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S. HRG. 111–1177 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE 

TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 

AND THE RECENT MAJOR COAL ASH SPILL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JANUARY 8, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

BETTINA POIRIER, Staff Director 

RUTH VAN MARK, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

JANUARY 8, 2009 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ........................ 1 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 10 

Lautenberg, Hon. Frank, U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey ............... 12 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia .......................... 18 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon ................................ 18 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee ................... 19 

Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico ............................ 20 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................... 21 

WITNESSES 

Kilgore, Tom, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tennessee Valley Authority ................................................................................................................... 22 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 30 

Senator Udall ............................................................................................. 64 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 72 

Smith, Stephen A., DVM, Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean 

Energy ................................................................................................................... 117 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 120 

Response to an additional question from Senator Boxer .............................. 262 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Udall ............................................................................................. 263 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 267 

Rose, William ‘‘Howie,’’ Director of Emergency Management Services, Roane 

County, Tennessee ............................................................................................... 269 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 273 

Responses to additional question from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 277 

Senator Udall ............................................................................................. 277 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 277 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statement of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .................................... 287 

Statement of Tetra Tech, Inc. ................................................................................. 296 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE TENNESSEE 

VALLEY AUTHORITY AND THE RECENT 

MAJOR COAL ASH SPILL 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. 

The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer (chairman of 

the committee), presiding. 

Present: Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Lautenberg, Isakson, Carper, 

Alexander, Merkley, Udall. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. Good morning, everyone. I would like to begin today’s hearing by acknowledging and welcoming some of the people 

who live in the area devastated by the coal ash spill in Tennessee. 

And I know Senator Alexander has just greeted you all extensively. 

I had the privilege of meeting some of you in my office yesterday. 

And I see how this disaster has forever changed your lives, and we 

hope not forever, but for now, certainly. They are farmers, ranchers, nurses, and parents. And I would like to ask Bridget, Melinda, 

Ron, Teresa and Terry to please stand and be recognized so people 

understand what we are talking about here is about real people’s 

lives. 

The beautiful place where they lived was instantly transformed 

by a wall of ash, water and debris. They are anxious about the 

spill’s potential effects on health, especially to children, and they 

are anxious about their livelihoods. They sent me personal statements that I would like to enter into the record, and I will do so 

if there is no objection at this time. 

[The referenced material follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. I would also like to take a moment to say that 

our thoughts go out to all the people affected by the spill. 

We have two new colleagues who are sitting in on this meeting, 

Senator Udall, Senator Merkley. And they are headed to this Committee once we get the formal committee resolutions done. And I 

know Senator Inhofe was anxious for me to introduce you and I 

think you are going to, as we saw yesterday, be very interested in 

the work that we do here. Welcome. 

Let me for a moment describe what happened at 1 a.m. on Monday, December 22d, 2008 near the Kingston TVA coal-fired power 

plant. An earthen wall failed on a 40-acre surface impoundment 

holding coal ash. More than one billion gallons of waste rushed 

down the valley like a wave, covering more than 300 acres. The 

volume of ash and water was nearly 100 times greater than the 

amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster. Let me mention 

that again. The volume of ash and water was nearly 100 times 

greater than the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster. 

We have an image to show you the scale of this enormous coal 

ash spill. It looks like a giant mudslide. You can just get the sense 

of the power of that mud. 

I would like to show you a few examples of the devastation left 

behind in the wake of this disaster, what happened to some of the 

homes. The flow of toxic ash and water impacted 42 parcels of 

property, destroyed 3 homes, damaged 9 others, covered roads and 

railroads, harmed fish, and polluted the Emory River. Thankfully, 

no serious injuries were reported. This disaster happened while the 

community slept. And yesterday in my meeting, Senators, the good 

people from the community said that this is what they said, they 

shudder to think of what could have happened if this wall had 

failed on a summer’s day, when parents and children were playing 

on the shore, swimming, and fishing in boats. Because the coves 

that are the main attraction to the community, where the kids play 

and they fish, were instantly covered in this horrible polluted mess. 

Senator Alexander, I look forward to working with you on the recovery efforts. Anything that you need from me, you have. I will 

work with my colleagues and I know they feel the same. 

Today, I would like to explore several key questions, including: 

How did this spill happen? What are the impacts? How is the area 

going to be cleaned up? How do we ensure events like this do not 

happen again? 

Now, TVA officials say they are investigating why the dam surrounding the ash collapsed. So far, they have said that heavy rains 

and freezes may have triggered the disaster. But the Nashville 

Tennessean reported on January 4th that the same earthen wall 

had smaller blowouts in 2003 and 2006. The people that I met yesterday said that they knew that the impoundment had problems. 

Following the 2003 event, TVA rejected several recommendations 

for retrofitting the impoundment because they deemed them too 

costly, with estimates up to $25 million. We must find out why this 

wall failed. Because to clean this up, Senators, makes $25 million 

just look like pennies. That is going to be the cost of this cleanup. 

What are the spill’s impacts? This depends on what was in the 

coal waste. I have a jar of the sludge, I asked them to bring it, and 

I am going to pass it around to everybody. I just want you to take 
9 

a sense of this, just a tiny little bit of this. I will give it to Senator 

Inhofe and ask the staff if they want to view it, while I talk, just 

pass this around. And what I would like to do is tell you what is 

in this coal ash that you will be taking a look at. 

We have a chart that shows you this. This is the contaminants 

that exist in coal ash. And Senators, I beg you to take a look at 

this, because this is why the community is so up in arms. This isn’t 

harmless mud. Arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead and 

mercury. And I need to read to you what we know about these elements. Arsenic, cancer of the lungs, bladder, skin, liver, kidneys, 

harms the liver, kidneys and cardiovascular system. Beryllium, 

cancer of the lungs, harms the respiratory and immune system. 

Cadmium, cancer of the lungs, harms the liver, kidneys and bones. 

Chromium, cancer of the lungs, harms the liver and kidneys and 

circulatory and nervous systems. Lead, harms the nervous system, 

especially in children and reproductive and developmental systems. 

And some of the people who visited me talked about the pregnant 

women who live in this area. Mercury harms the nervous system, 

especially in children, impairs thinking, language and motor skills. 

So that is what is in this. 

And the irony of all this is that the reason we have this waste, 

there is a good reason why we have it, we want to get that waste 

out of the air. That is why we have these ponds. So the huge irony 

here is, under the Clean Air Act we are keeping this out of the air 

because it is dangerous. And now, it is spilled. So that is what you 

have to think about. We worked hard and long, and so did TVA, 

to get those elements out of the air and keep it safe, and this is 

what has happened. 

At the spill site, the U.S. EPA has found river water with arsenic, and I mentioned all of these elements, these pollutants. The 

longer this ash stays on the ground, and this is another point, the 

more it can dry out and blow around. Some of the heavy metals in 

ash can harm people when inhaled. 

We have to get a complete picture of contaminants in different 

parts of the coal spill. Some types of coal have more contaminants 

than others, and TVA used this impoundment to hold coal that was 

combusted over a number of years, different kinds of coal. So it’s 

not just a one size fits all analysis here. Hot spots of contamination 

could be buried just beneath the surface of the spill. 

This raises another very important question: how is this disaster 

going to be cleaned up, how is this area going to be restored? Seeding the ground with grass, which is what TVA has said thus far, 

maybe today they will have another solution, is not a permanent 

solution. A cleanup can be done right, or it can be a ticking time 

bomb. This area must be cleaned up to address the potential longterm threats to the families who live there. 

And we must ensure that this type of disaster does not happen 

again. We need to have standards in place to make sure that coal 

ash is managed and disposed of properly, including the use of dry 

storage rather than wet storage, which the Kingston Plant used. 

Over 130 million tons of coal combustion waste is produced in 

the U.S. every year. This is the equivalent of a train of boxcars 

stretching from Washington, DC. to Melbourne, Australia. A 2007 

EPA report found 67 ash impoundments or landfills in 23 States 
10 

that have caused or were suspected of causing contamination, including to ground and surface waters. EPA knew of dozens of other 

sites, but lacked sufficient information to single out the cause. 

For three decades, EPA has been looking at the issue of how to 

regulate combustion waste. The Federal Government has the power 

to regulate these wastes, and inaction has allowed this enormous 

volume of toxic material to go largely unregulated. State efforts are 

very inconsistent, and as more and more toxic material is removed 

from coal combustion, it is critically important that protective 

standards for coal ash waste be established. 

I intend to ask Lisa Jackson, our EPA nominee, about her feelings on this matter. And I do intend to work with all of my colleagues on this Committee and in the Senate, across party aisles 

and with the incoming Administration to ensure that the necessary 

action is taken to protect our public health and the environment. 

The disaster in Tennessee proves the point that we cannot avoid 

the costs associated with managing coal ash. It is far better to invest in preventing disasters like this than spending more to clean 

them up. 

And the last thing I want to show you is the mission statement 

of the TVA. I want to read part of the mission statement. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s authorizing statute provides that the 

TVA’s mission includes ‘‘being a national leader in technological innovation, low-cost power and environmental stewardship.’’ Now, I 

just want to put my own mea culpa out here. We didn’t really do 

much in the first 2 years I held this gavel on looking at TVA. I am 

sorry. I am really sorry. I should have. I assumed a lot that I 

shouldn’t have assumed. 

Well, that day is over. We are going to work with TVA, we are 

going to make sure it lives up to this, low-cost power. I would add 

environmental stewardship means alternative ways of getting 

power. We are going to work together. It is going to be a good relationship. 

