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

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a consortium of academic institutions, will begin addressing the health concerns of residents affected by last December’s coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tennessee, by late summer, according to a report by Knox News. The consortium was tapped to head up the response and handle the work. TVA will be monitoring the implementation of the guidelines and has agreed to pay medical expenses for anyone whose health problems are determined to be caused by the coal ash.

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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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Not everyone is trying to keep the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) from dumping coal ash on its property. One company wants the TVA to pay them to haul and hold coal ash in its Cumberland County strip mine.

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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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Even though the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is monitoring the air and water near Kingston, Tennessee, for dangerous levels of toxins, Sandy Gupton takes water samples from the flooding on her farm just to be sure.

“Our farm is the largest acreage affected,” said Sandy’s husband Terry in an interview to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “TVA does not want to admit that the spill has devastated our lives, tainted our land and reduced our livelihood to a fraction of what it was before the spill.”

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The public relations firm that will likely handle the three-year, $1.9 million image campaign for Kingston, Tennessee, will use social media to improve the area’s tarnished reputation, according to WATE-TV.

McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations LLC, which submitted a proposal and budget for the campaign, would use social media techniques such as blogs, blurbs and Twitter Tweets to highlight the positive side of Kingston.

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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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Coal ash that poured from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston, Tennessee, Fossil Plant onto an east Tennessee community last December and recovered by cleanup crews is far too toxic to be stored in Pennsylvania’s coal mines, according to officials in that state. Authorities issued a statement saying it has strict regulations for the material to be stored there.

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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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Criticism continues to fly as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) labors on with its extensive and expensive coal ash cleanup effort following the December 22, 2008, spill from its Kingston, Tennessee, fossil fuel plant. A breach in an impoundment pond dumped more than a billion gallons of coal ash on to a neighboring community, destroying homes and damaging property in its wake. The Institute for Southern Studies now finds that the counties where the utility will be dumping much of the coal ash retrieved from the community in which it was spilled are largely populated by African Americans and have high poverty rates.

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