Friday, July 26, 2013
Sierra Club activists took to the water Friday to call attention to what they said were dangerous pollution discharges from TVA's Allen Fossil Plant in Southwest Memphis.
More than a half dozen of the environmentalists paddled canoes and kayaks across McKellar Lake to the Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired plant. They later unfurled a banner calling on TVA to move "beyond coal" in generating electricity.
Scott Banbury, conservation chair for the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the event was intended to support stronger effluent limits on coal-fired plants, which often discharge toxic metals such as arsenic and lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been developing new standards for the discharges.