TVA Checking Dams After Earthquake

The Tennessee Valley Authority is inspecting its dams closest to the epicenter of yesterday’s earthquake on the eastern seaboard. Engineers are performing visual checks of TVA’s coal ash storage sites as well.

Only Tellico Dam near Knoxville recorded any shaking, so says to the utility’s chief operating officer. But just to be safe, 15 dams are getting checked out. So far, no problems have been found at the hydropower plants or at so-called ash impoundments, which store the leftover ash from burning coal. TVA’s disastrous ash pile collapse at its Kingston plant in 2008 is still being cleaned up.

The shaking centered in Virginia didn’t trip any of TVA’s six nuclear reactors. But engineers are looking them over for problems too, the utility says, out of an abundance of caution.