But I have to say, I assumed too much about their environmental 

stewardship, and I really do apologize about it. We had a lot of 

oversight. That was one area I didn’t pick up on. 

So I want to thank again everyone who is here. I really want to 

thank TVA for coming, the community for coming. And we are 

going to have an excellent hearing, and I will turn it over now to 

Senator Inhofe. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Of far greater significance, I think everyone here should know 

that a great event happened last night, Senator Boxer had her 

third grandchild. I have 12, so you have a target out there. 

I want to welcome Senators Udall and Merkley, both here. I have 

heard so many good things about you, I am getting anxious to get 

to know you better. And I think your western influence on this 

Committee will be very helpful, too, because there are a lot of huge 

issues that are out there. 

I probably am not going to be here for the whole hearing, Madam 

Chairman, because I know that Senator Alexander and Senator 
11 

Isakson are geographically a little closer to some of these things 

that we will be talking about during the course of this hearing than 

I am from Oklahoma. I want to welcome you, Mr. Kilgore, and also 

Bill Sansom. Back when Republicans were relevant, I was the 

Chairman of this Committee, and when we confirmed Bill, at that 

time I think I commented you had probably the best credentials of 

anyone who was ever confirmed in that position. 

I agree with the Chairman that what happened at Kingston was 

a tragedy, plain and simple. It was just, the magnitude is great, 

and I think those slides that you showed demonstrate that very 

clearly. We don’t yet know the cause of the failure of the retaining 

wall that released over a billion gallons of coal combustion waste 

sludge into the surrounding area, including the Emory River, as I 

understand it. Thankfully, there were no injuries, but three homes 

were rendered uninhabitable. 

I want to say to the five victims who are here today that there 

isn’t anyone up here that isn’t totally in sympathy with you and 

wanting to do everything we can to preclude something like this 

from happening again. And so we just want to wish you the very 

best for the future and see how much help we can be to getting 

your lives back to normalcy. 

I want to make sure that the people are taken care of and I think 

we all feel that way. I think to the extent the incident has caused 

harm to public health and the environment, TVA is committed to 

take the necessary steps to address these problems. We will hear 

about that today. It is essential that TVA remains committed to 

this community long after the media has packed up and left town. 

I am pleased the results of air, water and soil testing meet EPA 

standards. I hope, Mr. Kilgore, that you elaborate on these and 

planned future testing as you deliver your remarks. In light of this, 

as would be expected, certain extremist groups are exploiting this 

to further their own political objectives, namely to eradicate the 

use of coal in this Country. We go through this all the time in this 

Committee. And I would hope that we would just concentrate on 

the two things that are important, that is taking care of the victims 

and trying to preclude something like this from happening again. 

Coal is absolutely necessary to keep this machine called America 

running. Right now we are 53 percent dependent upon coal. So I 

know there are those who want to use any tragedy for their own 

political purposes. So I just hope that doesn’t happen, and I look 

forward to this hearing, Madam Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

What happened at Kingston was a tragedy, plain and simple. We do not yet know 

what caused the failure of the retaining wall that released over a billion gallons of 

coal combustion waste sludge into the surrounding area, including the Emery River. 

Thankfully, there were no injuries, but three homes were rendered uninhabitable 

and there was some additional property damage. 

I want to make sure that these people are taken care of and that this spill is 

cleaned up. My first concern is for the victims, some of whom I understand are here 

today. My heart goes out to you and I will work to make sure you are treated fairly. 

I believe that, to the extent the incident has caused harm to public health and 

the environment, TVA is committed to take the necessary steps to address these 

problems. It is essential that TVA remains committed to this community long after 

the media has packed up and left town. 
12 

I am pleased the results of air, water and soil testing meet EPA standards. I 

hope, Mr. Kilgore, that you elaborate on these and planned future testing in your 

remarks. 

In light of this, I also hope that certain extremist groups refrain from exploiting 

this incident to further a political objective, namely to eradicate the use of coal in 

this country. We all know that would be a disaster for energy security, for jobs, and 

for the health of our economy. We know how to use coal in a clean manner. And 

as new technologies continue to advance, we can use coal to power the American 

economy while maintaining a clean, healthy environment. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK LAUTENBERG, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Welcome to our friend from the TVA, a very important agency. 

One of the things that happens here with a new Congress, I can 

tell you, now with the strong representation that is in the majority, 

that environment is a major issue for us. We heard here yesterday 

that global warming is threatening the lives, and these aren’t lives 

100 years from now or 200 years from now, these are, I was 

pleased to know that Barbara Boxer, who is a dear friend, was 

blessed with a third grandchild. Though Senator Inhofe and I are 

friends, I want him to know that I have 11 grandchildren. 

Senator INHOFE. You are probably still working on it. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I am begging, I can tell you. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator LAUTENBERG. The thing that happened is that this spill, 

this ugly material was allowed to cover areas of residence and community and that we wind up, though this spill was nearly 50 times 

bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I was up there very shortly 

after the ship went aground, and saw the devastation that was rendered, and can’t imagine what something that is 50 times larger 

is like. 

We heard from our Chairman about what happened to the 

houses as this material seeped into the Tennessee River. And one 

of the pictures had a Christmas wreath on the front of the house. 

That is when people usually enjoy life at a very high point, families 

in particular. And to see it with that threatening material almost 

on the front porch is certainly not a sight that any of us like to see. 

And the thing that shocks me, I have to say, that TVA, in charge 

of this facility, should have been alarmed, and I am sure they were. 

But their reaction was that coal ash is not harmful and here I 

quote a spokesman there, does have some heavy metals within it, 

but it is not toxic or anything. Well, how would you feel about it 

if it is your child who breathes some of that dust or it penetrated 

your house walls? Not very good. 

I am not suggesting that TVA doesn’t care. But the fact that anyone can make a statement like that when the plaques that the 

Chairman held up here shows the various elements that are in that 

ash, they are some of the most threatening things to life and health 

that you can find, arsenic, lead, others. Terrible. We fight like the 

devil, and I come from a very crowded State, New Jersey, and boy, 

these chemicals are chased down like the most ruthless bandits. 
13 

So we hope that the EPA and TVA can coordinate their efforts 

better, because I think EPA initially also said that some of the testing showed that while there were some heavy metals in there that 

it wasn’t something to really be alarmed about. We challenge that 

view, and we want to hear from EPA, which we will do, and ask 

that TVA and EPA get the story straight, make sure that what we 

hear is what is developed as a result of serious study and investigation. 

I thank you, Madam Chairman, for calling this hearing. It is a 

very, very important issue. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. I want to place in the record three 

documents here, because Senator Inhofe said that the tests looked 

like the standards were being kept. Now, these are EPA samples. 

The first one, the EPA results of the sediment showed levels of arsenic, cadmium, exceeded cleanup goals. That is one. 

And the second, which goes on for two pages, and everyone is— 

I am happy to pass these around, the surface water in the Emory 

River, arsenic and other heavy metals violated Safe Drinking 

Water standards. Now, that is not in the drinking water at this 

time. But this is the danger in why we need to do a cleanup here, 

so they don’t get in. And some of those heavy metals are, in addition to arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, and thallium. 

So I am going to place these in the record so the record is clear. 

The testing is not showing that everything is golden in any way, 

shape or form. These are serious problems. 

Senator Isakson. 

[The referenced materials follow:] 
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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and congratulations on your latest grandchild. 

And welcome to Senator Udall, who I had the privilege of serving 

with in the House, and Senator Merkley. We are glad to have you 

on the Committee as well. 

I would like to thank Lamar Alexander for calling together the 

TVA Caucus to meet with TVA and for the first time for me, to be 

able to see those who were damaged by this spill. I would like to 

welcome, although I know welcome is probably not an appropriate 

word to use for an incident like this, but Tom Kilgore is a terrific 

public servant. I think the Committee needs to remember that it 

was 2005 that this Committee and the Congress reorganized the 

governance of TVA to a working board of directors and a CEO. It 

previously was a three-member committee, if I am not mistaken, 

that pretty much ran TVA up until 2005, if I am not mistaken. 

So Tom has come on, he used to be in Georgia, he is an outstanding business person, and from the conversation we had earlier 

today with the other members, I am going to applaud his early actions in this tragedy. 

As a Georgian, and as a TVA State, I am extremely interested 

in this, because we have 10 such retention areas in our State, although none of them are TVA retention areas. They are other utilities that operate within the State. And although this is a tragedy 

of immense proportion, it is also a chance for us to learn and see 

to it that it never happens again. I am delighted that a person of 

Tom’s stature and ability is there, because I know one of his goals 

is not just to clean up to see to it that the citizens are protected 

and restored and reimbursed and made whole, but also to see, too, 

that this doesn’t happen anywhere else again in the United States 

of America. 

So, Tom, I appreciate your commitment to that. And as a representative of the people of Georgia, where 10 such retention areas 

reside, I am going to work very closely with you to make sure we 

provide that information to other utilities, so we do prevent this 

from happening anywhere else in the United States, most appropriately anywhere else in Georgia. 

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Senator. 

Senator Merkley. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OREGON 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

It is clear from the pictures and the statistics the scope of the 

current disaster. I am struck by the numbers of 45,000 pounds of 

arsenic, more than a million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of 

chromium, and that the immediate cleanup is so important, given 

both the concern about immediate contamination of water and the 

dry dust down the road. 

But I am also very interested in the thoughts about how we monitor and regulate the 1,300-some other similar sites around this 

Country to avoid such a disaster in the future. 
19 

Thank you for your testimony today. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Senator Alexander. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LAMAR ALEXANDER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Madam Chairman, and thank you 

for having this hearing calling attention to this. 

