In a curiously timed public hearing, TVA has announced its intention to add coal ash to the gypsum landfill being built on the banks of the Clinch River. This landfill has already failed several times and has even leached gypsum into the Clinch River, we are just finding out. The public hearing was after the December County Commission meeting and the public comment period ends before the next Commission meeting in a very transparent attempt to force this through before anybody finds out about it.

We are calling on County Executive Ron Woody and the County Commission to get involved and stop this travesty. The first thing is to demand an extension of the comment period for 90 days so all the facts can come out. They won't be pretty.

TDEC is currently headed by former TVA Attorney, Bob Martineau, who the fought NC Attorney General's lawsuit to force TVA to clean up its coal ash emissions.

TDEC failed to protect the people of Kingston and Roane County in the case of the 2008 TVA ash disaster and is shirking its duty today, by its intention of allowing TVA to create another unsafe coal ash landfill on the banks of the Clinch River at Kingston, TN

TVA and a lapdog TDEC are asking the people of Kingston TN to trust them, since nothing could possibly go wrong with their plan to landfill coal ash illegally close to the Clinch river. Of course that's what they said last time when TDEC failed to protect Kingston from TVA's ineptitude prior to the 2008 coal ash disaster, and now, just as the Clinch, Emory, and Tennessee river environments have recovered, they want to start it all over again.

This is a slap in the face for every property owner who saw their resale values crushed after the 2008 disaster and TVA refuse to make them whole, even after the judge ruled TVA responsible for the damage, because the law is written so TVA doesn't have to be responsible to all of those it harms.

TDEC failed to protect the people of Kingston and Roane County in the case of the 2008 TVA ash disaster and is shirking its duty today, by its intention of allowing TVA to create another unsafe coal ash landfill on the banks of the Clinch River at Kingston, TN

TVA and a lapdog TDEC are asking the people of Kingston TN to trust them. Nothing could possibly go wrong with their plan to landfill coal ash illegally close to the Clinch river. TDEC failed to protect Kingston from TVA's ineptitude prior to the 2008 coal ash disaster, and now, just as the Clinch, Emory, and Tennessee river environments have recovered, they want to start it all over again.

This is a slap in the face for every property owner who saw their resale values crushed after the 2008 disaster and TVA refuse to make them whole, even after the judge ruled TVA responsible for the damage, because the law is written so TVA doesn't have to be responsible to all of those it harms.

It is difficult to see how the just released EPA regulations can possibly be bent to allow such a thing. Some of the points that are violated are:

· Reducing the risk of catastrophic failure by requiring regular inspections of the structural safety of surface impoundments;

· Restrictions on the location of new surface impoundments and landfills so that they cannot be built in sensitive areas such as wetlands and earthquake zones;

· Protecting groundwater by requiring monitoring, immediate cleanup of contamination, and closure of unlined surface impoundments that are polluting groundwater;

· Protecting communities using fugitive dust controls to reduce windblown coal ash dust;
· Requiring liner barriers for new units and proper closure of surface impoundments and landfills that will no longer receive CCRs.