PDF: EPA ash plan approval
The remaining 2.5 million cubic yards of ash from TVA’s 5.4 million-cubic-yard Kingston ash spill will remain onsite, according to a TVA plan approved Tuesday by EPA.
The cleanup plan calls for putting ash from the Swan Pond embayment back into a “re-engineered” but still unlined Tennessee Valley Authority dredge cell that failed in late 2008.
“It’s horrible,” Harriman, Tenn., resident Sarah McCoin said of the decision. “TVA’s disaster is going to be kept right in here in Roane County. And we’re going to be the only location in the country that will be treated differently than (EPA’s) new coal waste rules (that require lined disposal areas),” she said.
The work will take four years and cost about $268.2 million. That cost includes an estimated $686,000 in annual maintenance expenses for 30 years, according to the agreement between TVA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
TVA and EPA officials said the plan eliminates potential risks and costs of taking the ash off-site and shipping it over public roads or by rail.
Residents say it is “disheartening” for the community that was turned upside down on Dec. 22, 2008. That’s when an earthen wall broke, dumping ash into the Emory River and onto the rural community of Swan Pond in Harriman, Tenn.
EPA project manager Craig Zeller said the re-engineered landfill will have adequate safety features.
“I would counter that this reconstructed cell is going to be a dramatic improvement over what was there,” Mr. Zeller said.
A three-mile dike of soil-cement columns will be constructed using 8-foot-diameter augers to drill 60-70 feet to bedrock, Mr. Zeller said. The “lattice of columns” will be able to withstand a 6.0-magnitude earthquake, he said.
Ash will be placed atop a foundation of sand, gravel and geo-fabric and covered with two feet of clay and one foot of topsoil. Vegetation then will be planted to prevent erosion, he said.
The landfill will be about 30 feet lower than the one that failed, Mr. Zeller said. Groundwater will be monitored for leaching, he said.
On May 4, EPA issued its proposed rules for regulating coal ash, but TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci said the proposed rules will not affect TVA or the Kingston agreement finalized Tuesday.
Steve McCracken, TVA’s general manager of the Kingston Ash Recovery Project, said TVA and EPA considered three alternatives. Two involved removing all or part of the spilled ash to landfills in Alabama or above Knoxville.
Mr. McCracken said the choice was made after weighing environmental and human health and safety factors, cost effectiveness and how well each plan could be implemented.
WHERE’S THE ASH?When the planned cleanup is complete, the “re-engineered” but still unlined Kingston, Tenn., coal waste landfill will contain about 17.5 million cubic yards of ash, down from the 20.5 million cubic yards it held when the spill occurred. When the landfill is finished and closed, oversight will shift from Tennessee to EPA under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.Source: EPAPUBLIC HEARINGA public hearing on the plan is set for 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Roane County High School, 540 West Cumberland St., Kingston, Tenn.
“And the cost was the last consideration,” he said. “I think it will still fall somewhere in that range we’ve stated before,” between $933 million to 1.2 billion.
Mr. Zeller said the sloughs of the river will be restored “to pre-spill conditions and replanted” with aquatic and woodland vegetation and wetlands.
“Residents have said this was the best place to catch crappie, and our goal is to restore that fishery,” he said.
TVA’s Katie Kline said the agency within the year also will be completing a land-use plan for the more than 100 properties it bought from area residents.
Ms. McCoin said she feels betrayed by the decision.
“First, TVA told us they’d get the mess cleaned up in six to eight weeks, and how many times have I heard them say they would be a ‘good corporate neighbor?’ Then when EPA came in, we saw them as a savior. Now it feels as if we’ve been jeopardized by the collaboration of the two.”
To add “salt to the wound,” she said, residents there just got new property appraisals.
“Our property appraisals all went up 130 to 150 percent,” she said. “How can that be right?”