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

U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan began preliminary matters Thursday in Knoxville, Tenn., regarding the massive coal ash spill that dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of sludge from a TVA storage pond into the Emory River and surrounding community on Dec. 22, 2008. The toxic tidal wave poured from a breached containment pond at the Kingston Plant and affected hundreds of people who made their home in nearby Roane County, Tenn. This trial will determine liability in the case, but will not address damages at this time.

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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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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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Environmentalist group The Sierra Club plans to sue San Juan Coal Company, a New Mexico coal mine, because the coal ash stored in its unlined landfills has seeped into the ground and is contaminating nearby waterways and wells, according to The New Mexico Independent. The Sierra Club insists that this seepage of toxic material into groundwater poses a danger to livestock, wildlife and families.

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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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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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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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Toxic coal ash recovered from a massive spill site in east Tennessee was deemed too dangerous by the state of Pennsylvania to be stored there, but some Alabama officials welcomed that coal ash with open arms. One U.S. Representative from Alabama is standing up for the people, urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish consistent standards at the federal level that would fully address legitimate concerns about the content of coal ash waste.

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Cumberland County, Tennessee, officials saw dollar signs and improved highways when they approved the relocation of coal ash recovered from a neighboring spill site to a landfill atop Smith Mountain. “I call it the Good Neighbor Plan,” says Commissioner Lynn Tollett. “We’ve got a place to put (the recovered coal ash). We can help out and we’re going to gain some income at a time when the economy is not what it ought to be.”

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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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