TVA spill destroys habitat

This the only way I could get it to post

 

I am a retired TVA employee and I worked in the section that was responsible for the DAILEY inspection of these ash dikes. Each morning it was our job to check the dike and report any suspicious looking seepage. When I heard TVA or anyone suggests that the excess rain and the freezing and thawing of the dikes may have contributed to the failure of this dike. Well you can form your own opinion about this but here is something you may not know. This type of area is built to TVA standard to with stand what is called the possibility of what is known as the 100 year rain (amount of rain falling in a 24 hr period approx 8 to 10 inches). I was not at this plant (Kingston) where this happened but at another location that I will not disclose for fear of retaliation I would hope this particular web site would honor my anonymity. From past experience I will tell you it was probably not the Fault of the coal yard local supervision.  After hearing the people living near the dikes and saying that the gray material seeping through tells me TVA was well aware that a collapse was emanate. More than likely the local coal yard supervision had tried to convince TVA corporate that there was a real need of immediate attention. As sometimes happens with TVA some corporate person sitting in Chattanooga or Knoxville that may have not even known what an ash pond looked like had made the call that this dike was OK and there was no need for concern.    The money it would take to repair was needed in other areas of the power production. I know this from past experience. I once worked on a project that involved a coal yard drainage pond. This pond had never been cleaned out of coal fines from run off (50 years) and because I used the word dredge in my description for justification someone in corporate turned it down because I used dredge instead of cleaned out. (Dredge meant the money would come from a different pot of money). It was for 60k to clean it out. 10 days later we had the 100 year rain and because the pond was full of coal fines the 8 to 10 inches of rain over took the pond and destroyed three 100 HP electric motors that ran the pumps plus the pumps. The results in the end were well over 180k. Just because of the word dredge and someone in corporate that had no idea of what a coal yard drainage pond was. Had it not been for the fast thinking of an extraordinary coal yard supervisor that took action immediately to get enough 8 to 12 inch pumps rented and put into service to route the excess water to the ash pond. Because of his effort an environment disaster was averted.

With many loads of the large limestone rip rap placed in the appropriate locations at these seeps should have avoided this catastrophe. .   What I’m saying is the rain and temp had nothing to do with it and if it did the probability was known .MAYBE THE SAME THING HAPPENED AT KINGSTON. The fix was available but money wasn’t because of some idiot know it all .