown and its
surroundings are unmistakably poor.
Off the front of the trailer he’s
built a broad wooden deck, which
a few years back offered views
of gently rolling scrubland and
low forest. Today, the deck looks
out on a small mountain — now
among the highest geographical
features in the area.
It’s built of coal ash.
“It will just about choke you,”
Gipson says of the stench that
sometimes rises from the pile.
Patches of newly-planted
grass and dozens of white, hookshaped gas vents now cover the
artificial butte, which was formed
between 2009 and 2010. In that
time, roughly 4 million tons of
coal ash — sometimes known as
fly ash or, more officially, as “coal
combustion residuals” — were
dumped here. Laced with a variety of heavy metals like arsenic,
mercury and lead, it’s what’s left
over after coal is burned to produce electricity, something the
United States continues to do in
prodigious amounts.
Public health advocates consider the stuff poison, and have been
lobbying for tough federal oversight of its disposal and handling
— a function currently left to a
patchwork of varying state laws.
Industry representatives say the
hazards of coal ash, which is often