TVA dumping toxic coal ash in poor, black communities

First an environmental nightmare. Now an environmental justice outrage.

In December, 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash laden with arsenic, lead and radioactive elements spilled from an impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Power Plant, creating a cleanup nightmare. But I suspect that even in their worst dreams, the residents of two counties in Georgia and Alabama never imagined that the TVA would be shipping the deadly sludge off to them.

Actually, I take that back. Both counties have large black populations and high rates of poverty, according to Facing South, an online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies. So maybe residents there are used to being on the receiving end of nastiness.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that the TVA is shipping some of the coal ash to two landfills, one in Taylor County near Mauk, Georgia, and the other in Perry County in Alabama, as part of a two-week “disposal test.” The authority actually stonewalled requests to identify where specifically the ash would be shipped, but Times Free Press reporter Pam Sohn figured it out independently.

Residents of those counties had no say in the TVA’s decision to use them as guinea pigs, according to Facing South:

The communities that will be getting the coal ash from Tennessee apparently did not get a chance for meaningful involvement in that decision since neither the TVA — a federally-owned corporation — nor regulatory authorities provided an opportunity for public comment.

So, first the TVA is responsible for the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Southern United States. Then it bungles management of the disaster in the immediate aftermath, and falsely minimizes the dangers from coal ash. Now it looks like they are determined to add environmental racism to their list of nightmarish accomplishments.