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

Another preventable environmental crisis strikes again, leaving behind a murky forecast for those in its wake. First there was the coal ash spill that dumped a billion gallons of sludge on to homes, property and waterways in east Tennessee. Then came the massive oil spill following an explosion in a rig 50 miles off the Louisiana coastline, a still uncontained problem that is oozing millions of gallons of oil into the ocean wreaking havoc in its wake.

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The cleanup effort in east Tennessee following the December 2008 spill of coal ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) impoundment pond is costing more than the utility had expected, but so far the results look promising, says director of the TVA’s cleanup effort, Steve McCracken.

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The coal ash spill from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-firing plant in Kingston, Tenn., may have left some east Tennessee residents homeless and dampened the livelihoods of local business owners, but contractors participating in the massive cleanup will make millions off the deal.

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The December 2008 coal ash spill from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant in Kingston, Tenn., was already considered one of the nation’s largest environmental disasters, but one year after the spill, authorities say the devastation is even bigger than first imagined. Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, tells The Environment Report’s Tanya Ott that the 2.6 billion pounds of toxic sludge from the east Tennessee impoundment pond is more than the total discharge of all United States power plants last year.

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Customers of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) are footing the bill for the massive billion-dollar cleanup effort in an east Tennessee community where more than a billion gallons of coal ash spilled creating the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. However, because of a drop in fuel costs, customers aren’t seeing much change in their bills. If fuel prices creep back up, customers will be in for an unpleasant surprise.

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Environmental lawsuits can be complex and take years to resolve because the damages may take decades to surface, says Gregory Button, a University of Tennessee anthropologist who studies environmental disasters such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. That means the fallout from last year’s Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash spill that blanketed a neighboring community with toxic material in what some call the nation’s largest environmental disaster of its kind, could linger for years.

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One year ago today, coal ash poured out from an impoundment pond at the Kingston Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) fossil fuel plant and blanketed a neighboring community with more than a billion gallons of toxic material. Houses were destroyed, property was damaged, waterways were contaminated, lives were changed forever. One year after the devastating spill, the TVA is engaged in a massive cleanup expected to take three years and more than $1 billion, but residents see little improvement.

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Tina Nicholson walks down her driveway in Cumberland County, Tenn., every afternoon to meet her kids as they get off the school bus. They often detour down the winding Smith Mountain Road to look at wild growing herbs and enjoy the fresh air. The road is so narrow that when cars pass by, the Nicholson family has to step into a ditch that runs parallel to the road to make room. “Two regular cars cannot pass each other on this road as it is,” she says.

But if Crossville Coal Company and Smith Mountain Solutions have their way and are allowed to reclaim a surface mine on top of Smith Mountain to store coal ash recovered from the east Tennessee site of a massive coal ash spill, the narrow roadway where the Nicholsons walk will become even more treacherous with heavy trucks carrying tons of coal ash.

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A 1 ½-mile stretch of the Emory River in east Tennessee will remain closed to boat traffic through mid-February – several months longer than expected – while the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) continues to dredge the river to remove toxic coal ash that spilled there following a coal ash impoundment pond breach last December. The dredging is part of a three-year, $1 billion cleanup of the area with hopes to restore the land and waterways that were badly damaged and contaminated following the massive spill.

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Nine months after more than a billion gallons of coal ash tumbled from an impoundment pond at a Kingston, Tenn., coal-firing plant and created one of the nation’s largest environmental disasters, only one-third of the total sludge has been removed from the Emory River, leaving behind 2 million cubic yards in the river and 2.4 million cubic yards in Swan Pond Creek and neighboring land. The cleanup effort is still months – maybe years – away from completion and is expected to cost the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at least $1 billion by the time it is complete.

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