"When it's done, it will look like a big grassy knoll," Deacy said.

Is that supposed to make us feel more at ease? That's what the ash pile looked like just before the dyke broke. TVA never learns from their mistakes. They just blindly stagger from one catastrophe to another. I wonder what's next for the Kingston plant? A rupture in one of their 30,000 gallon anhydrous ammonia tanks?

For example, isn't the ash that got into the Tennessee River and Watts Bar Lake still there?

-- OneTahiti

I'm comparing where we are to where we were. The permanent landfill is nearly bomb proof compared to the old one, which was not much more than a pile. This forced the switch to dry ash storage which does away with the settling ponds and continued discharge into the Emory. And yes, there is a lot of ash left in the lake. So far the macro invertebrate studies don't show any critical bio accumulation, but this needs to be watched. The natural flow of sediment down the Emory will cover the residual ash. It's mostly already been mixed with native sediment to the point that it is below the 50% ash content that is the point at which it behaves like dirt instead of ash. I agree with the determination that getting the rest of the ash out of the system would do more damage than good in the long term. There is no perfect solution that I see. At this point Mom nature has gone a long way toward dealing with what's left, and I think the area will be better than before if you look at the whole picture.