TVA's Kingston Cleanup Continues

The first stage of TVA’s cleanup effort at its Kingston Fossil Plant is expected to be done next spring.

The power plant in Harriman Tennessee was the site of a massive coal ash spill last December, which dumped several million cubic yards of ash sludge into a nearby river and countryside.

TVA has been dredging the Emory River since spring in what it calls the “time-critical” phase of the cleanup, removing an average of 15 thousand cubic yards of ash each day. So far it’s pulled out about a million cubic yards, with some two million more to go.

Dennis Yankee is the environmental manager for recovery at the Kingston site. He says TVA is still working out details about how it will deal with the rest of the spill, in the so-called “non-time-critical” area, outside the river.

“We hope that decisions on what to do with the embayment will be made this coming winter, and then the equipment we have currently working on ash in the river and hauling will just roll right over and start that action as well.”

Yankee says the Emory River dredging will be done between February and May of next year, but TVA’s work restoring the site will continue for several years to come.

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So far TVA officials say they’ve spent about a quarter of a billion dollars on cleanup at Kingston.

The total cost of the cleanup effort in Harriman is estimated between $825 million and $1.2 billion. TVA says that cost will likely be offset by raising rates, but it’s not yet clear how much that will add to utility bills.

Officials say they’ll look at the cost with each budget cycle as the cleanup continues. And the total expense will distributed over the next fifteen years.

TVA has some nine million customers in seven states.

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