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

Residents of Kingston, Tenn., are tired of the bad rap their rural community has gotten since a neighboring coal ash impoundment pond breached, sending a wave of toxic material on to its property and waterways. That spill, called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, destroyed homes, damaged property, and contaminated popular waterways.

The last thing residents want is for the public to view that mess at will, even while the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) undergoes a years-long, $1.2 billion cleanup of the mess it made. Those residents this week applauded a decision made by the TVA to keep an overlook area closed to the general public. Instead, the area will remain behind a locked gate and only be used for scheduled tours, visits by members of Congress and their staffs, other public officials, and the media.

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The new chairman for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) says the disastrous coal ash spill that dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic material on to an east Tennessee community and into the Emory River must never happen again, according to WHNT-TV.

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Janice James was upstairs in her home and getting ready for bed, having just enjoyed a day celebrating Christmas with family, when a cracking and popping noise caught her attention. She threw on an old sweatshirt and her husband’s boots, and grabbed a flashlight to see what the ruckus was. Could be a hail storm or a tornado, she thought. But when the light of her flashlight shined on the first floor of her home, she was stunned. “It was just covered in this ashy mud,” she told a WATE-TV reporter.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is being asked to cover the cost of a three-year, $1.9 million public relations campaign aimed at improving the image of Kingston, Tennessee. The nation’s largest public utility is being blamed for tarnishing the region’s reputation. Once thought of as a destination for water sports and recreation, the east Tennessee community, which includes parts of the Emory River, is now covered in a mass of toxic debris that locals feel may cause them serious illness.

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Hotter and drier summer conditions increase the likelihood of coal ash going airborne, increasing the potential for the toxic material to be inhaled by those living near the site that was heavily damaged when a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) fossil fuel plant’s impoundment pond was breached, causing more than a billion gallons of coal ash to tumble down on to a neighboring community.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed an enforceable agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to oversee the removal of coal ash from its east Tennessee fossil fuel plant where a coal ash impoundment breached and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash on to a neighboring community and into the Emory River. The TVA was also ordered to reimburse the EPA for any costs associated with its oversight of the cleanup.

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The huge cleanup effort by the nation’s largest public utility could cost as much as $150 million more than previously estimated, according to the Associated Press. The effort to restore 300 acres of east Tennessee property damaged by the December 2008 coal ash spill from a Kingston, Tennessee, coal-firing plant is also expected to take years to complete.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has paid more than $20 million buying 71 properties in the east Tennessee community that were affected by the December 2008 coal ash impoundment breach. And while TVA is negotiating to buy more, it has already turned down 160 other offers from residents in the area, according to Forbes/Associated Press.

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Residents of east Tennessee probably thought little of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-firing plant in Kingston, or the toxic brew of coal ash that had been brimming in an impoundment pond for years. But as residents built homes on property just miles away and fished and boated in the Emory River that snaked nearby, the pond walls were beginning to seep and were showing erosion scarring in some areas.

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Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a Tennessee-based independent university research group, is working out a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to guide the cleanup efforts and the health monitoring of residents in and around the site of last December’s coal ash spill, according to the Miami Herald/Associated Press.

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