I think we are unanimous that what should happen, TVA should 

cleanup this mess, make whole the people who were hurt, clean it 

up quickly and do everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the TVA region. And we should help make sure it 

doesn’t happen anywhere else. 

But I want to take a long-term view. I hope my contribution can 

be a long-term view in two ways. First to those who are hurt. We 

visited for a little while this morning in my office. Among the several things that were said is they hoped that I would stay interested after the media left, and after the Country went on to another issue. 

I will do that. And I think all of us have a responsibility to do 

that, and I will work with Governor Bredeson, who has been on the 

site. I will work with Mr. Kilgore and with this Committee to make 

sure that this does not get lost in the shuffle, that we set clear 

goals, that we imagine what we want Roane County to be 5 years 

from now, we want it to be a place where people are happy to live, 

where children play where the water is clean. 

I live not far from there myself, and I know how beautiful it is. 

We want that to be our goal. That is a long-term goal that involves 

each of you on the front row and everybody in Roane County. I 

pledge myself to that. 

The second thing I would like to do, and I would enjoy working 

with Senator Boxer on this, or others, is turn a short-term regulatory and management failure into a long-term technology development story. What we really need here, and I suggested this in 

an address at the Oak Ridge Laboratory in the spring, is a series 

of mini-Manhattan projects on how we can safely and cleanly use 

coal in this Country to make electricity for however long we need 

to do that, whether it is 20 or 25 years, while we move to different 

kinds of energy, or whether it is a longer period of time. 

Today, for example, Tennessee gets 60 percent of its electricity 

from coal. And that is very important to us. When I was Governor, 

I used to recruit Saturn and Nissan. I know Governor Bredeson 

has recruited Volkswagen and more recently, one of the largest 

new plants to make the material that will create solar cells, poly— 

well, I don’t exactly have the name of it here. But it is in Clarksville, Tennessee, a $1.2 billion investment. It is polysilicon, is the 

material. The interesting thing about it is it takes a substation for 

electricity of 128 megawatts. In other words, if we hadn’t had 

TVA’s coal-burning capacity, we wouldn’t be able to make the material that we hope will create the solar energy. 

So what I would like for us to do is to look at each of the elements of coal-burning for electricity that creates an environmental 

problem for us and get on a fast-track, I say mini-Manhattan 

project, to solve the problem. The National Academy of Engineering 
20 

has suggested that that be done in terms of recapture of carbon, 

either from sequestration or in some other form. 

Another way to do it would be to make solar power equally competitive with fossil fuels, as they are doing in the plant in Clarksville. Obviously we need to find better ways to deal with coal ash. 

I have put in legislation a little different from the legislation that 

senator Boxer proposed, but still, it was to require, Senator Carper 

and I did, that we have strict controls on mercury, on nitrogen, on 

sulfur and on carbon. 

So if we as a Committee made a massive effort over the next 5 

years to be able to turn this environmental tragedy into a technology success story, then maybe at the end of 5 years, we could 

burn coal in a clean way. And it may force us from conventional 

coal plants into a second generation of coal plants once we find out 

what the true cost of burning coal in conventional plants is. 

So my commitment is long-term, first to the victims, and second 

to the technology. I look forward to working with the Chairman on 

that, and thank you for the time. 

Senator BOXER. Well, Senator, thank you for your statement. It 

is very heartening to me. 

Senator Udall, then followed by Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me thank the 

other members of the Committee, the Ranking Member, for the 

very kind welcoming comments. I did serve with Senator Isakson 

over in the House and I look forward to a good relationship with 

all of you. 

To the victims, this is something that we see in the west, these 

kinds of disasters in a variety of different areas. And I want to 

commit, like Senator Alexander did, to make sure that the victims 

are made whole on this. That is very important. 

I also believe that we need to look at the bigger picture, Senator 

Alexander, in terms of the costs and whether or not we should be 

regulating more here or less. That is, I think, a very important 

part of this debate. The EPA has been looking at a number of situations on regulating this type of waste, and they haven’t done so. 

Apparently it is the cost is my understanding, from the articles, the 

reason they haven’t regulated it is because of the cost. 

So when we look at all the energy that is out there, we have to 

look at what are the full costs, what are the externalities. Here we 

are creating huge dumps of coal ash waste that aren’t really paid 

for, that aren’t worked into the system. And I think it is tremendously important that when we look at the cost of coal or renewable energy or nuclear we look at the full costs that are out there, 

because we see that those costs are big and significant and they 

add to that picture. 

So I hope as we move down the road that we take our regulatory 

responsibilities seriously and make sure that the TVA is doing its 

job. They say their mission is environmental stewardship. In this 

case, that stewardship has not been very good. And I hope we look 

at the full costs here in terms of all of our energy sources, because 
21 

I think that will guide us into the future and to where we need to 

go. 

I thank you, and look forward to hearing from both of our panels 

today. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, you are so right on the costs. And we 

have to factor in the cost of this type of spill, too. 

Senator UDALL. That is right. 

Senator BOXER. Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Chairman Boxer, thank you for bringing us together today as promptly as you have on the heels of this tragedy. 

To our new colleagues, Tom and Jeff, we are delighted that you 

are here, and I am very pleased that you have chosen to serve on 

this Committee. I think that is great for us, for your States and 

for our Country. 

For our friends from Tennessee who are here today, in the New 

Testament there is a parable about the Good Samaritan. The question that is answered in the story of Good Samaritan is who is my 

neighbor, who is my neighbor. You are our neighbors, whether you 

happen to be from Oregon or from New Mexico or California or 

Tennessee or Georgia or Delaware, you are our neighbors. We are 

going to try to do our best to make sure that you are treated fairly 

going forward. 

Mr. Kilgore, I don’t know you, I have met you before, but I don’t 

know you well. Whatever Johnny Isakson speaks as highly of someone as he has of you, I listen to that. I have a lot of respect for 

him and his judgment. If he says that you are that good a person, 

then I generally take that to the bank. 

TVA needs a very good person, a very strong leader. Some of my 

colleagues have heard me say any number of times, particularly 

when we are holding hearings of the subcommittee that I lead, 

along with Senator George Voinovich, the subcommittee that deals 

with clean air and nuclear safety. And I won’t say that I lecture 

the nuclear industry, but I say to them often, everything that I do 

I can do better. I think that is true for all of us. And when I was 

Governor of my State, I used to tell my cabinet secretaries, if it 

isn’t perfect, whatever operation we are talking about, in their office, in their department, if it isn’t perfect, make it better. And you 

have a big operation to run. Clearly, some things aren’t perfect. 

We are here today to focus largely on the tragedy that has 

brought these folks on the front row to our hearing. But as Senator 

Boxer and others have suggested, TVA ought to be a role model for 

us. You should be the gold standard. And in too many ways, you 

are not. That is not your fault. You haven’t been the leader of this 

company forever. It is a Federal corporation, and because it is a 

Federal corporation, we think you need to adhere to higher standards than others. We as elected officials, we are expected to adhere 

to higher standards of personal behavior and so forth, and a similar kind of performance level should be, or standard, should be set 

for TVA. 

Within the subcommittee that I have been privileged to chair, 

TVA is one of any number of issues or items for us to hold jurisdic-
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tion over. I just want you to know, and I say this not in a threatening way, but just in a very forthright way, we are going to be 

looking closely at what you are doing, and the leadership that you 

are providing and the direction you are taking, not just with respect to this instant problem, but with the bigger issues. 

I thought Senator Alexander spoke very well, he usually does, almost always does. Except when he can’t remember the word, 

polysilicon. That is the only time I have ever heard him hesitate 

in 6 years or whatever it has been. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. But I thought he spoke very well. We want you 

to be a leader. We want you to be the leader in figuring out how 

do we deal with sequestration of CO/2/, we want you to be the leader in helping us to find ways to reduce SO/x/, NO/x/ and mercury 

discharges and to meet an aggressive schedule. We want you to be 

the leader in terms of identifying alternative forms of energy and 

supporting that. We want you to be the leader in terms of helping 

the folks that are using your electricity to be able to be smarter 

consumers, whether it is smart grid, smart metering, we want you 

to be the leader in all those respects. 

We welcome you here today. We look forward to hearing your 

testimony and look forward to having the opportunity to ask questions of you. 

Madam Chairman, I have a statement for the record that I would 

like to append to what I have just said. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. Without objection, so ordered. 

What we are going to do is go to, we have two panels, Mr. Kilgore is the only one on this first panel. I would like to give you 

about 8 minutes. If you need to go over, that is fine, to 10, but no 

more than that. Then we will have our second panel, who will also 

have similar rules. So go right ahead, Mr. Kilgore. 

STATEMENT OF TOM KILGORE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 

Mr. KILGORE. Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe, 

Senator Alexander, Senator Isakson and other members of the 

Committee, thank you for the opportunity for letting me appear 

and discuss our ongoing work about recovery and cleanup of the release of ash at one of TVA’s power plant sites. 

The release, as has been noted, followed the failure of a retention 

wall for coal ash that was at our Kingston fossil plant in East Tennessee. We are focused on cleaning up the release and setting right 

the things for the people of the Kingston community. That is our 

first focus. We have said we will clean it up, and we will start with 

people first and the environment comes right after that. 

