NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A federal utility’s top executive estimated Thursday that it would cost $900 million and take 24 years to comply with a court order to move coal ash from unlined and leaking pits and ponds to a lined landfill on the site of a Tennessee power plant.
Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Bill Johnson said in an interview Thursday that a less-preferred option, moving the ash offsite from the Gallatin Fossil Plant, would cost $2 billion. TVA had mentioned the $2 billion figure during a federal trial in February over pollution claims at the plant about 40 miles from Nashville.
The Southern Environmental Law Center has said the estimates are far too long and high.
Johnson said the timeline might be reduced, but not dramatically.
“There’s a lot of material, and it just takes time to do this,” Johnson said. “We have one benefit in our estimating, which is, we’ve done a lot of this kind of work.”