Crimes Against Earth The New Face of Tennesee (smothered with sludge) More than 1 billion gallons of toxic sludge was released into a Tennessee community when a dam collapsed last December, causing a massive coal-ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-burning power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Coal ash is known to contain dangerous elements including arsenic, lead, and selenium, yet the TVA refused at first to issue any health warnings about contamination from the spill. The agency (who admitted prior leak problems weeks later) also refused intially to declare as uninhabitable the houses in the area (like the one in the photo) that were physically relocated by all the sludge. Amazing, isn’t it?