Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Four lawsuits have been filed by Kingston, Tennessee property owners against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a result of December’s toxic spill that dumped more than a billion pounds of coal ash on to 300 acres of a rural east Tennessee community, according to the Tennessean. 

The material dumped on property and neighboring waterways contained dangerous toxins such as arsenic, lead, barium, chromium and manganese. If ingested or inhaled in high levels, those toxins could cause serious health problems such as cancer, liver damage and neurological complications.

A massive cleanup ringing in at about $1 million per day is underway, but many say the damage already has been done. So far 27 families have had to relocate to temporary housing – paid by TVA. To date, families in the area have filed 444 claims with the TVA, related to the spill. Of the 444, 311 are related to real estate, 117 to health concerns, and the remaining 16 deal with personal property damage.

In situations such as the TVA’s coal ash spill where several people are affected, cases are often consolidated into a single class-action suit where claims and damaged are determined based on the number of people affected and the type of damage that occurred.

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