More than two years after Knox News sounded the alarm that children could be exposed to radioactive coal ash on an East Tennessee playground, an independent scientific study has confirmed coal ash waste at the site.
The study — published this week in one of the nation's top environmental science and technology journals — reveals coal ash contamination at a children’s playground adjacent to the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bull Run coal-fired power plant in Claxton and on several properties downwind of the plant.
Coal ash is the byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity, and it contains a toxic stew of 26 cancer-causing pollutants and radioactive heavy metals.