Audio clip
Randy Ellis
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson made a surprise visit to the Kingston ash spill site in Harriman, Tenn., Monday, surprising concerned residents there by having an hourlong meeting with them.
"We were very humbled," said Randy Ellis, vice chairman of the Roane County Citizens Advisory Group. "We were there for our meeting, and some suits came in and then there was Lisa Jackson."
Mr. Ellis said Ms. Jackson told the group the "full force" of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is behind them.
"She said she could not understand the magnitude of this until she actually came here and saw it," Mr. Ellis said, adding that Ms. Jackson also told them she had toured the disaster site.
Tennessee Valley Authority spokeswoman Barbara Martocci said the EPA arranged the administrator's visit.
"They wanted it low-key," Ms. Martocci said, adding that she did not know if Ms. Jackson talked with anyone from TVA's administration.
EPA's Web site noted Ms. Jackson's visit with a listing of her daily schedule. "2:00-3:00 p.m., Stakeholders Meeting, Harriman, TN., Closed Press," the schedule states.
EPA spokeswoman Latisha Petteway did not respond to requests for comment on Ms. Jackson's visit.
Ms. Jackson and other EPA administrators will decide later this year how coal ash will be regulated in the future. At issue is how the waste ash from coal-fired electric plants will be classified for disposal -- either as a hazardous waste or as nonhazardous waste. It currently is deemed nonhazardous.
EPA sampling at the Harriman spill site has shown the ash contains arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium and zinc, which are hazardous substances as defined under EPA's Superfund.
Reclassifying all coal ash as hazardous will make the cost of using coal to make electricity much more expensive. Nearly 60 percent of TVA's power is produced with coal, and about half of the nation's electric power is made by burning coal.
Shortly after the Dec. 22 spill, when an earthen berm impounding coal ash at the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant collapsed, Ms. Jackson required electrical utilities nationwide to provide EPA with up-to-date coal ash impoundment information. She also ordered new on-site assessments to determine the structural integrity and vulnerabilities of other coal ash landfill dams.
"Environmental disasters like the one last December in Kingston should never happen anywhere in this country," she said in a prepared statement in March.
In May, EPA took over the cleanup of the Kingston ash spill under what formerly was known as the Superfund law.
"EPA will oversee the cleanup and TVA will reimburse EPA for its oversight costs," EPA officials said.
EPA took the action shortly after heavy rains swept some of the spill's contamination downstream on the Emory River and into the Clinch River. Sampling last month by Tennessee Aquarium Research Institute and Appalachian State University found ash farther downstream and now in the Tennessee River.
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Deputy Commissioner Paul Sloan toured the spill site Monday with Ms. Jackson, said state spokeswoman Tisha Calabrese-Benton. Mr. Sloan did not attend the meeting between EPA and the local residents, she said.
"(He) toured the site with the administrator where he was able to see the (cleanup) progress being made at the site firsthand," Ms. Calabrese-Benton said.
Pam Sohn has been reporting or editing Chattanooga news for 25 years. A Walden’s Ridge native, she began her journalism career with a 10-year stint at the Anniston (Ala.) Star. She came to the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 1999 after working at the Chattanooga Times for 14 years. She has been a city editor, Sunday editor, wire editor, projects team leader and assistant lifestyle editor. As a reporter, she also has covered the police, ...
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