Talk:Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Femkemilene (talk · contribs) 14:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	I think the prose can be improved in a few location. While some effort has been done to explain jargon, i still find it difficult to read some sentences. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, uses ponds to dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, which is then stored in wet form in dredge cells --> This sentence has four commas, which makes it quite difficult to read. I also don't know what a dredge cell is. It is not clear from the text if this is the same as drying cell or retaining pond. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] cited three other individuals --> what does that mean? Fixed - removed "cited"; reworded description of event. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] in-lieu-of-tax: is this a legal term? I assume most people don't understand the french? Was this part of legal case? Fixed - provided a link to payment in lieu of taxes, which was the procedure used here. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] This phase accelerated the removal of ash from the river by 75% over original expectations and safely transported it to a permanent, lined and leachate collecting facility in Perry County, Alabama called Arrowhead landfill.: can a phase do transportation? The sentence is a bit too long/too many commas. Fixed - clarified transportation issue and split into two sentences. Bneu2013 (talk) 17:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] that the choice of dealing with the spilled coal ash. I don't think they consider the choice OF dealing with the spilled ash as environmental racisms, rather the choise HOW to deal with it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Fixed - Bneu2013 (talk) 17:18, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] The plaintiffs agreed that Jacobs Engineering had failed to keep workers safe from environmental hazards, and had misled them about the dangers of coal ash, mainly by claiming that extra protective equipment, such as masks and protective clothing, was unnecessary. The word agree here is a bit odd. Did they agree among themselves? Or with some other person? Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Fixed - that sentence is about the ruling, which agreed with the workers' claims. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	lede: The lead should be expanded. Mentioning of the clean-up, a process that I see has taken around 7 years, should be mentioned. Two paragraphs should be sufficient. I think it would be helpful to mention the country in which the spill took place in the first of second sentence. The information about the number of deaths should be included in the lede as well. Done - If there is any issue with my changes, please let me know. Bneu2013 (talk) 18:12, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Much improved. I don't quite understand the following sentence: uses ponds to dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, which is then stored in ponds. Are there two types of ponds? If so, you might want to change the last bit to "stored in other ponds". If not, you might want to remove the full clause of "which is then stored in ponds". Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:25, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Comment - I had an issue with that sentence too. I'm still trying to figure out if those are two different types of ponds. Bneu2013 (talk) 19:15, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] layout I find the structure of the article quite vague. the Deepwater horizon oil spill has a good example of a clear structure for an spill. I think that a section with consequences would be quite good (subsections health and environment?). Part of the information under the vague section title 'Details' might be transferred there. You might also want to make a section called: cause of spill. The biggest point for improvement in the response section is that it's too detailed. You can consider using some subsections to make it easier to read, as well as summarizing it. The article reads a lot like "He said, she said". Comment - I have split both the details and response section into subsections, like what was suggested, and have moved some of the existing content to the sections where I believe it is more appropriate. I'm still trying to find more information about the environmental consequences, and will likely split some existing information into a subsection about the environmental impact of the spill. Bneu2013 (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] This makes the article way easier to read and assess, thanks :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Two more small points about the layout: It is not clear to me why the paragraph about environmental racism is in the legal action section. If there was concrete legal action, please specify. If not, you might want to move it to cleanup. Fixed - added info about complaint dismissed by EPA. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] You have two single-sentence paragraphs in the article, which is discouraged in the MOS. You might want to expand the sentence about fish with the effect on bugs and swallows that the EPA mentions. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Almost compliant. Sources 14, 38, 44, 48 and 56 miss essential information (author/publisher, title, date). Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:49, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I've done done a full check on this, but I checked the source after the sentence: ash fill, which was situated 60 feet (18 m) above the ash pond. I don't understand this sentence, and could not find it back in the given source. My (poor) understanding is that pond, landfill and ash fill all refer to the same thing? If not, could the distinction be made clearer? I've asked for somebody to have a bot find archived versions of the sources. Many of them are either dead or are considered unsafe by EU privacy standards and therefore not accessible here. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Now that the archiving has been done (yaay), I found 4 statements that are not properly supported from a sample of about 15. This is too high and I would like to request you check other sources as well. Some critics of the EPA's response claim that the choice of how to deal with the spilled coal ash was an act of environmental racism. Source only mentions one person, Robert D. Bullard claiming this. Could you provide an additional source for the plural here? Or make change the text and make clear why Robert D. Bullard is relevant in his own right to appear here. Fixed - Bneu2013 (talk) 23:13, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] The coal ash incident is often used in comparison to the Flint water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Again, the source does not support that it is often compared to Flint. It just gives an example of one comparison. Fixed - removed completely. