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

Alabama County Commissioner Albert Turner, Jr. says last year’s disastrous coal ash spill from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-firing plant that destroyed homes, damaged property and contaminated nearby waterways turned out to be a “godsend” for the poor, black community he represents – an economic boon “unseen since the state of Texas struck oil.” Perry County, Ala., is receiving shipments of coal ash recovered from the east Tennessee spill site and storing it in a landfill. Not only is the county receiving millions of dollars in storage fees, the work has generated several dozen new jobs for people in the area. “I sleep well knowing we’ve got coal ash in the ground and cash in the bank,” Turner said.

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At 80, Ruby Holmes doesn’t have much fight left in her. So she sits in her home and deals with the deck she’s been given. In her community, which used to be in a place she called a “quiet, beautiful place … nothing but fresh air,” she can no longer open the windows. “That stuff, whatever it is over there, wakes me up, it smells so bad,” she told the Birmingham News. Holmes lives not far from the Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County, Ala., the same landfill that is taking in millions of tons of coal ash recovered from east Tennessee, where more than a billion gallons of the toxic material spilled from a neighboring coal ash impoundment pond.

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