The Kingston Coal Ash Spill: February 2009 Archives

[TVA Board Meeting] More Public Statement Highlights

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 1:36 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
The following highlights are from the "public listening session" following the formal board meeting.

"I expect a federal agency to do a better job protecting the environment than a private, profit-making corporation. And I expect TVA to make decisions that are sustainable for 100 years. I'm shocked that TVA had a non-sustainable approach to ash storage and ignored the warning signs that the dam could break."
--David Reister, Head of the Knoxville Chapter of the Sierra Club

"I live along the Emory River. I've been there 30 years, and I've had to get out of there in 10 minutes. Everyone who lives along that river knows how much rain can come ...The thought that this ash might increase the flooding there is kind of terrifying ... What if the hundred-year flood occurs? And if the ash is not cleaned up by then, what's it going to do to my town?"
--Barbara Majors, Harriman resident

"If you want to make a lot of money capitalizing on cost-to-risk ratios, move to Las Vegas and stop gambling with our lives and our land ... You have been serving us devastation in the form of costly and ready electricity, and this must change. You should be ashamed of yourselves and your PR machine."
--Amanda Cagle, Chattanooga Earth First and Mountain Justice
(Note: Cagle also presented the board with an open letter to TVA and President Obama, a call for a "green new deal" and a call for Kingston disaster relief. If or when she sends these documents to me, I'll post them here.)


[TVA Board Meeting] Statement from Chris Irwin

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 12:47 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
The following highlights are from the "public listening session" following the formal board meeting. (Note: Matt Landon, of United Mountain Defense, and Amy Broyles, of Knox County Commission, were scheduled to speak but were not there when called. I would have liked to have heard from both of them.)

Chris Irwin, Staff Attorney, United Mountain Defense, began by criticizing the meeting itself. 

"If you all are serious about increasing public participation in these meetings, consider having weekend meetings. A lot of people work for a living. The only reason I could be here is I work over at the courthouse. It means taking a day off work."

Then he moved on to meatier stuff. Earlier in the meeting, TVA CFO Kim Greene discussed renewable energy sources, saying they were "more expensive" than traditional sources. Irwin took issue with that. 

"Well, looking at the coal spill as well as the destruction of the highland watersheds
for the coal that you all are consuming, specifically in Campbell, Scott, and Claiborne Counties, in terms of the long-term costs, renewables are a lot cheaper," he said. "There's no such thing as clean coal. I think that's become very clear."

"But, nuclear doesn't seem like the option, like the alternative," Irwin said. "The fact that you all had trouble engineering and keeping a mud dam operational does not instill a lot of faith in the public that you'd be able to handle an unforgiving technology like nuclear. 

Irwin also attacked the ARAP (Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit) application that the utility filed with TDEC. The permit application details TVA's river dredging plans, calling the ash removal calculations inadequate. Go here for details. 


[TVA Board Meeting] Former RNC Head to Take Over As Chair

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 12:27 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Oddly, the most emotionally charged portion of today's board meeting (for the members, at least) concerned internal politics, not that other thing. TVA Board Chair Bill Sansom's term is up in May, so pursuant to the board's bylaws, they had to elect a new one today to take over. 

Mike Duncan, who was head of the Republican National Committee until two weeks ago, was nominated, which caused a problem among members who didn't want a political "lightning rod" to lead up the board, especially with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress. Still, though, they voted him in, with three members, Dennis Bottorf, Bill Sansom, and Bishop William Graves (who was teleconferenced in from California) dissenting. 

"I have no intention of moving this board back to where it was," a politicized body, Duncan said. "I pledge to work with Congress and the new administration."

[TVA Board Meeting] Rate Cuts on the Way

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 12:10 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Non-Kingston highlights:

  • TVA electric rates will be cut about 7 percent in April, resulting from lower fuel costs,  despite a litany of financial problems for the utility, detailed in the meeting by TVA's Chief Financial Officer Kim Greene. 
  • TVA CEO will forego incentives for 2009, cutting his pay by about 50 percent from what he made last year (about $2.2 million). 
  • As for the other 11,000 employees, the board decided to cut out corporate incentives, which account for about 30 percent of employee incentive dollars. 
  • TVA's lost $3 billion on the market since 2007, depleting its nuclear decommission and PENSION funds by nearly 40 percent apiece, even as pension obligations rose substantially. Board members pledged to maintain a "healthy pension system" at TVA.

[TVA Board Meeting] Kilgore Says Cleanup Could Be As Much as $800M

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 11:44 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
The TVA Board today spent more than an hour listening to updates and summaries of the past two months since the Dec. 22 Kingston Fossil Plant spill, which left 300 acres of Roane County Covered with more than a billion gallons of coal ash. 

Highlights:

  • TVA CEO Tom Kilgore said that the cost of the cleanup could be anywhere from $525 million to $800 million. Oh, and that doesn't even count the unforeseen costs, you know, like legal settlements, governmental fines, and the like.  They've already spent $31 million, he said. The board is looking into how to spread out such a massive cost among the ratepayers who will ultimately have to pay for it. That amount could be spread out "over generations," said board member Dennis Bottorf, who chairs the Finance, Strategy, Rates and Administration Committee.
  • A full report of the cause of the spill, prepared by the utility's Office of the Inspector General, is expected by this summer. 
  • The cleanup staff, including contractors, is now at 570 people. 
  • Cleanup crews have removed 200,000 cubic yards of ash from Swan Pond Road and Swan Pond Circle road so far. 
  • Kilgore said that TVA has now purchased 20 properties from area homeowners. "We have offers out for about 20 more," he said. There are now 27 displaced families in long-term housing, provided by TVA.
  • TVA has 67 storage lagoons similar to the one in Kingston, operating right now. That may change. "I've committed to look at other facilities and whether we should convert them to dry," he said. Independent engineering firm AECOM will be helping with that analysis. 
  • Kilgore will be giving the board a Kingston update every 30 days. 

TVA Board Meeting Today

By
Charles Maldonado
on February 12, 2009 8:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
(Sidenote: KNS' Scott Barker has a good story about a 1984 dike failure at Kingston)

In about 20 minutes, the seven-member TVA board will have its first public meeting since the Kingston Fossil Plant Ash spill. 

But, as the Tennessean reports this morning, there have been some other meetings, maybe in violation of Sunshine Law (or at least the spirit of Sunshine Law):

Board members have been meeting privately in committees, and on conference calls and closed sessions over the past month and a half -- all without the public knowing. The Tennessean has learned of four meetings since Dec. 22 that the TVA describes as "briefings," in which board members were present in Knoxville or on conference calls with management. The same type of unannounced, private meetings occurred before the spill, too.
....
The board says it's all perfectly legal, and its lawyers have given their OK. No votes or actions have been taken in these sessions, they say.
...
Critics say the real business occurs in the closeted committee meetings. Four such meetings have been held since the spill. The committees report at open board meetings, but their minutes are not provided to the public.
...
Federal law governing the agency allows its four committees to meet without public notice because the committees are small enough that they don't constitute a board quorum that can carry out policy of the agency, according to the board.

Others, however, say most decisions -- if not literally pre-determined -- are largely made in this shrouded committee process before official board meetings take place. 

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This page is a archive of entries in the The Kingston Coal Ash Spill category from February 2009.

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