Ash spill shows need for rules, senator says

WASHINGTON - The federal government, and particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, must adopt standards to prevent future toxic ash spills like the recent billion-gallon disaster in Tennessee, a key Senate Democrat said Thursday.

"We need to have standards in place to make certain that coal ash is managed, and disposed of properly," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said at the start of a hearing into the Tennessee spill last month.

Some 1,300 containment ponds similar to the one in Tennessee exist across the country, but none are regulated by the federal EPA.

"A 2007 U.S. EPA report found 67 ash impoundments or landfills in 23 states that had caused or were suspected of causing contamination, including to ground or surface waters," added Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which called the hearing. "EPA knew of dozens of other sites but lacked sufficient information to single out the cause."

Boxer said she'd work with the incoming Obama administration to provide a strong role for the EPA, which for years has been reviewing the issue of how to regulate combustion waste.

"The federal government has the power to regulate these wastes, and inaction has allowed this enormous volume of toxic material to go largely unregulated," Boxer said. "State efforts are very inconsistent, and as more and more toxic material is removed from coal combustion, it is critically important that protective standards for coal ash waste be established."

In the Tennessee case, a dike containing coal ash byproducts from a coal-fired power plant collapsed on Dec. 22, releasing some 1.1 billion gallons of sludge into the Emory River.

Officials from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant in Kingston, promised senators and local residents affected by the spill that they will clean up the sludge as quickly as they can and work to compensate those who have lost property.

$100 million or more tab?
The tab for the spill could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and TVA ratepayers will probably be stuck with the bill.

The total cost of cleaning up isn't yet clear, but the bill will be staggering. Extra workers, overtime, heavy machinery, housing and supplies for families chased from their homes and lawsuits are among the costs that are piling up.

And with few other places for the Tennessee Valley Authority to turn to cover the costs, the utility's 9 million customers in Tennessee and six surrounding states will bear the brunt in higher electricity rate hikes in the future, TVA Chairman Bill Sansom told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"This is going to get into (electric) rates sooner or later," Sansom said. "We haven't even thought about going to Washington for it."

When a dike broke Dec. 22 at the Kingston Fossil Plant, some 1.1 billion gallons of sludge was released from a 40-acre settlement pond, blanketing nearly 300 acres in a rural neighborhood up to 9 feet deep in grayish muck and spilling into the Emory River threatening drinking water.

Though Sansom said the utility hasn't totaled how much it has spent so far, it has put more than 200 employees and contractors with heavy equipment to work on the cleanup since the dike broke. And already, 230 families have contacted TVA for various assistance — everything from testing their private wells to monitoring their air, erecting fences, cleaning their driveways and providing temporary housing.

Lawsuit and Erin Brockovich
Forty of those families have joined a pending lawsuit with several environmental groups demanding the federal courts levy fines and assure the community is made whole. Attorneys involved expect the number of litigants to grow into the hundreds.

Several local residents traveled to Washington to attend the Senate hearing. "We are not looking to punish TVA, we just want them to clean up the mess they created," said Ron Smith of Harriman.

"We want it out of there," Teresa Riggs said of the sludge. "We are afraid for our health."

There are potentially huge claims for class-action damages. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich, made a celebrity by Julia Roberts' Oscar-winning movie about a community's fight against contaminated water, and a New York law firm are coming to meet victims this week.

"I've heard some people say billions," said Steve Smith, director of the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "I don't believe that number. I think it is probably hundreds of millions. I mean, I don't think they are going to get out of this thing for less than $100 million."

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