Work continues to clean TVA spill

01/22/2009

By Candy McCampbell

The Tennessee Valley Authority is still cleaning up the spill at its Kingston Fossil Plant that dumped 5.4 million cu yds of fly ash after a holding pond wall broke shortly before Christmas.

The spill released so much sludge into the Emory River that the channel has been closed between the zero mile marker and the 4-mi marker while TVA finds a contractor to remove the material after gaining interagency approval of its dredging plans.

The Emory flows into the Clinch River near the spill site, and the Clinch converges with the Tennessee a few miles downstream.

The exact cause of the break has not been determined, but the recovery tab will run into the tens of millions of dollars.

The public power agency is building a 1,543-ft weir dam – about 600 ft are completed – on the Emory River to contain the ash. Another 615-ft rock weir near the spill is completed.

More than 2,100 ft. of rail lines damaged by the spill are now repaired, and Swan Pond Road and Swan Pond Circle – both inundated by the ash – have been opened, but only for construction traffic.

While not classified as a hazardous waste, fly ash – the product of burning coal to generate power – contains arsenic, lead, thallium, beryllium, cadmium and chromium. The spill has not threatened local public water systems, the Environmental Protection Agency says, and tests show that radioactive material in samples is naturally-occurring.

The remaining fly ash is being seeded in a temporary means of controlling dust and further erosion. TVA has covered more than 200 acres of ash with temporary grass, fertilizer and mulch ad spray dust-suppression materials on the rest. Cenospheres, inert hollow balls that floated on the rivers, have been vacuumed and dumped in temporary holding cells at the plant.

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