Workers got sick after cleaning up TVA’s coal ash. A new book recounts their fight for justice.

In 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority became the face of the largest industrial disaster in U.S. history: a 60-foot mountain of coal ash collapsed and spread across the town of Kingston. 

More than one billion gallons of toxic sludge — a volume about 100 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill — leaked into the land, some people’s homes and the Emory River, which flows through multiple rivers into the Gulf of Mexico. 

Afterwards, about 900 workers came to Kingston to help clean up the mess. They were told the coal ash was safe. 

It wasn’t. 

Workers got sick with illnesses like lung disease and cancer, and the deaths of more than 50 people have now been tied to the cleanup of coal ash, which contains radioactive materials and heavy metals. Some workers sued. They won a jury verdict in 2018 that found Jacobs Engineering, the corporation hired by TVA to oversee the cleanup and recovery of profitable materials, had failed to protect the workers. Jacobs filed multiple appeals but lost each one. 

In 2023, after 10 years at court, workers accepted a settlement with Jacobs, which has rebranded into Jacobs Solutions Inc. and created a spin-off and merger with Amentum. Jacobs unsuccessfully tried to claim immunity multiple times prior to the settlement.

“The playbook for these sorts of big environmental, mass tort cases is to drag it out for as long as possible,” said Jared Sullivan, author of “Valley So Low,” a book that details the legal battle of the workers and their lawyers. “As you’re litigating it, the plaintiffs — the workers — get sicker and sicker and sicker. And as they get sicker, they get more desperate and desperate for money to cover their mounting medical bills.” 

The spill ultimately led the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt the first national regulations on coal ash in 2015. But the new EPA administrator for the Trump administration announced this week that the agency would be taking “actions” on coal ash regulations and other environmental regulations designed to protect the public.

The New Yorker listed “Valley So Low” among the best books of 2024.

Listen to the interview with WPLN News above.