Articles by Sue Sturgis
Sue Sturgis is the editorial director of Facing South, the online magazine of the nonprofit Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, N.C.
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Goodbye to Cancer Valley: In remembrance of my friend John Soley
John SoleyAfter a long struggle with cancer, my friend Mr. John Soley died at his home in Carbon County, Pa. on Saturday, June 20. He was only 62, which is too young to die of natural causes. But then, neither John nor I believe he got sick from natural causes. We believe he and many […]
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Audit finds Tennessee Valley Authority misled on ash spill disaster
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Inspector General released a critical audit this week on the federal company’s response to last December’s massive ash spill disaster at its Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee’s Roane County. The incident involved a failure in a coal ash containment pond that released more than a billion gallons of toxic waste […]
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EPA refuses to reveal dangerous coal ash waste sites
Around the United States today, there are 44 coal ash waste disposal sites so hazardous that — were they to fail like the one at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant did last December — they could kill untold numbers of nearby residents. In fact, the sites are so dangerous that last week the federal […]
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Do dirty coal plants make us more vulnerable to swine flu?
Scientists have discovered that exposure to a common pollutant may make people more likely to experience severe symptoms from swine flu — and it’s a pollutant emitted in large quantities by coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities. The culprit is arsenic, a highly poisonous semi-metal which, according to a new study by researchers at […]
