A year later, TVA chief says ash spill ‘painful’

By BILL POOVEY KINGSTON, Tenn. — The Tennessee Valley Authority’s top executive says changing the way waste is stored at its power plants should reduce the risk of another disastrous coal ash spill like the one that tarnished a riverside community a year ago. But he isn’t offering any guarantees. Tom Kilgore said eliminating all wet ash and gypsum storage and converting all of TVA’s coal-fired plants to dry storage is part of a plan “to help prevent anything like the Kingston spill from ever happening again.” …   The Environmental Protection Agency this week called the spill at TVA’s Kingston plant “one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in history.” While the spill of ash from burned coal contains arsenic and potentially carcinogenic heavy metals, it is not regulated as hazardous waste. Some environmental groups want EPA to change that. TVA owns nearly 3,000 acres of ash ponds at its other coal plants in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. … Kilgore said the utility is “making good progress” on the projected $1.2 billion cleanup that could cause possible rate increases. He declined to speculate about the amount.   Retiree Gary Topmiller, his wife, Pam, and more than a hundred others who live in the picturesque riverfront community about 40 miles west of Knoxville have been feeling the pain along with TVA. For a year, the Topmillers have been scraping black muck from air filters in their Emory River home where they watch and listen to TVA dredging, sprinkling and loading the metals-laden dirt in more than 100 train cars each day. … Some of Topmiller’s neighbors have moved away. The EPA and Tennessee environmental officials say tests show that TVA has adequately contained any health hazard, and they commend the utility’s cleanup. No penalties have been assessed against TVA and while some people are suing, TVA contends the utility cannot be held liable for punitive damages. … Topmiller said both he and his wife have been victims of “coal ash flu” — the moniker locals give a variety of respiratory problems — and she at times has awakened with her eyes stuck shut. He said their children, due to health fears, no longer bring their grandchildren to visit their 3-year-old home that includes an upstairs apartment that he added for the visits. “I won’t let my kids swim there again,” said Topmiller’s daughter, 40-year-old Ann Smith of Cincinnati. “He (Topmiller) spent his whole life working for that house. Now we can’t even go there.” …

A year later, TVA chief says ash spill `painful’  via The Oil Drum