Yes, failing … just like the coal ash ponds along the Dan River.

Despite being a political football [pdf] that had been tossed around Capitol Hill, the coal industry and EPA headquarters throughout the ‘90s and early aughts, coal ash was rarely a topic of dinner conversation around most American supper tables I suspect. But in December 2008 coal ash got America’s attention, and especially so for people like Tennessean Deanna Copeland. That was when the retaining wall of a coal ash pond gave way and sent more than a billion gallons of the toxic stuff into the surrounding area of the Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tennessee, toppling homes and fouling surface water. Copeland told the New York Times, “There are huge