May 21, 2012
KINGSTON, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Kingston, Tenn. residents are concerned about how they're going to keep fly ash out of their water supply.
Wednesday afternoon, neighbors and some of their elected leaders have been hearing from TVA and a study leader from Oak Ridge Associated Universities who are looking into what coal fly ash might do to your lungs, liver and over-all health.
The question is more pressing since recent rains carried ash into the drinking water treatment plant that serves several in Roane County.
Birds of prey are far from the only eyes watching Roane Counties waters more closely.
Six months ago fly ash covered part of a Roane County community near the Kingston Fossil Plant, then, two weeks ago, heavy rains caused more trouble.
Kingston resident and activist Rick Cantrell says, "They found coal ash in the (water) treatment intake."
Two inches of gray sludge settled in the flockulator basin, which is the first gate in filtering Kingston's drinking water.
Kingston City Manage Tim Pinkerton says, "TVA took that sample to Muscle Shoals, to their laboratory in Muscle Shoals."
Confirming, Pinkerton says, that it is coal ash, self-dredged from the waters near the spill site.
Testers tell treatment engineers that it contains arsenic, but at less than half a level the EPA considers dangerous.
Pinkerton says, "One sample was one part per billion. Another, 2.8 parts per billion."
Cantrell says sarcastically, "But, ohh, that's fine. There's nothing to it. It will filter out."
The city manager says all of it was as would be any more ash that might make it that far.
But after this, Rick Cantrell says, "Coal ash is all the way down the Tennessee River now. Not cenispheres, but coal. The Emory has partly dredged itself now."
Cantrell claims that TVA's effort to make right have left out renters near or along the spill site.
Cantrell says, "Some of them are sick, I've met them. I've seen the doctors reports."
Some are suing. Turning medical claims into legal claims.
Pinkerton agrees that coal ash coming out of the Emory and Clinch rivers and into the Tennessee is a concern, but given the testing and filtering, Pinkerton says, "The water is safe, and we'll do everything we can to make sure it stays that way."
It's not clear whether the safest final solution is to move the mess, or to bury and cap it on-site.
Cantrell would just as soon not risk muddying someone else's water.
"Don't put it on somebody else. Don't make somebody else the guinea pigs. We are the guinea pigs."
Before the formal presentations, the long term recovery committee heard from Penny Dodson, who claims that fly ash has made her grandson sick.
TVA moved her after the spill, and she says that help will run out in July, and she'll be on her own.
The committee says TVA should make her situation right, but that somebody else, not TVA, should determine what she needs.
