Community | January 12, 2009 | 21 comments

Hefty price tag: TVA spill cleanup costing $1 million per day

source: http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=74436&catid=2

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JackHerer
The cleanup has cost $1 million or more each day, and it is expected to continue to cost that much for the foreseeable future, said Tennessee Valley Authority Executive Vice President of Fossil Fuel Preston Swafford.
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21 comments // Hefty price tag: TVA spill cleanup costing $1 million per day

  • Elevator
  • willyb
    • 0
      willyb  

    • My father-in-law (a power plant engineer but not for TVA) lives just a few miles from the Kingston plant and says this story is way overblown. The coal slurry mostly ended up in a low place with little access to the real moving water. He says only a few homes were really impacted, and that TVA had put those people in hotels, bought them food, and taken care of all of their needs. They will most likely end up buying those people's property at VERY reasonable rates if the owners are not satisfied with the cleanup.

      He says the risk of water supply contamination is much lower than the media makes out, and that the environmental impact is also lower than the media is claiming. He has been to the site, and has worked in this industry for many years. He is retired and has nothing to gain by saying these things--especially since this is basically in his back yard.

      While this incident shouldn't go without serious reforms to the way TVA checks their retention ponds, and how they store slurry, this isn't a sign of the apocalypse or anything. I know the natural thing is to talk about it like you know and immediately condemn the 'evil corporation', but I don't think it is warranted in this case.

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
  • ii386
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  
    • ii386:

      Current, AP, Rueters, UPI, NPR, BBC, Democracy Now, API, PRI, Forbes, NY Times... and we could go on.

      Don't forget all the local coverage and the infinite echo of 2nd hand blogging.

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • ii386:

      In America we now have news cycles. New news cycles tells us to move along. They are still rehashing Sarah Palin. Talk about move along, I wish they would move along. Enough Sarah Palin.

      Mainstream media will not change as long as we and our friends and neighbors keep moving along. Nothing will change as long as we keep moving along. Sites like current offer us an opportunity to spread the news. As more people loose their jobs, they will be stopping and looking at what is going on in America. I think they will realize they were willfully misled. Shame on those they trusted. Far too many people still believe they are watching news 24/7.

    • 3 years ago
  • thrashjuhnkie
    • 0
      thrashjuhnkie  

    • Obviously someone needs a really big slap on the hand. ( Or face). Why is that an industry can get away with something like this and be called an accident. But, if one man decided to buy an 18 wheeler worth of oil and then spilled it in the same place, even if he had all the right permits and licenses and every right to do so up to the spilling. What do you think would be happening to him?

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
  • retran
  • Elevator
    • 0
      Elevator  
    • thrashjuhnkie:

      Depends on who the man was. Ted Kennedy killed a passenger whilst driving recklessly then fled the scene and was never prosecuted.

      Remember this is not any old coal plant. It is one built, owned and operated by the government.

    • 3 years ago
  • pinkerbelle
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  
    • pinkerbelle:

      Nuclear is cleaner than coal. Nuclear power also has a record of emitting less radiation out into the wild.

      With nuclear, the prob. is that a chance of disaster, however remote, contained, provisioned, makes it nearly unacceptable to many. (I flip flop on that). I also admit I still find a certain lure with idea of "clean coal" (flip flopping on that too). This TVA site is after all, an older legacy operation???

    • 3 years ago
  • kcfoxie
    • 0
      kcfoxie  
    • pinkerbelle:

      We have no probelm paving the planet. Now line it with solar panels, use some geo-thermal tactics with solar (salt being heated by rays bounced from mirrors like in Spain) for night time power generation using a steam generator.

      We don't need coal nor nuclear. All we need is that big lightbulb in the sky.

    • 3 years ago
  • nkeg87
    • 0
      nkeg87  

    • Ok. Thats a lot of money. And I'm surprised theyre even cleaning it up, if they are at all. I'm interested to know exactly HOW. I hope there is some kind of supervision to ensure it is done correctly and properly. Knowing this country, they're probably just doing a face-lift.

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  
    • nkeg87:

      I don't think even environmental science experts are exactly sure how to go forward with this! Its unprecedented the size of slurry spill, though we do have precedent for cleaning up man-made disasters covering huge areas. Superfund sites like Times Beach (an early one, took 20+ years to clean up), and there's dozens others.

    • 3 years ago
  • NoGodsNoMasters
    • 0
      NoGodsNoMasters  

    • Well get use to it. The more our government spews out their clean coal disinformation the more million dollar a day disasters we will have to look forward to.

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • navider
  • daveguy
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