United Mountain Defense volunteer Matt Landon prepares to fill another jar with sediment to be tested from the sludge left in the Swan Pond Lake Road community after the TVA coal ash spill on Dec. 22, 2008. The United Mountain Defense organization is providing their own testing records to help concerned citizens weary of TVA's information.

KNOXVILLE -- The Tennessee Valley Authority could spend more than $3 billion to clean up and avoid another coal ash spill like the one that covers nearly 300 acres of river and lakefront property in Kingston, Tenn.

Converting all of TVA's coal plants to dry ash disposal and recycling will cost from $1.5 billion to $2 billion over the next decade, the TVA board was told Thursday. The utility also expects to spend up to $1.2 billion to clean up the 5.4 million cubic yards of ash that spilled from the Kingston ash pond last December.

The costs of ending wet storage of ash and gypsum and repairing the property damaged in the Kingston spill is equal to more than $2 a month on the average homeowner's electric bill over the next eight to 10 years. But TVA President Tom Kilgore said TVA is determined to emerge from the disaster as a leader in disposing of the residues left from the burning of coal.

"The proposed changes in dry storage would provide TVA with state-of-the-art storage systems that meet regulatory requirements and lead the industry in the management of coal combustion by-products," TVA President Tom Kilgore said.

In the wake of the Kingston spill, TVA agreed to phase out the coal ash ponds like the one that ruptured in the middle of the night three days before Christmas at the Kingston Fossil Plant.

Bob Deacy, TVA's senior vice president for clean strategies and project development, said the utility will end wet ash storage at Widows Creek in Alabama, the Allen, Gallatin, Johnsonville and Kingston plants in Tennessee and the Paradise plant in Kentucky. All 11 TVA plants that now use wet bottom-ash systems will be converted to dry systems and 18 ash and gypsum ponds will eventually be dewatered and phased out by 2020.

TVA is budgeting $181 million for the conversions to start in 2010.

TVA has already spent $168 million toward the cleanup of the Kingston spill, including $65 million in property purchases and settlements with Roane County residents.

Anda Ray, TVA's lead environmental executive, said TVA expects to remove all of the ash from the Emory River by next spring. The utility is now sending from 85 to 100 railcars a day of coal ash pumped from the river bottom to a landfill in Perry County, Ala.

But some residents complained to the TVA board that not enough has been done to help those hurt by one of the worst industrial spills in U.S. history.

Scott Boyes, 55, a Kingston homeowner, said his boat was damaged and Watts Bar lake polluted by the spill but TVA has refused his damage claim.

"TVA treats its ratepayers like Caesar treated the Christians," he said while wearing a Roman soldier outfit during Thursday's public listening session.

Bob Giltnane, partner of Sail Away Homes and Land in Kingston, said property sales on Watts Bar Lake virtually stopped following the coal ash spill even though sales have remained strong on nearby Tellico and Fort Loudon reservoirs.

"I don't know if the ash spill has damaged the lake or not, but I do know the reputation of this area has been destroyed," he said.

TVA's conversion to dry ash storage at Kingston also was questioned by those representing rival companies to United Conveyor Corp., which was awarded a $100 million alliance contract that has been renewed three times without competitive bidding.

Alan Carmichael, a Knoxville public relations agency owner who represents one of the UCC competitors, said the Kingston dry ash conversion should have been competitively bid to ensure TVA gets the best price.

TVA Chief Operating Officer Bill McCollum said TVA will bid out the work for the dry ash conversions at the other plants, but United Conveyor was put on the Kingston job to get the project started sooner.