The Daily Climate: No Timetable to Clean Up Coal Waste Flood

Published January 08, 2009 @ 09:09AM PT

Two weeks in to what might be the nation's worst-ever coal waste disasters, Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Tom Kilgore offered Congress no particular plan or deadline for cleaning up the 1 billion gallon, 300-acre coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee. In Senate committee hearings this morning. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she would press for federal coal ash regulations. (Bloomberg News)

But, Kilgore vowed, the federally-owned mega-utility “will do a first-rate job of remediation of the problems caused by the spill." (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Tennessee officials are reassuring the local community that health risks in the wake of the toxic flood are minor, but not everyone living near the plant is convinced. (National Public Radio)

The cleanup bill could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars -- and the TVA's 9 million ratepayers will probably be stuck with the tab. And then there are the likely class-action damages; Erin Brockovich and reps from a New York law firm are meeting with affected families this week. (Associated Press)

Retired federal regulator Jack Spadaro says that the TVA ignored two small leaks at the Kingston plant's coal ash pond, discovered in 2003 and 2006. Spadero contends were harbingers of the disaster to come. TVA denies the leaks were relevant to last month's spill. (Associated Press)

Think it can't happen where you live? Maybe, maybe not: there are dozens of coal ash ponds around the country that are even larger than the one that collapsed in Tennessee. West Virginia is one of 13 states with at least three coal-fired power plant dumps that take in more than the TVA's Kingston Plant pond. None are regulated by the federal government. (The Charleston Gazette (W. Va.))

Video: Tennesseans describe the coal ash flood and its aftermath, saying they've had little or no direct contact from TVA about the clean-up or any other assistance. Posted by 'annebonneylives' on YouTube, Jan. 3, 2008.

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