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Water pollution from TVA plant challenged
Ann Harris, 70, remembers growing up near the Clinch River in Tennessee, frequently swimming and fishing its waters with her family. For the past few decades, the river has changed drastically. Its once clear waters now look and smell like sewage, which led Harris to sell her ancestral home and move away eight years ago.
Now, the Clinch River could be the dumping ground for even more toxic pollution. The Tennessee Valley Authority was granted permission to discharge mercury, selenium, and other chemicals from its Kingston Fossil Plant into the Clinch River -- the same river that was devastated on December 22, 2008 when a dam broke, spilling one billion gallons of coal ash into its waters.
Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, and the Sierra Club joined together to appeal this Clean Water Act permit that was granted by the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC) on October 16. The appeal filed today before the Tennessee Water Quality Control Board challenges TDEC's failure to limit the discharge of toxic pollutants from the Kingston plant.
"The TVA is the polluter now, instead of the conserver of the river," said Harris. "This river is the lifeblood of a few million people. TVA needs to go look at how they've damaged the river; they're destroying it to the point that it's almost useless."