EPA bowed to TVA in coal disaster, records show,
The Environmental Protection Agency knew the coal ash at the center of the nation’s largest spill had dangerous levels of arsenic in it but ignored its own supervisor’s recommendations on how to protect workers from it, documents say.
Records obtained by USA Today Network — Tennessee in an ongoing series of stories about the treatment of blue-collar laborers who cleaned up the December 2008 disaster in Roane County show the EPA gave in to the demands of a global government contractor and the nation’s largest electricity provider for less protection and safety standards for those workers.
Those records also revealed tests approved by the EPA and meant to keep workers from breathing in too much arsenic didn’t focus on arsenic at all, and the EPA allowed testing to be abandoned entirely — at the height of the cleanup effort when fly ash was captured on film swirling all over the work site.
Nearly nine years after tons of coal ash — which contains a stew of toxic chemicals and metals — smothered 300 acres in the Swan Pond Community of Roane County after a dike gave way at the TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant, more than two dozen workers in the cleanup are dead and nearly 100 are dying.
Many of the survivors of the dead and the dying are suing Jacobs Engineering, a global engineering firm known for its profitable government contracts and a history of pricey lawsuits, in U.S. District Court in Knoxville. They say the firm, tapped by TVA to oversee worker safety, lied to them and denied them protection.
New records reviewed as part of the ongoing probe revealed that while workers were being kept in the dark about what toxins were in coal ash, the EPA, TVA and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation knew it was full of arsenic.
TUG OF WAR WITH WORKER SAFETY
Each agency’s own testing in early 2009 — months after workers were already on the job — revealed levels of arsenic in the ash the EPA classified as dangerous. That testing also showed “numerous other contaminants,” including mercury, lead and selenium, according to an EPA document.
At the time of that testing, the EPA was legally in charge of that disaster site. The agency had not yet ceded its power to TVA, which then ceded it to Jacobs.
TVA was put in charge of the clean-up, first, via a January executive order and, second, via a May court order. But that order gave EPA the final say over the clean-up plan, including worker safety.
“TVA shall incorporate all changes to the plan recommended by EPA, and implement the plan during the pendency of the response actions,” the order stated.
But a report of a conference call in May 2009 showed the EPA began conceding to demands of TVA and Jacobs before a safety plan for workers was even drafted.
Mark Kovak, an EPA national safety manager, told representatives of TVA and Jacobs he wanted workers to be outfitted in TyVek suits if monitors detected dangerous exposure levels, and he wanted the bar for what was considered a dangerous exposure level to be set low — on the side of worker safety, the report showed.
Jacobs’ safety manager balked, with backing from another major government contractor, The Shaw Group Inc., also hired by TVA for “technical expertise,” the report showed.
Harry Pullum of The Shaw Group and Sean Healey of Jacobs insisted the suits “should not be required needlessly,” arguing they might make the workers hot and insisting any standards for dangerous exposure levels should be set high, which meant workers could be exposed to greater levels of toxic chemicals and metals such as arsenic than the EPA said was safe.
“No agreement was reached on this issue,” the report stated.
EPA OKS LOWER SAFETY STANDARDS
But the plan approved by the EPA soon after that call didn’t require Tyvek suits at all. The EPA-approved plan contained instead strict rules on whether a worker could even qualify for a respirator or a dust mask. It allowed workers to bring their own respirators and masks, but it gave Jacobs final say, with a provision that said the firm could nix such gear if it “created a hazard.”
Jacobs’ site safety manager, Tom Bock, and TVA site supervisor Gary McDonald both have admitted refusing workers’ requests for respirators and dust masks in violation of the plan’s rules on the approval process.
The EPA also allowed testing that did not focus on arsenic as the leading indicator of dangerous exposure levels for workers — despite the agency’s own conclusion the coal ash at the Kingston site was full of it, records show. Less than two years into the cleanup, the EPA — at the urging of TVA and Jacobs — abandoned any testing for arsenic in July 2011.
On separate occasions, workers secretly filmed Jacobs Engineering staffers cleaning coal ash out of monitor filters before packaging them to be sent for testing. Submitted
CRIMINAL PROBE? NO ONE WILL SAY
The EPA isn’t talking, refusing to answer specific questions about its role in protecting workers. It also won’t talk about a federal law that carries criminal penalties for anyone who “falsifies, tampers with, renders inaccurate or fails to install any monitoring device” ordered under an EPA plan. That law also carries criminal penalties for anyone who “knowingly violates” the safety plan, lies, files false documents and endangers workers or the public.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office won’t say if it’s ordered up a criminal investigation. TVA’s Office of the Inspector General is keeping mum, too.
Russell Johnson, a state prosecutor whose jurisdiction includes Roane County, is pushing for both a state and federal probe but has not yet determined if he has legal authority under state statutes.