I want to assure you that TVA will do a first-rate job of correcting the problem caused by the spill. Let me give you just a few 

minutes of chronology. When I was first notified about this spill, 

shortly after midnight on December 22d, I of course got out and I 

was at the site about 45 minutes later. And the initial response by 

the Roane County folks, who are here in the room, Howie Rose, the 

emergency management personnel and the county executive there, 

was tremendous. The only good news I had in that whole week was 
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when Howie came in about 5 o’clock and told me that everybody 

was accounted for and there was no serious injury. We will always 

be grateful for their prompt and professional response. 

And of course, our first concern was for the safety of our neighbors in the area. It was that good news that there were no injuries 

requiring medical attention. Our first priority was to reach out to 

the people immediately impacted, especially to the three families 

who lost their homes. We then assigned teams of employees and retirees to be the points of contact for every affected family. In the 

Kingston community, we opened an outreach center that is open 7 

days a week for anyone with property damage, a claim, a question 

or a concern. And our executives are out there regularly, our CFO 

was out there yesterday, our senior executives. 

On the operation side, we began work that day to place barriers 

to minimize the movement of ash and begin the cleanup. We are 

using the National Incident Management System approach and a 

number of Federal, State and local agencies are onsite sharing information and monitoring our work. These agencies are also conducting their own water, air, soil testing and sharing their findings. We fully realize that if there is a difference, that EPA and 

the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, their 

results trump ours, that if there is a difference, they are the ones 

that have the official data. 

These agencies are all sampling the results for drinking water 

and it shows that the municipal water in the area continues to be 

safe. Mobile air testing showed that particulate levels in the area 

are far below applicable standards. That is good, but it doesn’t 

mean that we can rest, we have to keep it that way. 

While the ash material deposited offsite is not classified as a hazardous waste under the standards of the Environmental Protection 

Agency, it is meant to be contained, and I don’t want to minimize 

that. We are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to clean this 

up. 

It is an important recovery phase for the impacted areas of about 

275 acres. We are working on an independent analysis of the cause 

and the long-term plan for full recovery and restoration. We have 

tried to do this, we have tried to focus on outreach to the community, containment, recovery and prevention. We have, like Senator 

Isakson mentioned, we also have other dikes that are not like this, 

but we are inspecting those to make sure that we don’t have problems there. 

As you know, TVA is a corporate agency of the United States, the 

Nation’s largest public power provider, working with 158 local 

power distributors. TVA is funded by the ratepayers and receives 

no appropriations. To supply electricity to our region, TVA uses a 

mix of generating sources. About half of our Nation’s electricity is 

generated from coal and TVA has a similar situation. 

While we are working to increase our renewable and carbon-free 

generation, about 60 percent of TVA’s generation this year will be 

from coal. And like utilities around the Nation, we must manage 

the ash that is a byproduct of that coal-fired power production. 

TVA has been a part of the Kingston community since the plant 

was built in the 1950s. It is our intent to stay there and finish the 

job of cleaning this up and do it right. The Kingston plant was 
24 

built in accordance with congressional authorization, primarily to 

meet the defense needs of the Nation at the time. Specifically, 

Kingston met the need to provide power for the production of atomic defense materials at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. 

The 300 TVA employees who live and work in the area care 

deeply about their community, as I do and as we all do. And as I 

said at the beginning of my comments, we will do a first-rate job 

of correcting the problems caused by the spill. It is not a time when 

we hold our head high, but it is a time when we will look our 

neighbors in the eye and say, we will stay on the job until it is finished. We are going to do this and do it right. 

Thank you, and I look forward to any questions you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kilgore follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Kilgore, January 2008, dike stability report for the Kingston 

plant states that impoundment walls failed in 2003 and 2006 due 

to ‘‘excessive seepage.’’ Walls on this same impoundment failed in 

December and caused this disaster. A January 4th Tennessean article found that TVA chose a cheap fix to those earlier problems 

that I cited and states that TVA has known about ‘‘some seeps 

along the toe of the dike since the early 1980s.’’ 

Knowing what you know now—do we have that article? We are 

going to put that article into the record from the Tennessean. 

[The referenced material follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Knowing what you know now, would you have 

taken some different steps than you took? 

Mr. KILGORE. Madam Chairwoman, I don’t know that until we 

finish the failure investigation. Obviously those things concern me, 

some of them I have reviewed very hastily while we are trying to 

reach out to the community. We had outside experts look at that. 

What I am interested in finding out is whether or not the mechanism was the same, whether the location. Those locations were on 

the west side of the dike. It appears to me, just from a layman’s 

standpoint, that the dike went north. So the location appears to be 

different. 

We had outside experts help us with those fixes. The most expensive solution wasn’t chosen. Obviously that looks bad for us. I 

would like to get the failure investigation complete and know exactly what the cause was. 

Senator BOXER. OK, well, let me just simply respond to your answer. If I was sitting there and somebody said do you wish you 

would have done more to stop this, I would say yes. Let me go on. 

Mr. Kilgore, TVA’s Kingston power plant has been one of the top 

100 polluting facilities in the Nation in 4 of the last 5 years, according to the Federal Toxic Release Inventory data. From 2002 to 

2006, Kingston released over 37 million pounds of toxic pollution 

and the size of this spill, am I right in saying it is more than a 

billion gallons? Is that correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. You could measure it that way. We measure it in 

cubic yards, because this is mostly solid material. 

Senator BOXER. Well, what if I did it in gallons? 

Mr. KILGORE. Measured in gallons, that would be approximately 

correct. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Because when you look back in the 1970s, 

when there was a terrible breach of a dam in West Virginia, that 

was a very small number of gallons. It was nowhere near this. A 

lot of people got killed in that one, and we are so, as you say, fortunate in this particular case in terms of timeframe. 

But the point is, given the facility’s high volume of waste, do you 

agree it makes sense to invest in strong waste management practices, including protections like those administered by EPA at ordinary landfills, which I might say do not have this level of toxic 

waste in it? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, ma’am. We are in the process of investing 

hundreds of millions of dollars to put scrubbers on this plant, in 

reference to your comments about cleaning it up. 

Senator BOXER. Scrubbers—— 

Mr. KILGORE. That is to put scrubbers on the plant. 

Senator BOXER. Well, that is air pollution. 

Mr. KILGORE. That is air pollution. 

Senator BOXER. I am talking about the—I mean, that is wonderful and we all applaud that and we want you to do that. But that 

even gets us more waste, more ash. So I am asking you about the 

safe disposal of the ash. And I am saying to you, would you think 

it would make sense to do the type of protection that you have in 

an ordinary landfill that doesn’t even have as much toxins. 

Mr. KILGORE. As we go forward to clean this up, I am sure we 

will look at that option, every option. We have looked at several op-
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tions to clean this up. We don’t anticipate going back with that 

same design. 

Senator BOXER. Well, let me make a suggestion. And I think that 

Tom Carper really picked up on it and I want to thank him. I am 

so proud that he is going to head the subcommittee, because we are 

going to work with you in the future. 

It seems to me that TVA ought to be a leader here. It may be 

that eventually we all decide on a bipartisan way or maybe it splits 

across regions, we don’t know, that we should control this waste 

the way we do other waste, that it should have a liner or it should 

be safer to protect the constituents of our people who have the coal 

plants. 

And I would like to say to Senator Inhofe, I don’t know one Senator who said that we are not interested in moving toward cleaner 

coal. Everyone I know, including myself, we want to see clean coal 

and safe coal, just like we want to see safe nuclear energy, all the 

rest. We need it all. It has to be safe. 

So I think that is what we are really after. So what we would 

like to see, at least some of us here, maybe all of us here, is for 

TVA to step out, be a little bold, say, you know what, we are a 

quasi-governmental authority here. We want to be the leader. So 

before we pass some more, maybe we won’t, but we might say from 

now on, we want those rules in place that are the same rules at 

a hazardous waste site. Wouldn’t it be great if TVA were to take 

these steps, if you felt it was warranted. So I just ask you that. 

Then my last question on this round, I want to ask about problems at other storage facilities that you have. First of all, how 

many storage ponds do you have in the whole system? 

Mr. KILGORE. We have 11 coal plants, five have dry ash collection and six have wet. So outside of Kingston, we would have five 

dry and five wet. 

Senator BOXER. And how many wet ponds do you have? 

Mr. KILGORE. We would have six. 

Senator BOXER. Because I know in this plant you have several 

holding ponds. It is not just one pond. 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, ma’am, that is correct. 

Senator BOXER. So you have six others, including everything? 

Mr. KILGORE. Six locations. 

Senator BOXER. No, I am not asking you that. 

Mr. KILGORE. I know. 

Senator BOXER. How many ponds, holding ponds? 

Mr. KILGORE. I don’t have that information. 

Senator BOXER. Give me a sense of it. Is it 100? Is it 40? Is it 

1,000? 

Mr. KILGORE. It would be two or three per site. So 6, I would 

guess about 20, probably. 

Senator BOXER. OK, about 20. Do you, has TVA had potential 

problems or wall failures at impoundments in other facilities? 

Mr. KILGORE. We have not, to my knowledge. We are looking at 

those. We have an independent investigator looking at those. We 

have had since this occurred. 

We have one or two other places that concern us, because we 

have a wet spot on the dike. And those are getting our attention 

right now. 
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Senator BOXER. Good. Would you please provide a list to Senator 

Carper’s subcommittee and to the full Committee of all potential or 

known weaknesses at other impoundment or landfills and the steps 

you have taken or will take to address these potential problems? 

Mr. KILGORE. I will be glad to. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Mr. Kilgore. 

Mr. KILGORE. And could I say that we will be glad to work with 

you in becoming a leader in the disposal of this ash. 

Senator BOXER. That is music to our ears, and we are so appreciative. Thank you. 

Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

The witness in the next panel, the Southern Alliance for Clean 

Energy, has in their written statement asserted that you had prior 

knowledge of needed repairs to the ash containment pond at the facility, yet did nothing about that. Now, it is my understanding that 

you do this investigation once a year, but the State does it on a 

quarterly basis. 

Mr. KILGORE. That is correct. 

Senator INHOFE. So the question I would ask you is, either in the 

State’s quarterly reports or in the last, I don’t know when the last 

annual inspection was by you, what those results were? 

Mr. KILGORE. Those results were not abnormal. In either case, I 

have looked at both the State reports and our reports. We have 

looked further back at engineering studies. We had outside engineering studies done on these repairs that were referenced earlier 

in 2003. So we did not rely on just internal expertise in that, we 

went outside and hired experts to give us advice on how to repair 

those leaks at the time. 

Senator INHOFE. OK. A lot of environmental organizations, perhaps including the Southern Alliance, who will be on the next 

panel, have called for coal combustion waste to be listed as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 

RCRA. What would be your feeling about the results of that, and 

is that good advice or how do you see that? 

Mr. KILGORE. Well, I am sure with these events that this will get 

a lot of attention. We look forward, frankly, to following the lead 

of Congress and the EPA at doing whatever is necessary to make 

sure something like this does not happen again. 

Senator INHOFE. In opening remarks, several members said, and 

I think I did, too, that when something like this happens, all the 

focus is here, we are having a hearing today, the media is here, the 

victims are here, that once all that goes away, that you kind of forget about, there is a propensity to just forget about that and get 

onto other things. How are you going to assure us that that won’t 

happen in your case? 

Mr. KILGORE. Well, for one thing, we are a member of the community. We have 300 employees, we have some that live in the immediate area. And we have been there since 1955, actually before 

then when we started construction. It is only in our best interest, 

as it is in the county’s and everybody else, to do this right and stay 

until the job is done, until the county says to TVA, OK, you have 

cleaned this up as we have requested. 
103 

Senator INHOFE. That stands to reason. It is just that I want to 

be sure to get that in the record here, so that we will be facing that 

perhaps in the future. 

There is one thing, and I would ask you, Madam Chairman, if 

it is all right to do this, since I won’t be here to ask questions of 

the next panel, I would like to ask one of the witnesses to perhaps 

include this in his statement, and that is the witness for the, I 

guess Mr. Smith, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, I understand they are considering a lawsuit. What I would like to have, 

to get a commitment, if we can get a commitment from them that 

if they have an award from a lawsuit or if they have a settlement 

that the proceeds would go toward mediating and addressing this 

problem, and not for some other cause. In other words, to the victims of the spill, habitat restoration and those things that would 

be directly related to this. I would like to ask them if they would 

address this in their opening remarks. I see a nod back there. 

Senator BOXER. I will give the witness an extra minute or two 

to respond to that. 

Senator INHOFE. That is fine. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

Senator Udall. 

Senator UDALL. Now, my understanding, when we talk about 

whether we list it under RCRA, is that we are dealing with hazardous substances here. In 1 year, would this be correct, in the 

Toxic Release Inventory, TVA showed in 1 year at this plant that 

the dredge shelves contained 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 

pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of 

chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese? And these are metals that can cause cancer, liver damage, neurological complications, 

among other health problems. They have been accumulating for 

decades in these ponds and pools and sites, is that correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. That is correct. 

Senator UDALL. And has your position been that these should be 

included as toxic hazardous substances? Have you taken a position 

on this in the past? 

Mr. KILGORE. No, Senator. We have tried to keep these contained, as we are supposed to, and follow our permits. We thought 

this containment was a viable containment. We had no reason to 

believe that it wouldn’t hold this. 

These metals and arsenic that you refer to are concentrated in 

the burning of coal. They are out there in a lot of substances. They 

are elements and we concentrate them as we burn, and they are 

in this fly ash. 

Senator UDALL. So what eventually is going to happen with these 

substances? What is your plan you have right now to deal with 

these thousands and thousands of pounds of toxic substances and 

hazardous substances? Your plan is just to keep accumulating 

them and then just to hope that it goes away? I don’t understand 

where you are headed here. If we are trying to look at a sustainable operation, where are you headed with this? Are you going to 

accumulate it and accumulate it and then what happens to it? 

Mr. KILGORE. Much of this fly ash is actually sold, and I don’t 

want, what happens there, when we burn the coal, it consolidates 

these materials. But when you use it in concrete or in soil, stabi-
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lizers and things like that, you actually spread this back out to 

where it is about natural background again. So we sell about 50 

percent of our fly ash for use in things like concrete, road stabilization and things like that. That is a beneficial use, it spreads all of 

those elements back out, similar to what they are in the natural 

soils. 

For these wet cells, we eventually would dry them out, cap them 

and plant grass and have just a containment. 

Senator UDALL. And your regulator now is the EPA, or is it the 

State? 

Mr. KILGORE. It is the State, as delegated by EPA. 

Senator UDALL. Does the State have specific regulations dealing 

with each one of these substances? 

Mr. KILGORE. They have regulations dealing with our 

containments, yes. 

Senator UDALL. For arsenic, for manganese, for cadmium, all of 

it? 

Mr. KILGORE. Water quality, yes. 

Senator UDALL. And isn’t it true that around these sites that we 

are seeing the pollution of wells? 

Mr. KILGORE. I haven’t seen that. All the wells that I have heard 

tested so far have all come back good. 

Senator UDALL. Well, the EPA, in statements to the press, has 

said that frequently we are seeing more pollution, maybe not in 

these particular sites, but in these kinds of sites where you accumulate this much in terms of materials that eventually it does get 

into the groundwater. But you are monitoring all of these sites and 

you believe there is no evidence of pollution of groundwater at this 

point? 

Mr. KILGORE. For this site, I have no evidence that the wells are 

being contaminated. That is one of the concerns, is whether this 

material leaches out the bottom. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you very much. 

Thanks, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. I am going to put in the record a couple of 

charts, Senator, to back up what you said. Not at TVA sites, but 

we will have these printed up for you. 

[The referenced material follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. But coal ash contaminates groundwater across 

the Country. And we have listed here, from Indiana, Michigan, 

North Dakota, New York, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia, where you are right, this is where it is at. So this 

is an issue that we need to look at. Because again, I would quote 

from Thomas Friedman, sometimes we have a real problem that is 

masquerading as an insoluble problem. This isn’t insoluble. We can 

fix this if we have better controls over it. 

But I think your points have really illustrated you are not making it up, this is where it is happening. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

Senator Isakson. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

On that question about groundwater, who issues the standards 

for the construction of these ponds? Is it the Tennessee EPA or 

the—— 

Mr. KILGORE. Tennessee Department—— 

Senator ISAKSON. But Federal regulations? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes. 

Senator ISAKSON. They do the inspections. Do you have leachate 

collectors under these ponds, or are they more of a dammed lake? 

Mr. KILGORE. They are the normal ash sediment, they are not 

lined, if that is what you are asking. 

Senator ISAKSON. That is what I was asking. I understand 14 

years ago, there was a similar spill, although smaller, in Pennsylvania. Is there, were there investigations of environmental damage 

there, and if there were, was there any finding of extensive damage 

or life-threatening damage from that spill? 

Mr. KILGORE. I have read that briefly and I have had staff in 

touch with those folks. It is my understanding that that was successfully cleaned up. It took some period of time, but that it was 

successfully cleaned up. 

The failure mechanism was not the same as what we saw here. 

It was a failure of a stop-log, I think, that held the dike at one 

point. 

Senator ISAKSON. The Chairman was talking about over-seeding 

and strawing the immediate area temporarily. But I think I heard 

you say that you are going to remove, you are going to have all the 

heavy equipment, the yellow equipment which I guess means Caterpillar, you are going to eventually take all this out, right? 

Mr. KILGORE. Our first objective is to get the river. That will be 

dredge the river and get that out. Then we will move successfully 

back onto our site. Our first objective is to get it all back on our 

property. Out of that 275 acres, about 50 acres of it is private property. We need to get it back on our property and then we can successively work it back. And either take it offsite, store it on, there 

are some fabrics that are made that actually filter this, so that it 

dewaters naturally and turns into a more solid material. There are 

other ways to dewater this. But we are looking at all those options. 

Senator ISAKSON. When you sell the fly ash to primarily to concrete producers, I understand, in what form do you sell it, wet or 

dry? 
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Mr. KILGORE. It is usually, I would call it damp. It is not wet like 

this. It is dry fly ash, we keep it slightly damp so that it doesn’t 

dust. Though we call it dry. 

Senator ISAKSON. Is that delivered by rail? 

Mr. KILGORE. Usually by truck. Could be by rail, but usually sold 

by truck. 

Senator ISAKSON. Is there any other use for fly ash, or market 

for fly ash beyond concrete? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, it is a good soil filler. It is used in various 

things. The cenospheres that we are collecting off the river, and I 

think we have collected several tons of those, are actually used in 

the manufacture of such things as bowling balls and things like 

that. They are a filler material. 

Senator ISAKSON. The elements that were on the chart, beryllium, chromium, arsenic, those are all naturally occurring elements 

that become hazardous in larger concentrations than naturally occurring, is that correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. That is correct. We obviously don’t invent these 

elements, they are elements in nature. We do concentrate them as 

we burn the coal. 

Senator ISAKSON. And if I heard you right, by selling it and using 

it in concrete, it deconcentrates the elements back to a level of naturally occurring, is that correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. You spread it back out. When you sell it, it goes 

back to normal background levels as you spread it out. 

