Drinking Water Threatened: TVA Tries to Hide Information About Water Contamination from Massive Coal Spill

By Kelly Hearn, The Nation. Posted April 3, 2009.

At a March 5 community meeting, state and federal officials again reiterated that government testing shows air and water near the site to be safe. Meanwhile, Rick Cantrell, a member of Tennessee Coal Ash Survivors, an advocacy organization formed in the wake of the disaster, told the Associated Press that his group's water quality data has "either been disregarded or just brushed off by TVA." Button shares Cantrell's assessment. TVA officials, he said, "make these global statements and avoid having to answer real questions about the data discrepancies." At the minimum, he said, the authority should be more forthcoming about its science protocols.

Further Health Risks

Another issue raises concerns: the TVA's claim that cenospheres are inert. A study conducted in the 1970s by Alex Gabbard, now a retired scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, seems to show that the TVA misrepresented what is known about these particles. "It's true that cenospheres by themselves are harmless," said Gabbard, but his research determined that metals including uranium bind to the otherwise benign cenospheres, potentially turning them into a vector for toxins. "A main question, is," he said in an interview with The Nation, "What about all the other stuff in the ash?"

A cloud also hovers over the TVA's approach to well water sampling. By February 3 TDEC had sampled more than 100 private groundwater wells within a four-mile radius of the plant, announcing that all sample results were within safe drinking water standards. But, again, critics suggest the data lacked credibility.

"Our data showed all kinds of heavy metals in private wells," said Jeff Stant of the EIP. "I don't understand how official data can show otherwise." Stant told The Nation that while his team was not able to test wells at the spill site because they had been sealed off by the TVA, the wells EIP tested showed high levels of sodium, which poses a risk for people with heart problems, as well as the metals aluminum and manganese.

TDEC has issued an enforcement order against the TVA for violating water quality standards that protect aquatic wildlife, but an agency spokesperson said that "results to date have not indicated exceedances of the primary drinking standards for metals."

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Kelly Hearn is an investigative reporter whose work has been funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the North American Congress on Latin America.

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