Glynn Wilson

A view of the TVA coal fired power plant at Kingston Tennessee across the Emory River. That is not a natural island in the river. It is an island of toxic coal ash.

by Glynn Wilson

KINGSTON, Tenn. — Steve Scarborough came to East Tennessee from Georgia for the scenic boating and stayed to raise a family and start his own canoe building company, Dagger Kayaks and Canoes. But on Dec. 22, the longest night of 2008, his world was turned upside down when an embankment wall caved at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s coal fired power plant here, causing the largest environmental disaster of its kind in U.S. history.

Heavy rains, freezing temperatures, and potentially a minor earthquake a few days before, caused the holding pond for TVA’s coal ash waste to fail, dumping 2.6 million cubic yards of the mildly toxic material into the middle of the scenic Emory River.

Tests of the river water around the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders. But levels of toxicity are not that dangerous and not the main issue, Scarborough said. The event was not just a spill of a hazardous substance, like many environmental disasters in the past, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989.

Glynn Wilson

Steve Scarborough of Kingston, Tennessee, talks about the devastation from the TVA coal ash spill in the land he loves.

This was not just a spill, but a major man-made disaster and a significant geological event. The mountain of ash completely filled up the main channel of the river for six miles, creating a biological dessert for perhaps 30 miles and disrupting the life of the river indefinitely.

It flooded pastures and destroyed homes, and it will take millions of dollars and many years for the river to be restored to anything like its native beauty and biological diversity.

“There are no excuses for this,” Scarborough said.

Coal ash from the nation’s coal-fired power plants is not a regulated substance, and TVA had no contingency plan in case of a spill.

While Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has issued an emergency order for TVA to begin cleaning up the area, some critics, including state Representative Frank Nicely, R-Strawberry Plains, have said the state Department of Environment and Conservation is holding up a permit to begin work.

Not true, said Scarborough, who is a member of the conservation board for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. A phone call confirmed that work is scheduled to begin on March 20. The problem is finding and preparing a new site to dump the ash and letting contracts for workers and heavy equipment to be brought in to begin a massive clean up that could take five years or more.

TVA has already spent millions of dollars to hire heavy equipment operators to dig a channel through the new land mass and allow some of the river to flow down stream, where the floating cenospheres are being caught by boom skimmers. An underwater dam called a weir is being constructed to keep settled ash from moving downstream, although the ash has already created a blanket covering the bottom of the river for miles.

Since the ash was stored wet, when it hit the river it spread out like cream spreads out when you pour it into coffee, Scarborough said.

While only few houses were totally devastated by the ash, the property values in the area have plummeted in an already depressed housing market caused by the mortgage meltdown. Scarborough owns about 150 acres in the area. Now it is not worth anything near what he paid for it, although he’s one of the lucky ones. While some families already had their waterfront homes for sale to pay for their kids’ college educations, he is well off enough not to be totally devastated by the drop in property values.

Yet the aesthetic and psychological damage is still evident in his face as he talks about the disaster.

When people see the devastation caused by the massive geological event, on top of all the other problems caused by burning coal for electricity, he said, it should burn into people’s minds that there is “no such thing as ‘clean coal’.”

“One of the dumbest thing humans do,” he said, “is dig coal out of the ground and burn it.”

Glynn Wilson

A close up of the coal ash mess…

Glynn Wilson

A six mile long land mass of coal ash where the most vibrant and biologically diverse stretch of the Emory River used to be.

Video of the coal ash spill area and interview with Steve Scarborough

Other Relevant Links After the Jump

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by Glynn Wilson

In an agreement reached today between the former Bush administration and U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers have agreed to testify before the committee in transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury. The committee has also reserved the right to have public testimony from Rove and Miers, according to the press release on the committee’s Website.

The release gives no indication of when this deposition will be scheduled, but it was agreed that invocations of official “executive” privileges would be significantly limited, according to the release, and if the committee uncovers information necessitating it, William Kelley, a former White House lawyer who played a role in the U.S. attorney firings, may also be called to testify in a deposition.

The committee will also receive Bush White House documents relevant to this inquiry, Conyers said, and under the agreement, the landmark ruling by Judge John Bates rejecting key Bush White House claims of executive immunity and privilege will be preserved.

“If the agreement is breached, the committee can resume the litigation,” Conyers said. “I have long said that I would see this matter through to the end and am encouraged that we have finally broken through the Bush administration’s claims of absolute immunity. This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight.”

He said it was also “a vindication of the search for truth.”

“I am determined to have it known whether U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons,” he said, “and if so, by whom.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the agreement for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify “upholds a fundamental principle: no one is above the law and Congressional subpoenas must be complied with.”

“As public officials, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. It is the institutional duty of Congress — as an independent branch — to ensure against abuse of power through meaningful oversight over the Executive Branch,” she said. “When there are credible allegations about the politicization of law enforcement, the need for Congressional oversight is at its greatest.”

“In upholding our oaths of office, the House of Representatives was determined to preserve checks and balances — the separation of powers that protects the rule of law,” she continued in a statement. “It brought action in court to enforce the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas, and won a major ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissing the extreme position of absolute immunity from Congressional oversight advocated by the Bush Administration for former Administration officials. Under this agreement, the precedent established by Judge Bates’ historic ruling rejecting this extreme Bush Administration doctrine will be preserved.

“Today’s agreement is a great victory for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the separation of powers,” she concluded. “I appreciate the strong leadership of Chairman John Conyers and the assistance of the Obama Administration. Congress now has the opportunity to uncover the truth and determine whether improper criteria were used by the Bush Administration to dismiss and retain U.S. Attorneys.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he hoped the agreement will help to finally uncover the truth about the firings of U.S. Attorneys and the Bush White House cover up designed to shield from public view the inappropriate and illegal actions of the last administration.

“It should not have taken until now to obtain testimony and documents from Bush administration officials connected to the investigation into the firings,” he said in a statement. “Today’s agreement leaves in place the court ruling that rejected the Bush administration’s unprecedented and unfounded blanket claims of executive privilege and immunity. I rejected those claims as excessive and wrong in my ruling on President Bush’s position over a year ago, and a bipartisan majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately found Karl Rove and former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in criminal contempt.

“I commend Chairman Conyers for the agreement reached today,” he continued. “I hope Congress, and the American people, will now finally hear long overdue answers to serious questions about political interference by the Bush White House in our nation’s top law enforcement agency.”

In his reaction via e-mail, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman said Congressman John Conyers “has worked boldly and courageously to break the impasse between Congress and the Karl Rove’s claim of Executive Privilege.”

“I congratulate Conyers in securing this crucial step toward the truth, I commend the House Judiciary Committee and its staff for its tireless work, and I encourage the Committee to muster the strength needed to hold Karl Rove’s feet to the fire to the fullest extent of the law until he is forth coming,” he said. “As much as this is an important breakthrough toward the truth, we must remember there are others, for example, the husband of the U.S. attorney who prosecuted me, who has been identified as a co-conspirator, and who must also be called before Congress to answer for his part in my prosecution.”

Other Links
AP: Karl Rove, Miers to Agree to Testify in Prosecutor Firings
NYT: Top Bush Aides to Testify in U.S. Attorneys’ Firings
BradBlog.com