Senator ISAKSON. OK, my last question. You have five dry facilities and six wet, is that correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, that is correct. 

Senator ISAKSON. In your experience, what made the difference 

in one site you did it wet and one site you did it dry? 

Mr. KILGORE. I don’t know the TVA history there. My experience 

is that the wet facilities were the older facilities, because as you 

collected this from the electrostatic precipitators that were put on 

in the 1960s and 1970s, the way you got the ash away from the 

plant was to basically sluice it out to a pond. That kept it wet, kept 

the dusting down, which is what we were all worried about. And 

so the older facilities are generally wet, and probably the newer 

ones are dry. 

Senator ISAKSON. But either one can be approved by EPA, is that 

correct? 

Mr. KILGORE. That is correct. 

Senator ISAKSON. Currently? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes. 

Senator ISAKSON. And last, I would just reiterate what I said in 

my remarks—— 

Senator BOXER. Senator, did you mean EPA Federal or State? 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, the States enforce Federal standards. 

Senator BOXER. We don’t have any standards. 

Senator ISAKSON. We don’t have any? OK. 

Senator BOXER. We do not. That is why I wanted to—please go 

on. I will give you another minute. I just wanted to make sure you 

knew. 

Senator ISAKSON. And I appreciate that. 
109 

Senator BOXER. We have no Federal standard for the disposal of 

this. 

Senator ISAKSON. Last, I want to repeat what I said earlier. You 

served us in Georgia and I appreciate the service you gave us in 

the utility industry. Since we have 10 facilities in our State, I am 

very interested in seeing to it that we learn from this experience 

so that the standards in place prevent this from happening again. 

I appreciate your stewardship and your being here today. Thank 

you. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, thank you. 

Senator Merkley. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Kilgore, I wanted to ask you a couple things related to this. 

One is that a TVA spokesman had said that the piles of ash in the 

pond were 60 feet above the water. Is that an unusual practice, or 

does it exceed any expected standard, or does it add to the loading 

that would create greater pressure against the dike? Is that a factor in any way in this disaster? 

Mr. KILGORE. It could be. I will say this is the only facility we 

have that is like that, where it has a ring dike above ground. Most 

of the rest of them are below ground ponds, so to speak. The ash 

dike was about 60 feet above the road, and it had about probably 

a foot of water on top of it, in terms of the ash, and then water 

on top to keep the dust down. 

Senator MERKLEY. My understanding of this statement was that 

the ash was 60 feet above the water. 

Mr. KILGORE. That would be above the river level, yes. 

Senator MERKLEY. I see. Thank you. 

Second, in terms of the contamination of groundwater, I believe 

I understood you to say that that has not been an issue in the TVA 

sites in general? 

Mr. KILGORE. It has not. 

Senator MERKLEY. OK. I just want to draw your attention to an 

EPA report from 2007, which identified 63 sites in 26 States where 

water was contaminated by heavy metals from dumps, including 3 

Tennessee Valley Authority dumps. I don’t have the details of that 

report in front of me, but I think it would be worth checking that. 

Mr. KILGORE. I will go back and look at that. Thank you. 

Senator MERKLEY. Third is, you noted in your testimony that you 

wouldn’t go back to the same model. I imagine there are a range 

of options under consideration, whether or not to go to dry storage, 

whether to increase the strength of the dikes, et cetera. Could you 

just kind of outline for us the five or six strategies that might be 

the ones you are looking at? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, I will do that. 

First of all, we build one weir downstream to keep the ash from 

migrating downstream. There is actually a narrow spot in the river 

just below where all this spill occurred. It is about 615 feet wide. 

We built a weir, which means we built gravel riprap out about a 

third of the way in the river, then left a notch for the river to flow 

on by so it doesn’t back up and flood the residents. That should collect most of the ash that comes downstream, if it moves. 

Second, we have gone upstream on our property at the edge of 

it and asked for permission to build a second weir up there to con-
110 

tain about 50 percent more behind that, so it can’t get out to the 

river. So there is about three options here. One, we can dredge the 

river, put it behind that second weir and then proceed to dry it. 

Two, we could use this fabric we talk about, dredge the river and 

put it in this fabric and stack those fabrics. They come in long 

tubes, about 20 yards long, I am told. I don’t have the specifics on 

that. You can actually stack them, and we could put them in another place onsite. That is a good, stout containment. We have 

tried that. It seems to work well in terms of letting the water out 

and keeping all the solids in. That is a second option. 

A third option would be to use, when we dredge this, is actually 

to put it on a barge and barge it to another site that is permitted 

and properly dispose of that ash at another site. And of course, we 

have rail onsite, in addition to using a barge we could try to use 

the rail. I think the barge and the fabric drying and the normal 

dewatering of putting it back in a drier place and then letting it 

dry is the three options that seem to be most promising right now. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Kilgore, thank you for being here. 

In an earlier meeting we had with the TVA congressional caucus, 

I asked you these questions, but I would like to do it again in public. In my meeting with the residents who are here, they wanted 

to make sure, one, that TVA would have a long-term interest in 

cleaning up this problem. Two, that TVA might consider giving 

them options to move from the land that is affected and to move 

back if after they see what you have done they like what you have 

done. And three, that there be some sort of independent 

verification of what you have done from a health and environmental standard. 

Are those three areas that you are willing to make happen? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, sir. And if I could elaborate, we do want to, 

we need to purchase property that has been damaged. If people do 

want to reserve the option to come back, we are very willing to do 

that. If people don’t think they want to come back, we would like 

to purchase that property and so that we can move on with the 

cleanup. We are very willing to do that and give them the option. 

And we are also not only willing but interested in independent 

verification. We need the EPA and the Tennessee Department of 

Environment and Conservation. They are the ones that have credibility right now, more than we do. We need them to stay there with 

the water samples and the sampling that needs to be done in the 

environment. 

Senator ALEXANDER. In the spirit of turning this from an environmental disaster into a long-term technology opportunity, I want 

to ask you, unless it is proprietary information, relatively what the 

cost is of producing electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and any 

way you want to define it. Kilowatt hour, what does it cost to 

produce coal? 

Mr. KILGORE. A kilowatt hour of coal, if you just talk about the 

electricity out of the coal, not the transmission and other things, 

it will be about four and a half to five cents. 
111 

Senator ALEXANDER. Does that include the cost of building the 

coal plant? 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Is that what you call an all-in cost? 

Mr. KILGORE. That is an all-in cost. That is for older equipment. 

So if we built new plants, obviously that would be higher. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And for nuclear? 

Mr. KILGORE. And for nuclear, the nuclear plant we are building 

right now is about 4.2 cents, as I recall, Senator. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And for natural gas? 

Mr. KILGORE. Natural gas would be, the fuel alone for natural 

gas would cost about six cents. So about eight cents to ten cents. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And hydro? 

Mr. KILGORE. Hydro is a few dollars, in terms of the, that would 

be less than a cent. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And solar you don’t have? 

Mr. KILGORE. Solar, we have very little of. We buy that from 

other folks. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And wind? 

Mr. KILGORE. Wind is about 70 cents. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Seventy cents. 

Now, looking ahead, and I say this to Madam Chairman, I am 

very excited about President-elect Obama’s emphasis on electric 

cars and trucks. And one reason I am is because, according to 

Brookings and others who have looked at it, we don’t have to build 

any power plants to use them. If we plug them in at night, into 

our existing power plants, and you have testified this yourself, you 

are working with Nissan in Tennessee as an example of your looking ahead, the plants that you have, whether they are coal or hydro 

or nuclear, at night will have cheaper power that will be available 

to electric cars and trucks. The estimates are that we might be able 

to electrify as much as half our fleet over the next 20 years, and 

thereby reduce our dependence on foreign oil. 

Now, in order to do that, since nationally, 50 percent of our electricity is made by coal, we are going to have to clean up the coal. 

And those who argue for the electric cars point out that even if we 

don’t clean it up, that the carbon footprint of an electric car is less 

than an internal combustion car. But I feel like what we need to 

do is help you and other utilities take the coal plants that are going 

to continue to exist in this Country and clean them up. Go ahead 

and put scrubbers on all of them, make the mercury limit 90 percent. Deal with this coal ash problem that we are talking about 

today and have some sort of mini-Manhattan project to find some 

way to recapture the carbon that comes from there, which commercially isn’t available today. 

Would you have any advice for us? Is there any one or two things 

that we could do to make it easier for you to operate clean coal 

plants in the next 10 to 20 years? 

Mr. KILGORE. Well, that is a heavy question in terms of everything else I have been thinking about, Senator, is focused on this 

recovery. 

Senator ALEXANDER. But the recovery brings to question the true 

cost of using coal to make electricity. 
112 

Mr. KILGORE. There are several technologies that the Electric 

Power Research Institute is looking at in terms of being able to use 

coal in the future, everything from coal gasification first, which 

cleans up the stream before it is used, to, well, several other technologies. One doesn’t come to mind now, but there are about three 

technologies that are used there. 

And we do need to find a way, there is coal to liquids, coal to 

gas, then there is cleaning up, scrubbing the existing facilities that 

could all be used as we go forward. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. I want to pick up on this attitude of the TVA, 

because you are a very nice man and you have been very agreeable. 

And I so associate myself with the remarks of Senator Alexander. 

But isn’t it true that you fought very hard against the EPA? 

They said you have 50 violations of the New Source Review. And 

weren’t you even involved in the case in saying you didn’t want to 

be told that you had to clean up the air, that you needed these new 

scrubbers? Didn’t you fight against that legally? 

