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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) tried to dodge blame for the coal ash spill that destroyed homes and damaged property near its Kingston, Tenn., coal-firing plant, according to a report released by the utility’s Inspector General.
Following protests by environmentalists to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has upgraded four of its coal ash sites to a high hazard rating, according to the New York Times. The news comes a month after the EPA released a list of 44 “high hazard” coal ash dump sites across the country, meaning if a dam failure occurred, it would put human life at risk. Utilities were asked to evaluate their own sites. Coincidentally, none of the TVA’s 12 coal ash storage sites made the list.
Lisa Jackson
“Lisa Jackson, will you help us?”
The phrase is repeated over and over in a short film by Alabama activist Betsy Ramaccia. You can view the film on www.AshHoles.org. Last month at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) meeting in Tennessee, Ramaccia dressed in a haz-mat suit and handed out fake newspapers with the headline “The New Ash Hole of Alabama,” and directed them to the Web site. There, viewers can hear the voices and see the faces of several Uniontown, Alabama residents pleading with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to protect them from the dangers of coal ash. The Web site also has a form letter asking for protection where people can add their names and e-mails and submit them to Jackson.
More than half of the toxic coal ash spilled on to an east Tennessee community can be stored in a landfill in Perry County, Alabama, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will begin immediately shipping the coal ash by rail.
Fourty-four coal ash storage sites near communities in 10 different states have been targeted for inspection because they pose a “high hazard potential … (of) probable loss of human life if there is a significant dam failure,” according to Matt Hale, director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) office of research, conservation and recovery. Hale added that the high hazard rating is more a measure of what would happen if the dam failed rather than a measure of the stability of the dams.
Three million tons of toxic coal ash recovered from east Tennessee from a breached impoundment at a coal-firing plant which sent a wave of the dangerous material on to a neighboring community, will be moved to Perry County, Alabama, and stored in a privately owned landfill near Uniontown. The deal could generate $4.1 million in fees and more than 50 jobs to the community, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state. But residents are hardly optimistic.
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