TVA May Spend $741.1M on Phase 2 of Kingston Cleanup

Date: January 21, 2010

Source: News Room

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said an engineering study has revealed that the second phase of its Kingston, TN ash spill cleanup could cost as much as $741.1 million. TVA is looking at three alternatives for Phase II, which involves removing 2.4 million cubic yards of ash from Swan Pond Creek embayment and an adjacent 300 acres. The Dec. 22, 2008, spill at the federal utility's Kingston Fossil Plant released 5.4 million cubic yards (1 billion gallons) of coal ash sludge into the nearby Emory River, Swan Pond Creek and surrounding land. The first phase of the cleanup is ongoing and involves removing 3 million cubic yards of sludge from the Emory River and shipping it via rail to the Arrowhead landfill in Alabama and is expected to cost at least $428.5 million. The third phase of cleanup will be to remove ash that remains on the bottom of the Emory River and any that has migrated into the Clinch and Tennessee rivers. While the overall price for the entire three-phase cleanup is still estimated to be $933 million to $1.2 billion, there is still no cost estimate for the third phase since the full scope of that work is unknown.

To learn more and see progress of the cleanup, visit the TVA's website: www.tva.gov/news/kingston.

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