Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
No featured story tonight, just this Thanksgiving greeting from the OND volunteer editors.
Science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
On December 22, 2008, about a month before the end of the disasterous Presidency of George W. Bush, a containment dam at the Kingston, TN coal plant ruptured, releasing 3.7 million cubic meters of dangerous fossil fuel waste into the Emory River, a tributary of the Tennessee River.
The Tennessee River is a major source of drinking water for cities in the region, and is the drinking water supply for 4.7 million Americans.
A paper published in "ASAP" form in the current issue of the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology reports on the leaching of heavy metals and toxic nonmetals, from this dangerous coal waste now in the river. The elements discussed are arsenic, selenium, lead, barium, strontium and boron, uranium, manganese and iron.
Environmental Science and Technology is a publication of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.