A year later, TVA chief says ash spill `painful'

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.”

He also predicts the Dec. 22, 2008, spill of 5.4 million cubic yards of ash into a river and onto the yards and fields of nearby private property won’t permanently smear the utility’s reputation with the public in its seven-state region.

“The Kingston spill is a painful part of our history, but TVA has a long tradition of being an important part of this region’s development and economic life,” Kilgore said. “We intend to continue that important role into the future and that should be TVA’s ongoing legacy.”

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.”

BusinessWeek