Knoxville News Sentinel
By Scott Barker
Published: February 10, 2009
The cleanup of the Kingston fly ash spill will take years and could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, a Tennessee Valley Authority spokeswoman told a group of Knoxville engineers and other technophiles Monday. TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci gave an update on the cleanup during a luncheon of the Technological Society of Knoxville at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. TVA officials have submitted a Phase I dredging plan for the Emory River but haven’t forged a long-term plan, Martocci said.
“It will probably take years,” she said. “We know the dredging alone in the river will take months. … Is it one year? Is it 10 years? We don’t know.”
TVA officials have said they’re spending $1 million a day to clean up the spill, which occurred in the early morning hours of Dec. 22. The failure of a retention pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant sent 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash, a by-product of coal combustion, into the Emory River and surrounding countryside. No one was killed or seriously injured, but three homes were destroyed.
According to Martocci, the cost of the cleanup is as uncertain as its duration.
“I’ve heard (TVA president and CEO Tom) Kilgore say hundreds of millions (of dollars), but no, we don’t know,” Martocci said when answering a question from the audience.
Martocci said about 300 people are working onsite at the steam plant, and another 300 TVA employees are working on the project from their offices. TVA also brought in a contractor to manage the cleanup and another to probe the cause of the failure, Martocci said.
Martocci praised the response of the Roane County Emergency Management Agency, which had members going door-to-door in the darkness throughout the Swan Pond community to rescue stranded residents. Officials, she said, didn’t know the magnitude of the problem until they went up in a helicopter to survey the debris.
“They came off the helicopter just astounded by what they had seen,” Martocci said.
TVA continues to monitor air, water and ash for pollutants, though Martocci acknowledged that the public has more confidence in testing conducted by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. All agencies are posting test results on their respective Web sites.
Martocci said TVA, which has five other fly ash ponds at its steam plants, also will develop a long-term ash storage plan in light of the Kingston spill.
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