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:13, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] TVA spokesman Gil Francis Jr. stated "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic." He continued by saying that "it does have some heavy metals within it, but it's not toxic or anything." Quotes not in source given. No source given for 101 times as big as Valdez. I don't see how this precision can be obtained and I do see some (not that reliable source) quoting 100 instead. Done - provided a source for the volume of oil spilled by Exxon Valdez. The volume of coal ash spilled at Kingston is cited, and if one does the math, they will find that it was about 101 times greater than the volume spilled by Valdez. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Computing this number yourself is still an example of WP:OR#Synthesis of published material. When you use the number 101, you imply that this number can be known to 3 significant digits, which I highly doubt. The number 100 is more clearly rounded off, so you don't imply precision you don't have. Femke Nijsse (talk) 13:30, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] TVA had reportedly known about the dangers of using wet storage ponds for coal ash since a 1969 spill in Virginia in which coal ash seeped into the Clinch River and killed countless fish.[11] I cannot access the source, but as this implies legal culpability and legal cases have been fought, this sentence might be made more strong (they knew about).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Did that copyright check and apart from the quotes (that have been used a bit too much), nothing came up.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	It is not entirely up-to-date. Please go over the article and check whether things have been updated since 2008. For example the Authority would consider switching the Kingston plant over to "dry" byproduct methods --> Has it done so? (If yes, would that mean the lede sentence: which is then stored in wet form in dredge cells, should be in the past tense?) Fixed - Updated with info. Bneu2013 (talk) 15:57, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply] In the legal action section, it is unclear whether Greenpeace and landowners won their case. Comment - I added info about the court case involving over 800 plaintiffs that found TVA liable for the spill. Although it doesn't explicitly mention every single party involved (for obvious reasons), it appears that Greenpeace, SACE, landowners, and many other environmental advocacy groups were plaintiffs in the case. I don't know if this is adequate enough.Bneu2013 (talk) 16:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The response section goes in unnecessary detail and the structure of the different paragraphs is unclear. One of the paragraphs is too long. It is probably best to decrease the amount of quotes, as this is not a newspaper article.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Some small comments. Avoid the quote tremendous for fish loss (can be written down more neutrally), would have cost ratepayers tens of millions: I suspect his is framing? Could part of the costs have come from other parties? I'm thinking lower salaries, insurance, federal funds, savings, selling off property. There might be legal reasons why rate-payers would have to cough up the costs, so not sure. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply] Fly ash is described as a pollutant. I'm not sure whether that is entirely correct. This source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-02387-8_3 describes some of its contents as pollutants.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.

Response from nominator - sorry I've been a little late to respond. I've been a bit busy, but I will start looking at the reviewer's suggestions and making improvements. Bneu2013 (talk) 08:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- With the review starting months and months after nomination, of course I don't expect you to be able to have a lot of time immediately. Could you indicate how much time you need to fix the issues? 7 days is the default timing to finish a review, and then 7 days for the review to be put on hold, but if you need an extra week (or two), I will grant you that. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - Femkemilene- I should be able to have it done in the next 7 days. I have already started. Bneu2013 (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I'll review the improved sections in more detail as soon as you've finished them (as I've just done with the lede). Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:27, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've finally finished the review. There is quite a lot to do still, with many of the sources not completely checking out. I'll put the article on hold. To summarize, the most important things to do: condense the response section by removing some citations, check a large part of the sources, read through the article to see where updating in necessary (sometimes as simple as putting things in the past tense, sometimes requires new sources). Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've decided to fail the nomination . The article was close to meeting the criteria and I do hope it will get renominated after the last points have been solved and a final check on checking recent events has been done as well. The article has improved a lot, thanks for your hard work! Do consider reviewing two (or one) articles yourself as well. Not only will you help tackle the backlog, you might also learn something from taking this different role in the process. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:52, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly apologize, but unusual circumstances arose that did not allow for me to be as active as I expected. I expected to be able to improve the article more. Bneu2013 (talk) 03:12, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Real life can be quite hectic unfortunately. I really hope that when time allows, you further improve the article, because I want to see it as a good article and it's not far from that level. You can renominate the article whenever you want; there is no minimum time between nominations. You can tempt me to do the second review as well by reviewing one of two other articles in the GAN page. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]