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What happens when 900 million metric tons of coal get burned?
如果燃烧了9亿吨的煤炭会怎样？
Roughly 100 million metric tons of coal ash is created, a residue laced with nasty elements like arsenic, lead and mercury.
大约会产生1亿吨的煤渣，还有砷，铅及汞各种元素的剩余残渣。
We perform this transformation every year in the U.S.
我们美国每年都会进行这样的化学反应。
Storing all that ash is a challenge.
然而储存这些煤灰可真是令人头痛。
That's why roughly 4 billion liters of the toxic stuff mixed with water was left to sit in a massive pond near Kingston, Tennessee.
这就是为什么大约40亿升的这些有毒废料掺水之后就被存放在田纳西州金斯敦区附近这个大池塘里的原因。
Five years ago on December 22, that pond burst its walls, drowning more than a square kilometer of land and killing portions of the Emory and Clinch rivers.
而在5年前的12月22日，这个池塘原先的围墙倒塌、淹没了超过了一平方公里的土地并毒害了附近埃默里和柯林奇两条河流里的动植物。
The Tennessee Valley Authority has been cleaning up the so-called Christmas coal ash flood ever since.
田纳西州政府自从那时起就开始清理整顿这一被称为圣诞节煤烟灰洪水所造成的灾害。
But such catastrophic events are not the only way coal ash gets into our waterways.
但是如此巨大的遭难性事件还并不是我们生活中遭受煤烟灰侵袭的唯一途径。
Rainwater can percolate through the ash when it’s improperly stored.
雨水也能渗透穿过这些渣滓，特别是当这些烟灰暂时被存放的时候。
A new report from a non-profit advocacy organization called the Environmental Integrity Project shows that the groundwater near TVA coal-fired power plants is contaminated with a toxic stew of elements.
而来自名为环境整合计划的非盈利性保护组织的一项最新报告的显示，地表水层在靠近TVA 燃煤火力发电厂附近地区会被含有有毒物质的蒸汽所污染。
The issue extends well past TVA jurisdiction.
这个问题很好的延伸了过去的TVA管辖权问题。
More than 580 coal ash sites exist across the U.S.
美国有超过580个煤灰存放点。
We should work to get all that ash safely disposed of before another five Christmases pass.
我们应该对所有这些固态废料的安全处理尽早做些具体的努力，可别再等下一场灾难来临到时再后悔莫及。
