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Broken promises follow Tennessee coal ash disaster
It was one year ago today that a 60-foot-tall dam broke at holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in Roane County, Tenn., dumping more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash onto a nearby community and into the Clinch and Emory rivers.
The largest industrial waste spill in U.S. history, the ash slide covered more than half a square mile, damaging 42 residential properties, knocking one home completely off its foundation and rendering three others uninhabitable. It dumped some 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants including arsenic, lead and mercury into the nearby rivers -- more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007, according to a recent analysis. The pollutants in coal ash have been linked to health problems including cancer, liver damage and nervous-system disorders.
The disaster pushed the obscure issue of coal ash waste disposal into the national spotlight and spurred the Tennessee Valley Authority and federal regulators to promise swift action to prevent anything like it from occurring again.
But on the first anniversary of the TVA coal ash disaster, those promises have been broken.
Shortly after the incident, at a public meeting held in the Roane County community of Harriman, Tenn., TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore told affected residents that the utility would make them whole again and clean up the waste in six to eight weeks. But today, the Emory River remains closed to public traffic near the spill, ponds in the area are still clogged with several feet of coal ash, and dust from the ash is a chronic problem for local residents, some of whom complain of related health problems including coughing, nosebleeds and headaches.