• 
• 
  • Arts & Culture
  • City Hall
  • Environment
  • Housing & Displacement
  • Immigrant Rights
  • LGBQT
  • Poverty
  • Youth & Schools
• 
  • Features
  • News Briefs
  • Newswire
  • Headlines
• 
  • Mailing Lists
  • PhillyIMC's Wiki
  • LAVA
  • Contact us
• 
• 
• 
• 

Recent Similar Articles

• > U-Penn graduate stopped Massey Energy strip mining machine, jailed
• Philadelphia Rallies Against Mountaintop Destruction


• Philly Activists Protest Blasting on Coal River Mountain


• > W.Va. Treesit Update/ Donations Needed!

• > Hollywood "Knowing" About B.P. Horizon A Year Early
• Forum: Environmental Justice Through African Liberation

At 12:40 a.m. on Monday, December 22, 2008, Roane County Tennessee emergency response received 911 calls reporting an earthquake and people trapped in their homes. What local residents felt was the impact of a billion gallons of coal ash bursting through a containment wall at the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Kingston coal-fired power plant.  Residents were able to get out luckily no one was killed, but there is extensive property damage and environmental destruction.

            The fly ash spill, the largest coal ash disaster in US history, swept away pieces of homes and damaged more than forty other properties, while completely filling in a branch of the Emory River and burying some docks in the process.  Rivers, lakes, and streams surrounding this tranquil lakeside community are now contaminated by fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal that contains harmful substances such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and uranium. 

Half of the Kingston coal plant’s ash is sold as a component for concrete and road fill, according to plant officials.  The other half was stored in a giant unlined "ash pond" on the north side of the plant, packed down, sprinkled with water to prevent airborne particles, and held in place by a seventy five foot high wall of ash and earth.  The cause of the disaster is still being investigated, but speculators believe the main factors were a week of heavy rain and negligence on the part of TVA. 

What's Being Done?

            On Sunday, December 28, Kingston City Council Member Brant Williams held the first community meeting to be convened since the disaster.  Williams called the meeting despite resistance from the Kingston Mayor Troy Beets and other local politicians.  Roane County emergency responder Howie Rose and TVA CEO Ron Kilgore spoke and then took questions.  Kilgore assured the community that "TVA is gonna clean it up, and we're gonna clean it up right."  However, the local community has received little information about a clean-up plan and have little if any faith in TVA.

            In the absence of any single trusted source of information, rumors were plentiful regarding clean-up and compensation.  The community meeting, held a week after the disaster, was the first opportunity for locals to voice their frustration and ask officials questions.  During the question period a score of the three hundred locals in attendance voiced their fears and concerns about safe drinking water, air quality, contaminated grazing fields, property values, fair compensation, local recreation, and trust.  Most residents were not sure what had been done thus far, nor what would be done, to clean up the disaster.  

            Kilgore vowed that TVA would work 24/7; focusing first on public safety and second on containment.  TVA's priorities will be clearing roads, rebuilding the railroad that supplies the plant with coal, building dikes to divert the river around the site, and continuing water testing.  In spite of these assurances, Kilgore frustrated the crowd by not providing direct answers to their questions.  When asked about compensation, he provided a TVA phone number and said, "I don't know what the results will be, but you will be treated politely."  He would not say when air testing would begin nor where they would store the toxic ash once it is "cleaned up."

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported yesterday that a $165 million dollar lawsuit has been filed against TVA.  A Knoxville environmental group, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, also plans to file suit under federal environmental law.

            In the mean time, Kingston and Harriman, TN residents are in need of clean water, air filters, sprinkler systems (so the ash doesn't start blowing around), compensation, and moral support. Visit www.unitedmountaindefense.org to help.