Is That Coal on the Beach?
Chunks of a coal and black powdery material have washed up along the shoreline in Caledonia. The DNR says the coal likely fell off a barge years ago and the black powdery stuff isn't coal ash at all, but rather magnetite.
A resident living just south of the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant says she has been seeing quite a bit of what she believes is coal ash as well as chunks of coal washing up along the shores of Lake Michigan. The chunks of coal were wedged between the rocks on the beach, but there was also a powdery metallic substance in the sand. But an official with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says the powdery stuff on the shore probably is not coal ash, which contains arsenic, lead, mercury and other chemicals and has been linked to cancer. The coal on the beach, however, is indeed coal. After the We Energies bluff collapse in 2011, the company dredged the water to remove as much of the coal ash as they could and then they dumped it…
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Bren
3:22 pm on Monday, December 3, 2012
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