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On Christmas Eve 2008, a massive black river of ash and sludge snaked into the hills of Tennessee, and without warning, covered the countryside in an ominous blanket of toxic goo.

Some houses were swept off their foundations. Panicked residents were forced to evacuate.

Measuring 4 to 6 feet thick and comprising more than 1 billion gallons, the blob came from a nearby Tennessee Valley Authority power plant and spilled free when an earthen dike collapsed and a lake of coal ash mixed with water overflowed its banks.

That lake and others like it hold the waste that results from burning coal in power plants. There are 14 of them in North Carolina -- 12 of which are listed among the nation's 44 "high-hazard potential" ash sites by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Two of them serve Duke Energy's Dan River power plant, near Eden. The ranking does not mean the site lacks proper safeguards. But it does mean that "a failure will probably cause loss of human life," the EPA says.

None of the ponds operated by Duke and Progress Energy in North Carolina is as big as the Tennessee reservoir. The two near Eden total 8 acres.

But a bill pending in the General Assembly rightly favors an ounce of prevention over millions of gallons of trouble, all the same. Sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, the bill calls for regular structural inspections of the dams that hold the lakes.

Some legislators first treated the bill as if it were the toxic substance. But they changed their minds when the EPA list came to light in late June. Gov. Bev Perdue also has announced her support for the bill, as have even the power companies.

After almost certain defeat, the coal ash bill is likely to pass this week.

Good. Federal studies say coal ash contains significant quantities of heavy metals such as lead, selenium and arsenic that can cause cancer and neurological problems.

Some critics initially charged that Harrison's true motive was to close coal-fired plants altogether. But her bill merely calls for the state to be safer rather than sorry.

Direct inspections of coal ash lake dams would occur at least every two years, as is the case with other dams in North Carolina. Under current law, utilities must file reports done by private engineers every five years with the state Public Utilities Commission. That's not enough.

Nor, arguably, is this bill. But it's a significant first step.

An earlier, tougher version also prohibited the manufacture of cinder blocks from recycled coal ash. "We're recycling so much of it and we have no idea if it stays inert," Harrison says of the various construction products made from reclaimed coal ash. "That's frightening."

Harrison was right to battle for a bill that seemed destined to fail but now appears certain to become law.

And she's also right not to let the discussion end there.