TVA takes over Roane County sports park maintenance amid worries over coal ash
The Tennessee Valley Authority will take over caring for a Roane County park that was closed as its leaders sought to test the athletic fields there for coal ash contamination.
TVA announced last week the utility is taking over maintenance duties for the Swan Pond Sports Complex in Roane County.
TVA’s new chief executive officer, Jeffrey Lyash, on Monday courted Anderson County leaders worried about coal ash contamination at its Bull Run Fossil Plant with a private lunch and tour of the coal ash dumps there.
Two days later, the agency took aim at Roane County leaders — who are suing TVA over coal ash — in a news release about the park.
“The site is intended for public use and enjoyment by the people of Roane County and beyond,” the release stated. “This is an important venue for Roane County.
“The complex is currently not being maintained and is reaching a state where it will become increas
ingly difficult to return the complex to its original condition without significant time and expense,” the release continued. “This is especially true for the turf on the athletic fields.”
Roane County officials fired back Thursday. Roane County Commission Chairman Randy Ellis called the move a stunt.
“They know exactly why we had to shut it down,” Ellis said. “They’re the ones who weren’t transparent [about the toxicity of coal ash]. They’re the reason we didn’t know if it was safe for our workers or the public.”
“They’re the ones who weren’t transparent [about the toxicity of coal ash]. They’re the reason we didn’t know if it was safe for our workers or the public.”
— ROANE COUNTY COMMISSION CHAIRMAN RANDY ELLIS
PARK AT EDGE OF HISTORIC SPILL SITE
The sports complex property sits at the edge of the site where 7.3 million tons of toxic coal ash sludge spilled from an unlined pit at the Kingston Fossil Plant in December 2008. It remains the largest manmade environmental disaster in U.S. history and put a national spotlight on coal ash.
The by-product of burning coal to produce electricity, coal ash contains 26 toxins, heavy metals and radioactive isotopes, according to TVA’s own testing and a Duke Energy Material Safety Data Sheet.
But at the time of the spill, TVA repeatedly insisted coal ash was safe and contained only a handful of ingredients, with arsenic the only worrisome one, according to an ongoing investigation by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Disaster clean-up workers say Jacobs Engineering Inc., the global contractor TVA put in charge of cleaning up the mess and keeping workers safe, told them it was safe, too, and failed to provide them adequate protective gear and decontamination facilities.
The mess was cleaned up by 2015, with disaster relief workers carrying out the final grading work on the sports complex before TVA leased it to Roane County. Children have been playing soccer and other sports there ever since.
ROANE DEMANDS TESTING
Now, at least 40 of the laborers who cleaned up the spill are dead, and more than 400 are sick, according to a tally by the Knoxville News Sentinel. The workers allege in federal and state lawsuits filed against Jacobs Engineering Inc. that long-term exposure to coal ash is the cause.
When a jury in U.S. District Court in November ruled in favor of the workers in the first phase of trial, Roane County leaders said they, too, had been misled by TVA about coal ash and the possible contamination the spill left behind.
On the anniversary of the spill, Roane County leaders organized a memorial for the dead workers at the sports complex and placed a plaque there to commemorate it. Ansol Clark, a disaster relief worker who says coal ash poisoned him, built a cross and placed it in the ground at the entrance to the sports complex.
With some workers testifying about worries they didn’t fully excavate all the coal ash from the area where the sports complex was to be constructed, the Roane County Commission earlier this year voted to seek testing for coal ash contamination.
TVA countered there was no coal ash underneath the layers of compacted clay and soil from which the athletic fields were constructed.
But the utility agreed to sample the top layer of soil for contamination and allow the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to take part of that sample for independent testing.
The sampling plan — crafted by TDEC — did not call for core drilling, a method that would have taken samples deep into the earth beneath the sports complex.
Roane County Mayor Ron Woody said TDEC has not yet received results of the independent testing. He said a TVA representative told him on Wednesday “their results came back and were negative.”
“They said they were going to take over mowing it,” Woody said. “We’re not going to put our folks on those fields until we get confirmation from TDEC and find out what benchmarks TVA used in its testing.”
TVA’s Brooks said the utility doesn’t want to “pre-empt” TDEC by discussing TVA’s findings.
“We will respect TDEC’s role in testing and discussing the results with the public,” he said. “Our testing was for our purposes and confirmed what we thought to begin with. TDEC is still in the process of testing … and we would prefer for TDEC to release and discuss the results once that is completed.”
TDEC spokesman Eric Ward confirmed Thursday evening the agency has not yet received the results of its testing.
Asked about the cross, Brooks said TVA wouldn’t touch it and will be allowing Roane County to take back maintenance duties once TDEC’s results are in.
“TVA has no plans to remove anything during the temporary maintenance activities,” Brooks said.
TVA MUM ON WORKERS’ PLIGHT
TVA has refused to talk about the sickened workers, saying the utility is not a party to the litigation. Jacobs has invoked a provision in its contract with TVA that will allow the contractor to seek payment for legal bills, including any damages awarded, from TVA and its ratepayers, the newspaper’s investigation has shown.
Jacobs is trying to appeal the November verdict in which the jury ruled the contractor breached its contract with TVA and that breach was capable of causing the sicknesses and diseases from which the workers suffer. Jacobs denies wrongdoing.
Leaders in Roane County, Kingston and Harriman have now filed a lawsuit in Roane County Circuit Court against TVA and Jacobs Engineering. TVA and Jacobs have since transferred the case to U.S. District Court.
The lawsuit accuses TVA and Jacobs Engineering Inc., of hiding from the public internal records about the toxins and heavy metals in coal ash; destroying evidence including exposure threat test samples, test results, videos and photographs; tampering with exposure threat testing by watering down monitors designed to warn the public to lower results and lying to the public, ratepayers and TVA’s own board of directors about the cleanup and the toxicity of coal ash both at the time of the spill and now.