Pass this on like a bug

DEAR EVERYONE-

PLEASE TREAT THIS LIKE ONE OF THOSE INTERNET FORWARDS THAT PROMISES YOU MONEY AND GETS CIRCULATED TO HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!

PLEASE FORWARD AND YOU WILL HAVE GOOD LUCK FOREVER!!!!!

BUT YOU MUST READ THE WHOLE THING FIRST!!!!

THIS IS FROM A GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION HELPING LOCAL RESIDENTS IN TENNESSEE DEAL WITH THE MASSIVE SLUDGE DAM BURST OF TVA (The Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest public utility company in the US), IN WHICH OVER A BILLION GALLONS OF COAL FLY-ASH WASTE-WATER SLUDGE FLOODED OUT OF A DAM THAT HAD BURST, AND DEVASTATED THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. THE PEOPLE IN THIS GROUP NEED TO BE RECOGNIZED AND REWARDED FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND DEDICATION.

SO PLEASE READ AND FORWARD FAR AND WIDE!!! YOU WILL HAVE GOOD LUCK FOREVER!!


The Un-Natural Disaster
The Tennessee Valley Authority, better known as TVA, has a coal-burning power plant located near Harriman, Tennessee, along Interstate 40 between Knoxville and Nashville. On Monday, December 22 around 1:00 a.m. residences living near the Kingston coal plant were flooded with over a billion gallons of nasty black coal waste. It covered 400 acres of land up to 6 feet and flooded into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The coal ash, slurry or sludge is a byproduct left over after TVA burns their coal and they have a huge mountain of this coal waste material stored in a gigantic pile next to their Kingston power plant, alongside the tributary of the Tennessee River. Coal ash contains mercury and dangerous heavy metals like lead and arsenic, among many other potentially toxic and radioactive contaminates. Materials found naturally in coal are concentrated in the ash and more toxic than they start.

This Tennessee TVA spill is over 40 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. This is a huge environmental disaster of epic proportions. United Mountain Defense has been at the site of the spill sharing information about the extremely serious threats to human health and the environment.

United Mountain Defense is actively creating a plan of action to deal with this issue, as bureaucracy, red-tape, and foot-dragging is undoubtedly going to keep TVA and governmental authorities from acting quickly and adequately. We plan to spend as much time as possible in Harriman meeting people, taking photos and video, gathering water samples, passing out information and reporting what we learn. WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL HELP!! We must make sure residents receive appropriate testing, and the aresenic and other dangerous heavy metals to which they've been exposed are no longer easily dectectable 30 days after exposure. Each test costs hundreds of dollars, and if we wait for TVA and the government to pay, it will be too late. PLEASE HELP US HELP THE RESIDENTS OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITY!

TO DONATE, GO TO
or go to unitedmountaindefense.org

For more information on what we're doing and where your money is going, and for more specific requests made by UMD of the greater environmental community, please read the email below, or go to www.unitedmountaindefense.org. Thank you for your support and concern.

Here are some of the projects that United Mountain Defense has been working on for the past two weeks.

- We have distributed more than 250 gallons of bottled water to coal ash impacted residents.

- Our volunteers have distributed over 10 documents outlining the potential dangers of coal fly ash to more than 400 hundred local residents inlcuding Fly Ash Material Saftey Data Sheets.

- We have been taking water and coal ash samples since day 1 of the spill. We have 4 rounds of samples in various certified labs and are awaiting the test results.

- We have been training local residents in our protocals so that they to can gather samples and send them to labs for testing.

- We have distributed the first round of water quality information that Applachain Voices and the River Keepers shared with us.

- We have posted regular updates on our blog dirtycoaltva.blogspot.com, website- www.unitedmountaindefense.org, and the local progressive blog at roaneviews.com.

- We helped the impacted residents organize the first community meeting of the coal impacted residents of the Swan Pond community.

- At the request of the community we are setting up biometric sampling of residents who drank ground water or stayed in the area for a few days after the coal ash spill.

- We have distributed petitions for the Agency for Toxic Sustances and Disease Registry to the coal impacted residents in an effort to get an outside agency to help access and address the communities health risks and concerns.

- We will continue to work with this coal impacted community to figure out what they need and want and help them continue to develop their own community group so that United Mountain Defense can take a step back. We are working hard to work ourselves out of this job.

The following is a list of requests of United Mountain Defense from the greater environmental community, and concerned citizens in general.

Request 1- That all the environmental groups across the country and world please use this disaster to bring the coal industry to it's knees. United Mountain Defense understands that this disaster can be a huge turning point for the coal industry and we have been working hard to make sure and document TVA's response. Feel free to use any of our videos and online information to help out with this work. Please credit United Mountain Defense.

Request 2- United Mountain Defense needs more funding and support from other non profits and foundations. Personal donations are also appreciated. We need funding for bottled water, personal protective equipment for residents and on the ground volunteers, biometric sampling of impacted residents, air quality monitoring, and water quality monitoring. United Mountain Defense is a tiny non profit and the only way that we have had as much success as we have had is because we have been training our volunteers for the past 5 years to deal with a situation like this one and our volunteers were willing to spend the holidays away from our families to help deal with this disaster.

Request 3- United Mountain Defense wants to work with other non profits on this disaster because we don't have a lot of funding, BUT we want to get credit for our ground work with all your future funders, in all your press releases, and with the environmental community as a whole. Please do not cut United Mountain Defense out of the history books as we helped deal with TVA's coal ash disaster of Dec 22, 2008.

Request 4- United Mountain Defense requests funding for water monitoring.

Request 5- United Mountain Defense needs a paid staff person. United Mountain Defense has done all this work with a dedicated volunteer force. Some of our volunteer force is becoming very concerned about paying the utility bills for the volunteer supported Volunteer House.

Thanks for your time and effort and let's please find a way to work together. If you have any questions, concerns, have special skills to volunteer or would like to donate money or other resources please contact United Mountain Defense at 865 689 2778.

Thanks, the full-time volunteer staff of United Mountain Defense

www.unitedmountaindefense.org

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Coal is Dirty. (pass it on)