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Author Q&A: In ‘Valley So Low,’ UTC alum Jared Sullivan details the long fight for justice after a TVA environmental disaster

Knoxville News Sentinel/File / Coal ash from a 40-acre pond flows into the Emory River after a retention wall collapsed Dec. 22, 2008, at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates that 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash rolled into the river and over more than 300 acres of land.
Knoxville News Sentinel/File / Coal ash from a 40-acre pond flows into the Emory River after a retention wall collapsed Dec. 22, 2008, at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates that 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash rolled into the river and over more than 300 acres of land. Knoxville News Sentinel/File / Coal ash from a 40-acre pond flows into the Emory River after a retention wall collapsed Dec. 22, 2008, at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates that 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash rolled into the river and over more than 300 acres of land.

By Michael Ray / Taylor Chapter16.org 5 min read

“VALLEY SO LOW: ONE LAWYER’S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IN THE WAKE OF AMERICA’S GREAT COAL CATASTROPHE” by Jared Sullivan (Knopf, 384 pages, $30).

On Dec. 22, 2008, in the East Tennessee town of Kingston, an earthen dam that held years of coal waste from a TVA power plant collapsed, sending a wave of coal sludge over 300 acres. Making worldwide headlines, the environmental disaster destroyed homes, poisoned a river and would soon sicken nearly all the workers assigned the difficult task of cleaning up the mess.

(READ MORE: TVA to shut down Kingston coal plant)

“Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe,” the first book from Franklin, Tennessee-based journalist Jared Sullivan, describes not only the disaster and aftermath, but the role of Jim Scott, a Knoxville attorney who risked everything to seek justice as workers sickened and died.

The workers, the complicated lawsuit against Jacobs Engineering (a company TVA hired to clean the sludge) and the large legal cast involved are deftly woven together with a skill reminiscent of Jonathan Harr in his nonfiction classic “A Civil Action” — or any of several Grisham novels. Sullivan answered questions from Chapter 16 by email.