by Sue Sturgis
Aerial view of the coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant.Photo: SkyTruth via FlickrIt was one year ago today that a 60-foot-tall dam broke at a 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.
While
TVA has bought out some property owners, other affected residents say
moving isn’t possible because the utility isn’t offering them fair
compensation for their property, or because it doesn’t consider them to
be close enough to qualify for a buyout.
“Residents here have
letters from pulmonologists, cardiologists, and family doctors stating
that they need to move or be relocated until the cleanup is complete,”
says Randy Ellis, a Swan Pond resident and a member of the Roane County Long Term Recovery Committee. “Their concerns and health are being totally ignored by the TVA.”
But coal ash is not a hazard only for the people living near TVA’s Kingston plant: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented 584 coal ash waste disposal sites across the United States and classifies 49 of those as high-hazard,
meaning that a breach in their impoundments could kill people.
At
the same time, an unknown number of those sites are leaking
contaminants into the environment—a disaster less dramatic than what
happened at Kingston but still dangerous to human health. Most coal ash
surface impoundments in the U.S. are still unlined and thus pose the
very real risk of water contamination. In fact, coal ash disposal sites
have already poisoned surface or groundwater supplies in at least 23 states, while all 13 of those operated by the two major utilities in North Carolina are leaking contaminants to groundwater.
EPA
Administrator Lisa Jackson promised that the EPA would release a
proposed regulation of coal ash by the end of this year. But last week,
EPA announced that it was delaying the rule’s release “due to the complexity of the analysis.” Meanwhile, TVA has said it intends to convert all its existing wet coal ash storage ponds to
somewhat less hazardous dry storage—but it’s waiting for the EPA’s
proposal before making any firm plans.
So on the first
anniversary of the Kingston disaster, coal ash remains unregulated by
the federal government—and thus Americans remain at serious risk
from its hazards.
Held hostage by TVA
It was in
the early morning hours of Dec. 22, 2008 when the dam constructed of
coal ash gave way at TVA’s Kingston plant. Shortly before 1 a.m., calls began pouring into the local 911 operator about a “mud slide.” One caller panicked because she couldn’t reach her
father—who as it turned out was trapped inside his house by the ash.
More
than 22 residences were evacuated, but no one was hurt or killed by the
dam’s collapse. Had the the incident occurred on a sunny summer day
when people were outside in their yards or on the river, things could
have turned out much differently.
The morning after the dam’s
breach, the sun rose to reveal a shocking sight: a once-scenic
riverside community covered in gray coal ash six feet deep in some
spots. TVA’s Kilgore himself likened the appearance of the ruined land to a “moonscape.”
As
it turned out, TVA had already known there were serious problems with
the integrity of its Kingston ash impoundment. Local residents reported
earlier leaks in the dam going back as far as 2001, and the utility
itself later acknowledged there were leaks in 2003 and 2006. But the
company obviously failed to take adequate action to guard against
collapse.
And in the disaster’s wake, TVA continued to behave in ways that deepened distrust in the local community and wider public.
For example, the company released inaccurate information about the incident, as confirmed by an audit released in June by the agency’s Inspector General. TVA’s documented
inaccuracies included dramatically underestimating the amount of ash
spilled, claiming incorrectly that no dead fish were found downstream
of the disaster, and describing coal ash as consisting primarily of
“inert material not harmful to the environment,” the audit found.
Scientists have documented serious potential health effects from coal ash.
The
utility also misled the public about the radiation threat from the ash,
likening the material to table salt when in fact researchers found significant levels of cancer-causing radioactive elements.
In
addition, the Inspector General found that TVA had failed to
communicate policies and decisions to victims of the spill in a timely
manner. In a recent report to the community [pdf], TVA said it’s “learned a lot” over the past year including the
“importance of listening”—but some spill victims remain unhappy with
the way the utility is dealing with them.
During a press conference held last weekend in Harriman, Tenn., residents of the Swan Pond Road
community spoke out about their ongoing problems with TVA. Some
neighbors have asked the utility to buy their homes but say it’s
offered them less than what their properties were worth before the
spill. Others say TVA has refused to negotiate with them and in some
cases cut off communications entirely.
