The metaphors are just too enticing to pass up.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's 50-member public relations team accidentally leaked a memo detailing the attempt to minimize, cover up, and underestimate the significance of the billion-gallon coal ash sludge spill in Kingston, Tennessee last December.
The massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant last month wasn't so much "catastrophic" as it was a "sudden, accidental release."
That's according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was prepared by TVA's 50-member public relations staff for briefing news media the day after the disaster at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville.
Soon-to-be-former RNC chair Mike Duncan serves on the board of TVA.
Did they really think no one would notice?
Steve Smith, director of the environmental group Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told a U.S. Senate committee that TVA downplayed the potential toxicity of the ash and the extent of the damage immediately afterward and for several days more.
"Oh, absolutely. They came out and said everything is safe, right?" said Bruce Nilles, a Madison, Wis.-based attorney for the Sierra Club.
You can't dump a billion gallons of sludge, containing fly ash which is considered hazardous enough to warrant a MSDS safety-data sheet when handled in industrial settings, and pretend it's safe.
The city of Harriman, TN will never be the same.
Now, after years of neglect and dishonesty, guess who has to clean up the mess?
Just like the war in Iraq, the banking industry's overleveraging, warrantless wiretaps, and the non-compliance with Kyoto Protocol standards, our children's children will have to deal with the repercussions.