TVA Coal Ash Cleanup Continues
It’s been nearly one year since the infamous coal ash spill at a TVA Kingston facility that released 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory River and surrounding land. Recently reporters were invited to monitor the cleanup progress. The site boasts a working force of nearly 500 along with 150 heavy machines. Their efforts are focused on the river, which is expected to be restored by the spring of 2010. They are currently removing 85-100 train car loads every day. The Knoxville News-Sentinel reports:
“By spring 2010 we should be finished with the Emory River, and then we will start with the Swan Pond area,” he said. “We intend to clean up the Swan Pond embayment to the way it was before.”
So far, workers have removed about 2.2 million cubic yards of coal fly ash from the river and have about another million cubic yards to go, Scott said. Then, there is about another 2.5 million cubic yards on land, said Craig Zeller, EPA remedial project manager. Cleaning up the water, which Francendese is overseeing, is the first priority, and Zeller said he will begin overseeing the recovery operation for EPA when the effort shifts to land.
“I am estimating it is going to take about $250-$550 million to clean that up,” Zeller said of the ash that is on land.
TVA has estimated total cost of the cleanup to range from $933 million to $1.2 billion.
The environmental restoration appears to be going well. Hopefully the economic restoration of the families affected by this disaster is well under way.
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