Via Mother Jones – Weird Ailments, Toxic Water, Dismissive Officials—and No, This Isn’t Flint – The environmental justice disaster you’ve never heard of, by Julia Lurie

“…coal ash—a toxic byproduct of burning coal that has quietly become one of America’s worst environmental justice problems. The ashes are often laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins, and multiple studies have found that the waste tends to be stored in low-income, minority communities. In Uniontown, where 90 percent of residents are black and about half live below the poverty line, a coal ash landfill sits “directly across the street from peoples’ homes, and from yards in which their kids play,” says Marianne Engelman-Lado, an attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice. Coal is slowly on the way out in the United States, but our existing coal-fired power plants still generate roughly 130 million tons of coal ash each year. That’s more than 800 pounds for every man, woman, and child in America. The regulations on disposal of coal ash are weak, to say the least, making the experiences of Calhoun and her neighbors far from unique. Here’s a quick primer to get you up to date on an environmental nightmare that shows no signs of going away…”