Editor's Note: This is the third article in a three-part series examining a trio of emerging threats, each with the potential to impose seismic changes upon the risk-management landscape. The first article (April 4) looked at climate change, while the second (April 18) examined nano threats.
There may never be another mass tort that combines widespread bodily injury with long-tail exposure as effectively as the "miracle mineral" of asbestos. But there are some interesting parallels between asbestos and a developing threat known as "fly ash."
Fly ash is a byproduct of the combustion of coal. Coal-fueled electricity-generation plants produce hundreds of millions of tons of fly-ash waste every year—much of which includes mercury, arsenic, lead and a half dozen other toxins.
Fly ash is often buried in landfills, but for decades, massive amounts of this waste have been used as a component of concrete and drywall.
Until recently, fly ash was not viewed as a significant environmental hazard, but at 1:00 a.m. on Dec. 22, 2008, that all began to change. That morning a dike containing fly-ash waste at the Tennessee Valley Kingston Fossil Plant ruptured, dumping 5.4 billion cubic yards of fly-ash slurry into Tennessee's Emory River. Thereafter, tests of river water showed elevated levels of arsenic, copper, lead, nickel and mercury.
Since this event, fly ash has received far more national scrutiny. In June 2010, the EPA formally advised that it was considering a reclassification of coal ash as hazardous waste. Courts have seen a sharp increase in coal-ash-related bodily injury and property-damage lawsuits.
And on Feb. 1, 2011, a collaborative group of medical, environmental and social-justice organizations issued a report suggesting that the toxin hexavalent chromium may be leaching into residential drinking water from coal-ash dump sites.
The name Erin Brockovich is commonly associated with hexavalent chromium because of a lawsuit led by the lawyer and environmental activist against Pacific Gas and Electric alleging contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium in the southern California town of Hinkley.
Given the increasing focus on the toxins found within coal ash—and given its presence in our buildings, infrastructure and landfills—coal-ash liability is likely on the rise.
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