Mr. KILGORE. I don’t know, Madam Chairwoman. 

Senator BOXER. You don’t know? 

Mr. KILGORE. I have been there a short period of time. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Well, my staff says that—— 

Mr. KILGORE. Could I reply to you in writing, please? 

Senator BOXER. Please. But I think what you will find is that 

your legal department entered that case—am I correct on that?— 

and fought against your having to clean up your act. Now, I just 

think, I like your answer to Senator Alexander, but I hope you will 

go back and show me this. 

Mr. KILGORE. I will. 

Senator BOXER. Because in the past, very recent past, in this 

New Source Review, finally has gotten resolved. And as I understand it, the State of North Carolina has sued TVA for polluting. 

So you have got problems. And you are a nice man. And I have a 

sense that maybe you didn’t know all of this. 

Mr. KILGORE. I will give you—— 

Senator BOXER. But you have got big problems. And I get back 

to what Senator Carper said, we want to work with you. But you 

have got to clean up your act there, literally. 

Now, Mr. Kilgore, the Kingston plant has released, and I think 

we have a chart on this, 518,000 pounds of arsenic. Here it shows 

278,000, so we will go with this, 278,000 pounds of arsenic, 259,000 

pounds of lead, 118,500 pounds of mercury and 40,800 pounds of 

selenium, for a total of 580,213 pounds of heavy toxic metals released. 

Now, selenium causes wildlife deformities. I know that from my 

State. We had a horror show going on with too much selenium in 

our environment. And ash waste is now spread throughout the valley. Can you hold that up again, the one that shows sort of like a 

mud slide? That graphically shows what is going on. And Senator 

Carper, if you turn around, you could see this. The mud, which is 

this right here, spread there. And this isn’t harmless, this has all 

this in it. 

Now, you said, in answer to one of the questions, you are going 

to clean this up, you are going to get this stuff and you are going 
113 

to put it back on your property, then you are going to figure out, 

sell it, you are going to do this. What about the coves? What I understand from the homeowners, and I don’t know if we have the 

picture of the coves, we have a small picture, that they showed me, 

why they bought their property, these little coves all around. They 

say you have no plans that they know of to restore the water there. 

They say you are just going to cover it up and plant it up so people 

who had water outside their house now have this gunk there that 

has seeds put in it, grass growing up. 

Is that what your plan is? Is that what you consider a cleanup 

for those homeowners? 

Mr. KILGORE. There are two coves and—well, I will just answer 

you bluntly, no, that is not a cleanup. There are two coves, one of 

them had deeper water than the other one. The other is more to 

the northwest, if you will. And I was asked specifically at a town 

meeting, are you going to make that back into an enbayment, in 

other words, have water back there. And I said, until we can study 

that and make sure we are working with the State to permit that 

correctly, I can’t answer that directly at this time. It could be that 

a creek through that area would stir up less and we could cap that 

and shake that. 

We want to recover all that we can recover. The likelihood is that 

we will take this and store is some way and dewater it. I didn’t 

want to make a promise on that particular one until I know what 

the best options are for the environment and for the neighbors. 

Senator BOXER. But at this time, you have no plans on the books 

to restore those coves the way they were before is my point. 

Mr. KILGORE. But I also don’t have plans not to, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Well, that’s not an answer. 

Mr. KILGORE. OK. 

Senator BOXER. You need to have a plan to clean this up. And 

if you don’t have a plan now, that is my point, that is not cleanup, 

just leaving the stuff there, in my opinion. It is not cleanup. Because people will never feel safe there. They know what is in this. 

They are very smart. And they know what is in it, and it is sitting 

out there, and they are going to send their grandkids out or their 

kids out to play? I don’t think so. I don’t think you’d send your 

grandkid out to play in an area like that. 

Now, I want to make the point that you said that you looked at 

the studies prior to the failure and they all looked good. Well, one 

engineer who reviewed TVA’s February 2008 annual ash pond dike 

stability inspection report questioned your evaluation. His name is 

Bruce Tschantz, a dam safety consultant who was the first U.S. 

Chief of Federal Dam Safety for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He said he was perplexed that you felt it was safe. 

He said it contained information about seeps, erosion and other 

issues, but no information to back up the claim that the dike was 

indeed stable. 

So I think there is just a lot of questions surrounding your decisionmaking prior to the failure. And I have to say from everything 

I read, I believe the decision was made to go with the cheapest fix. 

That is a very bad thing. It is a bad thing to do. It is just like if 

you have a problem with the roof in your house and you take the 
114 

cheapest solution, which is put a little patch over there, but you 

ignore the fact that there were some cracks that seemed to be in 

the roof that were spreading, and then one day you have a massive 

flood. 

This isn’t your house, I don’t mean you personally, sir, you are 

a nice man. But this isn’t TVA’s house. This isn’t. Just like this 

isn’t our Government, the Senators here. We govern for the people. 

You have people who trust in you, in your management. Again, I 

say you, I mean your organization. They live, they are neighbors, 

I know that the entire area, because we spent a lot of time talking 

about it, TVA is this area. TVA is the community. 

So you can’t treat people and their investments, their homes and 

their families as if they are just neighbors to you by proximity. It 

goes back to Senator Carper’s quote, when you are a neighbor, you 

have to be concerned about this. 

Now, you were told you had a problem, you chose the cheapest 

fix. That turned out to be wrong. You didn’t pick the right fix, and 

now you have the most expensive problem on your hands and this 

horrific thing, a billion gallons of toxic waste. There is a lot of 

blame to go around, sir. I myself share it because of my lack of 

focus on this. But when the EPA confirmation comes about, I want 

to just say to my colleagues, I intend to ask Lisa Jackson what she 

intends to do. Because the EPA doesn’t even need any legislation 

from us, colleagues. They have the ability to regulate this. And I 

see it coming, and I hope it is coming. 

And the technology is already there, Senator Alexander, they 

really are, we can do, for safer disposal. The dry ash is way safer 

than the wet. All you have to do is look and see, way safer than 

the wet. 

So that right away is available. But we could go to the lined alternative, line these fills and so on and so forth. 

So I have other questions I will submit for the record, because 

we want to get to our next panel. I won’t ask you any more questions, I am sure you will be delighted to know that. But I am going 

to call on other colleagues to take their round now. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I see out in the audience we recognized your neighbors, our 

neighbors from Roane County. And looking at the folks who are sitting in the front row, I look all the way down to my right, to your 

left, and there is, Senator Alexander, I see there is a member of 

the audience who looks familiar to me, and perhaps to you. I think 

maybe at one time she was Secretary of the Senate? Is that Emily 

Reynolds that I see sitting out there? 

And Jeff Merkley, our new Senator from Oregon, and Tom Udall, 

our new Senator from New Mexico, were participants in the orientation for new Senators and spouses last month. And that is an 

initiative that Senator Alexander and Senator Voinovich and I and 

others worked on with great support from Emily Reynolds. I just 

wanted you to know that that experiment that we kicked off 4 or 

5 years ago is alive and well and I think bearing good fruit, bringing along a new generation of Senators. I think they will be well 

served, and our Country and their States will be well served because of it, so welcome. 
115 

I would just observe, Mr. Kilgore, I have served with Barbara 

Boxer, we were elected to the House together in 1982. I have been 

in a number of committee hearings with her then, and I have never 

heard her say to one witness three times that you are a nice person. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. I know you are carrying some heavy burdens in 

your responsibility, but you can feel better about that. That is pretty unusual. 

But when I was a younger man, I used to study a little bit of 

economics, not nearly enough. But I studied some economics, and 

I always say, in my work here I look for market solutions to help 

us incentivize good public policy. And I want to ask one question 

that relates to the fly ash and then look to some broader environmental issues I want to talk to you about. 

When you think of best practices, let’s just think about best practices in the industry for dealing with fly ash. We create a lot of 

coal, I was born in West Virginia, my dad was a coal miner for a 

short time in his life. So we have sort of a family history with coal. 

And I know we are going to be using coal for a long time. But we 

have to find ways to, as you know, reduce the emissions from the 

coal. 

But just talk to us a little bit about best practices within the industry for dealing with fly ash that comes from using coal. What 

are some things that you are doing that you think are cutting edge, 

and what are some things that others are doing, other utilities are 

doing, that are cutting edge that we could all learn from? 

Mr. KILGORE. Well, I think the two obvious ones are to use the 

dry ash method of collecting it. That way it is more marketable, if 

it is. And it also keeps the water out. So those are the two things. 

If you can market the fly ash, obviously that puts it back in a more 

natural state, out in a cementacious mixture of some sort, either 

a road bed, or lightweight concrete or something like that. So the 

best thing you can do with this fly ash is find ways to re-use it, 

much as we are trying to do with a lot of other things in our environment, that is to recycle as opposed to just holding onto it. That 

is, I think, where we need to concentrate. 

Senator CARPER. Is there anything that the State or Federal 

Government should be doing to incentivize that best practice, or is 

nothing needed? 

Mr. KILGORE. Not that I can readily think of. I am sure I can 

if I take a little time, but at the moment, I don’t think of anything. 

Senator CARPER. Fair enough. Let me just pivot if I could and 

move toward, I guess what I will call a cleaner TVA, some questions related to a cleaner TVA. There are a couple of areas I would 

like to explore with you. One of those is, can you share with us 

some of the investments that you are making at TVA with respect 

to reducing mercury emissions and to carbon capture technologies? 

