KINGSTON, Tenn. —  At two public meetings Tuesday here and in Harriman, residents of East Tennessee bombarded TVA and local officials with angry questions about the health, environmental and economic impacts of the Dec. 22 coal fly ash spill from the Kingston Fossil Plant landfill dam breach.

“I don’t like to be handled,” Delano Williams, of Kingston, told his city’s leaders and Tennessee Valley Authority officials present at a emergency council meeting there. “I want to know what the bean-counters say is an acceptable loss of life (from long-term health impacts). “I know time is expiring on my life, but I don’t want to gamble on my children’s or grandchildren’s lives.”

Another Kingston man, Jim Winters, chastised the mayor for drinking water on camera and assuring residents it is safe after reports of water samples showing high arsenic and lead levels in raw river water.

“Residents want to know the truth — the short-term truth and the long-term truth,” Mr. Winters said.

About 75 to 100 people in the room applauded.

Several miles away and about an hour earlier, residents of Harriman crowded into the sanctuary of the Harriman United Methodist Church to grill the Harriman council, TVA CEO and President Tom Kilgore and environmental officials with similar questions and concerns.

John Hoag, of Harriman, took Mr. Kilgore to task for being too concerned about money to take the safest possible fix years ago for previous dam leaks on the earthen landfill berm that gave way just before Christmas. The collapse dumped 1.1 billion gallons of wet fly ash sludge from 50 years of waste on more than 300 acres around the Kingston plant.

Mr. Kilgore told him he had seen nothing in those previous problems that made him think spending $25 million to line the landfill — one of the options TVA considered — was the right option.

“I did not find anything I thought was not an abnormal tradeoff,” Mr. Kilgore said.

“What you call ‘not an abnormal tradeoff’ we call a disaster,” Mr. Hoag shot back.

Other residents questioned the conflicting reports about the dangers of the ash.

Linda Tarwater asked officials what Environmental Protection Agency personnel meant when they said the arsenic found in water samples was above residential standards if there is no hazard and if fly ash, as TVA has said, is not classified as a hazardous waste.

EPA’s Steve Spurling told her the classification, intended to determine how a material can be disposed of, “does not mean the makeup of that material doesn’t pose a health or environmental risk.”

“That’s why we’re looking at further sampling of wastes,” he told the group.

Harriman Mayor Chris Mason told the group at the church that cooperation with TVA is important because “when this is all over it will be us and TVA still standing.”

Harriman resident Randy Ellis countered: “And every one of us will remember who caused this.”

In Kingston, the council told residents the county intends to form a group of officials and business groups to explore to how to make sure Kingston gets help from TVA for property losses.

Council member Brant Williams suggested the city carry its own water and form such a group “when the media goes away.”

Both Mr. Williams and Kingston Mayor Troy Beets said the city depends on its $59 million in shoreline homes for property tax and tourism income. The two advocated seeking TVA’s payment for a public relations firm to restore the city’s reputation in the wake of the spill’s national headlines.

“The worse thing we can do now is not think big enough,” Mr. Williams said.

But he recommended a resolution, that was passed, to encourage residents to work with the council rather than engage with outside law firms such as those represented by Erin Brockovich, who is expected in the area later this week.

Ms. Brockovich, made famous by the 2000 Julia Roberts movie that bears her name, is an environmental advocate who took on a power company over polluted ground water.

“Every dollar TVA spends on lawsuits is not a dollar that will benefit this city and its citizens,” Mr. Williams said.