Posted on 08/26/2023 5:40:53 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Curt and Debbie Havens’ ranch style home is the gathering place for their family. Their two boys grew up playing in the streets in this quiet neighborhood in West Virginia’s northern panhandle. Now, their grandchildren do the same.
“They played ball, all kinds of games,” Debbie recalled during a recent interview. Family photos and knick-knacks line the walls. One heart-shaped sign reads “May love be the heart of this home.”
“Everybody wants to come to grammy’s and pappy’s,” she added.
Chester, West Virginia, is a small town of about 3,000 people, just a stone’s throw from Pennsylvania to the east and Ohio to the north. The region’s rolling hills are dotted with family farms and the “world’s largest teapot” proudly welcomes visitors into downtown.
But the area is also home to another object of record-breaking size: the largest coal ash waste site in the United States.
In the mid-1970s, Pennsylvania Power Company, a subsidiary of Ohio Edison Company, built the coal-fired Bruce Mansfield power plant in nearby Shippingport, Pennsylvania. In the mid-1990s, Ohio Edison Company and Centerior Energy Corporation merged, creating FirstEnergy, which took over as owner and operator of the facility.
The coal plant brought jobs, but plant operators also needed a place to put the toxic remnants of the coal it burns. For decades, the ash mixed with water was piped seven miles from the plant into the coal ash impoundment, Little Blue Run.
The bright, eerie blue water in Little Blue could be seen from space.
(Excerpt) Read more at alleghenyfront.org ...
I grew up 20 to 25 miles from Little Blue Run and learned today that this place actually existed.
I find it ironic, that in the sidebar of this article, they gleefully proclaim more electric charging stations in PA.
If it’s bad in West Virginia from 50 years ago imagine what it’ll be like in China
Fly ash is worth big money to people like me.
Concrete?
Concrete, but my specialty is geopolymer. With graphene added, I rep a British graphene company, adds 25% strength.
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