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

Even though the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is monitoring the air and water near Kingston, Tennessee, for dangerous levels of toxins, Sandy Gupton takes water samples from the flooding on her farm just to be sure.

“Our farm is the largest acreage affected,” said Sandy’s husband Terry in an interview to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “TVA does not want to admit that the spill has devastated our lives, tainted our land and reduced our livelihood to a fraction of what it was before the spill.”

The Guptons herd Gelvy cattle on their land, and worried for their cattle’s safety after the TVA’s coal ash pond failed last December and dumped more than a billion gallons of coal ash on to 300 acres of an east Tennessee community. Now, they are worrying about their own health. “We have both tested positive for heavy metals in our bodies,” Terry said. “We both have increased respiratory problems with asthma… We feel that we need to relocated to get away from the spill site.”

Coal ash contains dangerous toxins such as arsenic and lead, which have been associated with increased risk of cancer, liver damage and other serious health problems. When it rains, coal ash sludge backs up on to the Gupton’s pastures. As it dries, the ash flies into the air.

“I wouldn’t want to inhale either of these things for a long period of time — or even a short period of time if I had lung problems,” said Gregory V. Button, a University of Tennessee at Knoxville professor and medical anthropologist, in the news report. “There’s a lot of possibility here for exposing large populations with what may be very high concentrations of ash contaminated with a combination of toxic materials.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.