How bad was it?

BY ANDA RAY WHO IS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR THE TVA OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENT & RESEARCH. 
 
CARELESS CLAIMS DISTORT PERSPECTIVE ON KINGSTON SPILL

The sight of 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash covering the landscape at Kingston Fossil Plant is deeply disturbing to anyone who cares about the environment. It has caused anxiety about health and safety, created hardships for the community near the plant and seriously eroded the trust residents of the Tennessee Valley have for TVA. TVA is working hard every day to clean the land and water, return the community’s quality of life and restore trust. We know that none of that will happen easily or nearly as quickly as we would like.
   
While no one was injured last Dec. 22 when the dike failed, a very real casualty of Kingston has been objectivity. We regularly see exaggerated, speculative and ill-informed pronouncements presented as fact. This misinformation further traumatizes an already worried community. If we are to come to terms with the true nature of the Kingston spill — including the risks — it is vital to understand some of the science that underlies fly ash and its effects on human health and the environment.
   
Kingston has been compared with the worst environmental disasters of modern history, including the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. But the effects of the Kingston spill are not in the same ballpark. The Valdez spill released 10.8 million gallons of crude oil that coated 11,000 square miles of sea and shoreline and killed up to a half-million sea birds as well as otters and other sea life. The Kingston accident spilled ash on about 300 acres — eight of which were privately owned land — and stranded about 200 fish on the banks of the river as the surge of water displaced by the spill receded. While it has disrupted the life of a community, caused some families to lose their homes and doubtless smothered many small aquatic organisms, the evidence indicates that, to date, the Kingston spill has had minimal effects on fish and wildlife overall. But the quicker we get the ash out of the water, the less potential there is for future impacts.
   
Recent accounts have dramatically portrayed the release as a “tsunami of toxic coal ash” and fly ash as “so toxic” it requires warning plaques on the rail cars carrying it for disposal. While fly ash does contain toxic elements, including arsenic and selenium, they are present in very low concentrations — about the levels found in wellfertilized garden soil. According to public health experts, the principle threats to human health are a respiratory risk from breathing the ash and the possibility of a skin rash from coming into contact with it. If you visit the Kingston site, you will see a parade of water trucks keeping the ash wet during dry weather. Every car, truck and pair of work boots that enters the ash zone is washed before it leaves the site. One of the largest arrays of air monitors in North America — overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Tennessee — have taken more than 87,000 air samples that consistently show air quality is safe. (The actual air sampling results — along with all Kingston sampling — can be viewed at www.tva.com/kingston.)
   
As for needing hazardous shipping plaques to transport fly ash, thousands of chemicals are shipped on the nation’s highways every day — and regularly used in homes, schools and businesses — that are orders of magnitude more toxic than fly ash. Like gasoline, fertilizer or anything containing more than trace amounts of toxic substances, fly ash should be treated and transported carefully. It does not belong anywhere that it can easily become airborne, be ingested or clog waterways. However, the notion that fly ash represents a uniquely dangerous threat to human health simply is not supported by the facts.
   
With all the conflicting reports in the press and on the Internet, we clearly understand that our Kingston neighbors are concerned about their health. That is why TVA is making free, independent health assessments available to the community near Kingston.
   
About 3 million cubic yards of fly ash spilled into the Emory River. What are the effects of such a spill on drinking water? Measured against EPA standards, drinking water in the vicinity of Kingston is safe — period. Constant testing by the state of Tennessee and the EPA shows that municipal water supplies meet quality standards set by the state for drinking water. The state is also testing private groundwater drinking wells, and those results show these water sources meet the standards, as well. Each agency does its own sampling, and the analyses are done by certified, independent labs.
   
But what about aquatic life effects? The answer is: virtually no long-term effects at this point, but we have a team of nationally recognized experts performing investigations and watching closely. We know that about 200 fish were killed in the initial surge and perhaps thousands of smaller aquatic organisms in the immediate vicinity were smothered. But there have been no widespread fish kills and no serious impacts of any kind recorded downstream. Reports of deformed fish downstream from Kingston — some without reproductive organs — have received widespread publicity. Those claims are debunked by scientists who point out that reproductive organs in many species of fish are only visible during spawning season and that the incidence of deformities is about the same as occurs in other healthy fish populations. Mutations — were they to occur — would first be visible in recently hatched fish or larvae, not in adults.
   
TVA has already removed more than 300,000 cubic yards of ash from the river and plans to have virtually all of the river ash cleaned up by spring. It is possible that as dredging continues, sensitive aquatic organisms could be harmed by even the small amounts of toxic material in the ash. That’s why TVA is monitoring the water quality around the dredging every day and testing for toxic contaminants. And we welcome all information that can help us protect human health and the environment as we move to safely and quickly remove the ash from the river and lands on which it spilled.    

Critics will label any attempt to place Kingston into perspective as minimizing or excusing the accident. That is the last thing we want to do. Everyone at TVA is acutely aware that Kingston is TVA’s responsibility. We are moving as fast and safely as possible to clean it up. We recognize there are risks associated with the cleanup, but the alternative — leaving 3 million cubic yards of ash in the Emory River — simply is not acceptable. We intend to do the job carefully and do it right. It is our goal that people will one day be able to stand at the Kingston site and find it difficult to believe a spill ever happened.