They’re also upset over
an incident back in September in which the utility—with permission
from Tennessee’s Department of Environmental Conservation—conducted
an unannounced test burn of a high-sulfur coal at the Kingston plant,
which resulted in mysterious white fallout snowing down on their community. The pollution reportedly damaged
automobile finishes and gardens, yet Kingston plant officials told
local residents they didn’t know whether it was hazardous.
Environmental
advocates have been critical of TVA’s behavior since the disaster as
well. Activists with United Mountain Defense experienced harassment by TVA’s police force while working with local residents. And Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby of Appalachian Voices reports that in her river trips near the disaster site she found TVA’s
automated water sampler almost a mile downstream from where the ash
cleanup operations are underway—a distance she believes is probably
too far to measure any re-contamination that might be occurring as a
result of the dredging. UMD and Appalachian Voices are among the 15
groups that recently wrote to President Obama asking that TVA be held accountable for its violations.
“They want our trust,” said Kingston neighbor Rick Cantrell. “They’re not going to get any. They’ve
shut the residents out. They won’t talk to us, and we just can’t trust
them.”
A promise the President must keep
At her
Jan. 14, 2009 confirmation hearing to head the EPA under President
Obama, Lisa Jackson promised to immediately assess coal ash disposal
sites and to consider ways to regulate the ash—something the agency
recommended in 2000 but declined to do under the Bush administration.
“The
EPA currently has, and has in the past, assessed its regulatory
options, and I think it is time to re-ask those questions,” Jackson said at the hearing.
U.S.
power plants produce over 130 million tons of coal ash waste each year—the nation’s second-largest waste stream after ordinary household
trash. Currently subject to an uneven patchwork of state regulations,
the ash is not treated as hazardous under federal law despite the clear
risks it presents to human health and the environment.
After
being confirmed as EPA chief, Jackson did take action on coal ash. The
agency sent out information requests to more than 160 electric
generation facilities and more than 60 corporate offices in an effort
to gather data on coal waste surface impoundments like the one that
failed at Kingston. It created a database with information on the ash
dumps, and it identified the 49 high-hazard facilities using utilities’
self-reported data.
The agency also completed a study on toxins in wastewater discharges from coal ash impoundments,
concluding that current guidelines should be revised because of the
significant toxic releases from these facilities and the likelihood
that these will increase in the future as better air pollution controls
are developed and installed.
But the EPA has proven reluctant at times to share its findings with the public.
For example, the agency initially refused to reveal the location of high-hazard coal ash dumps,
citing security concerns. It eventually relented under pressure from
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and environmental advocates.
Today
EPA continues to withhold certain data about more than 70 coal ash dump
sites at the request of power companies, honoring their claim that it
represents “confidential business information.” Among the pieces of
data being withheld by companies including Duke Energy and the Southern
Company are the size of the ash ponds, the date they were last
inspected, and whether any problems were found. The environmental
advocacy groups Earthjustice, the Environmental Integrity Project and
Sierra Club filed a complaint in federal court earlier this month in an effort to get the information.
Also
sparking criticism among some environmental advocates was EPA’s
decision to allow the coal ash being dredged from the spill site to be
sent to a landfill located in a high-poverty and largely African-American community in rural Alabama. That decision was among the topics of discussion in a recent meeting between EPA officials and environmental justice leaders concerned about the agency’s treatment of low-income communities and communities of color in the South.
Jackson promised that the EPA would release proposed regulations for coal ash by the end of this year, and reportedly is considering several different approaches.
But environmentalists expressed disappointment after the agency
announced last week that the regulation’s release would be delayed “for
a short period.” They also raised concerns that lobbyists for
coal-fired utilities have mounted a disinformation campaign designed to
minimize the hazards of coal ash and make regulation seem less urgent
than it is.
In the meantime, toxic coal ash continues piling up
at power plants across the country. The waste also continues to be used
to make various products including grout and wallboard [pdf], spread on roads for ice control, used as fill for abandoned coal mines or to prepare roadbeds. It’s even promoted as a soil amendment for food crops—all without the benefit of strict federal oversight.
The
EPA said it expects to issue a proposed rule in the “near future.”
Environmental advocates say they hope that means early next month.
“The
Obama administration has pledged to let law and science guide its
environmental decisions, not the arm twisting of industry lobbyists,”
according to a statement from Earthjustice, the Environmental Integrity Project, Natural
Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club. “That is a promise President
Obama must keep.”
This post originally appeared at Facing South.
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