Mr. KILGORE. On the mercury emissions, we have seven scrubbers in operation. We are installing a fourth and fifth one now on 

this Kingston plant, I mean, eighth and ninth, and then we also 

have one at Bull Run. So we will have nine, ten scrubbers in operation in the next couple of years. That is the most of our co-genera-
116 

tion, that captures, as you know, the mercury is a co-benefit of that 

scrubbing. You capture the mercury out of that. 

Senator CARPER. Roughly how much do you think you are capturing or reducing mercury emissions through that approach? 

Mr. KILGORE. I am sorry? 

Senator CARPER. Roughly what percentage of your mercury emissions do you think you are capturing with that approach, as a cobenefit? 

Mr. KILGORE. The co-benefits, I think, and I will need to go back 

and check on this, I think are about 90 percent. And it gets the 

mercury below detectable limits as it goes out. Obviously there 

might still be some there, but it is below those detectable limits. 

Senator CARPER. That is pretty encouraging. 

Talk to us about what you are doing with respect to carbon capture. 

Mr. KILGORE. Carbon capture, we are—— 

Senator CARPER. Or other issues. Other initiatives relating to not 

just sequestration, but other things that you are doing, or thinking 

about doing with carbon. 

Mr. KILGORE. Yes, let me take that question, because that is the 

one that I can answer best. The carbon capture is obviously going 

to be a very expensive proposition, and then you have, what are 

you going to do with the carbon after you have captured it. Sequestration could be problematic, who owns the space under the 

ground, how do you do that? 

So we are following the Electric Power Research Institute, participating in that, on that score. Meanwhile, we still need to minimize our carbon. So our strategy there is two-fold. We have a very 

good strategic plan that our new board guided us through. It is anchored on two things, one, increase our nuclear generation, because 

it is carbon-free, and it is also sulfur-free and nitrogen-free. So it 

captures all three of those and it doesn’t have those. And then also, 

just the efficiency. We think there is a lot of room to be gained in 

our energy efficiency and conservation program. Senator Alexander 

mentioned the cars. To be able to fuel cars at night on electricity 

and then run them during the day utilizes the system better, it 

spreads the fixed costs of our system better. But even other things, 

just like how we heat and cool our houses and all that. So we are 

engaged in a program, we have about $100 million budgeted this 

year, and that increases every year for the next 5 years to just look 

at our energy efficiency. 

Senator CARPER. Give us some examples of how that $100 million is going to be spent. We had yesterday a guy sitting in your 

seat, John Doerr, from California talk to us about how they have 

incentivized utilities in California to be able to make money but to 

make money by selling actually less electricity. How are you going 

to use some of that $100 million? 

Mr. KILGORE. Let me give you the most practical example. We 

worked with Oak Ridge National Labs to build five Habitat for Humanity houses that are all about 1,200 square feet. And the last 

one of those houses we built is an all-electric house, 1,200 square 

feet, and the electricity cost for that house is less than $1 a day. 

It is that way because all of the facilities, the heating and cooling, 

are all engineered, you don’t put the heat ducts or the cooling ducts 
117 

in the attic where it is the hottest or the coldest, so you lose all 

the heat. You put them down in heated space. We have a microcomputer that tells the air conditioner when it is running, put the 

heat from the air conditioner back in the hot water. Don’t put it 

out to the air where as you or I might go out beside our air conditioner and hold our hand over it, you feel all that hot air. Put that 

heat back in the hot water. That basically gives you hot water free 

all summer. 

And so yes, we sell less electricity that way. But on the balance 

of that, that is really good because it evens out our system and 

doesn’t expose us to these high peaks. What costs us a lot of money 

to serve our customers are having to bill for high peaks and then 

having no sales at off-peak times. If we can levelize that, then we 

can give the economic benefit to our customers. So that is why conservation and energy efficiency is good for all of us. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you very much. 

Senator BOXER. Senator Carper, thank you. I don’t want to get 

off of this spill today, but this is important, because these are the 

kinds of other issues we are going to get into. 

I would like to move on, if it is OK with colleagues, to our next 

panel. And again, in parting, I would say, Mr. Kilgore, remember 

your mission. Being a national leader in technological innovation, 

low-cost power and environmental stewardship. It doesn’t say one 

or the other. All of these things. And I would just say, from what 

I know about you, TVA, you are lagging in some of these areas. 

So we are going to need to work very closely with you. And I am 

glad that you reached your hand out. But all of us feel these people 

have to be made whole, they need a remedy that is a real remedy, 

not some cover up the problem remedy. And we need to see you, 

speaking for myself, not fighting cleaner technologies, not utilizing 

a budget that you get from ratepayers to fight against ways to 

clean up their air. But to be on the right side of those issues. We 

hope to see this agency transformed into a leader. I think we do 

have the interests and the right frame of mind to make that happen. So we will see you again and hopefully in better circumstances 

than this one. 

And we would ask Stephen Smith, Executive Director, Southern 

Alliance for Clean Energy, to come up. William ‘‘Howie’’ Rose, Director of Emergency Management, Roane County, Tennessee, to 

come up. Mr. Smith, are you going to open it up? 

Mr. SMITH. I would be happy to, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. OK. We will give you 8 minutes, sir. If you need 

to go over that, we will give you a little extra. But we did run a 

long time, and there was good reason for that. So please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN A. SMITH, DVM, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, SOUTHERN ALLIANCE FOR CLEAN ENERGY 

Mr. SMITH. Madam Chair, Senator Alexander, members of the 

Committee, I want to thank you for holding these important hearings today. I also want to recognize the community members who 

have traveled up here with me today. 

The devastation unleashed on this small community on the night 

of December 22d is difficult to describe. Words and pictures do not 

do justice to the magnitude of this disaster. To see hundreds of 
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acres of nasty, coal combustion sludge, many places 20 feet deep, 

destroying beautiful lakefront property is truly sad. 

I have witnessed a host of emotions from families in this community: fear, frustration, anger and depression. But most of all is betrayal. The Tennessee Valley Authority has unleashed devastation 

on the very watershed and communities that it was created to protect. Yet as devastating as this was, the fact that this occurred on 

a cold December night instead of warm July afternoon where people would have been enjoying the vast recreational opportunities of 

this once beautiful river has spared potentially hundreds of lives. 

News reports and my organization’s preliminary investigate indicate that this could and should have been avoided. Shortcuts have 

been taken, rules have been waived or broken and accountability 

has been absent. This was not a natural disaster, this was a manmade disaster. 

It is clear that in its early response, TVA prioritized public relations over public health and has largely been overwhelmed by the 

size of the spill, which appears to be the largest industrial spill in 

our Nation’s history. The force of this accident not only ripped 

homes off their foundation, it ripped the lid off a national problem 

and the failure of EPA to develop minimal standards for this 

waste. It is outrageous that landfills that hold our household garbage are more regulated than pits holding this toxic coal sludge. 

It also washed away millions of dollars of clean coal advertising, 

reminding us of the reality that burning coal is dirty business. 

From mountaintop removal mining, which destroys the southern 

Appalachian mountains, to air pollution which chokes our cities, 

our Nation’s national parks and leads to climate destabilization. To 

this toxic coal sludge, into which is in the Tennessee River, burning 

coal is a dirty business. We can and we must do better. We have 

cleaner technologies. 

But this is not just a story of TVA’s failure, but also EPA’s. In 

2000, EPA shirked its responsibilities by not regulating coal ash as 

a hazardous waste. And it promised to promulgate minimum standards. I am sad to report that over 8 years later and 28 years since 

Congress first asked EPA to study this issue, we still do not have 

the most basic standards for this waste. 

This too is a national problem. Today, EPA cannot fully account 

for the hundreds of millions of tons of coal ash that are generated 

every year. And this problem is only going to get worse. As we 

tighten our air regulations, removing more pollutants from the 

hundreds of smokestacks, we will end up with this ash in greater 

volumes and greater concentrations. 

Today I call on your Committee at a minimum to require the orderly phase-out of all wet storage of this toxic ash. Require EPA 

to immediately inspect and monitor all toxic coal ash storage and 

disposal units. And third, to develop a long-promised Federal regulation of all toxic coal ash storage and disposal by year’s end. 

TVA was born out of crippling economic times. And as we find 

ourselves again in similar difficult times, it is an opportunity to remake TVA as a leader going into the 21st century. 

The great challenge of how we produce and consume energy in 

this Country cries out for leadership from the power industry. We 

need an agency like TVA to be a living laboratory to lead us into 
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the future, heavily invested in advanced clean energy efficiency, 

smart grid technology and clean, safe, renewable energy. This is 

the fuel for an economic recovery. This Committee has the power 

to confirm up to four new TVA board members by May 2009. We 

must ensure that these new members have relevant experience, a 

strong commitment to clean energy and have a bold vision for this 

agency’s future. 

Madam Chair and members of this Committee, the operative 

words here today are accountability and oversight. The citizens demand and deserve no less. And we must have cleanup, no coverup. 

That is the end of my prepared remarks. I did want to briefly respond to Senator Inhofe. We have under two Federal laws filed the 

intent to sue. We have notified TVA of this under the Clean Water 

Act and under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. We 

have not made a commitment yet to sue. We were so overwhelmed 

and disappointed about this, we felt that we wanted to sink a legal 

hook, potentially, into the agency to make sure they do the right 

thing. 

If they do the right thing, we may never sue. We are not intending to get rich on the suit. We are intending to hold them accountable. If you all supersede us in doing this, maybe there is no legal 

activity. 

Now, I cannot represent other lawyers’ activities that are going 

to take place. And I cannot represent the litany of legal activities 

that are going on. But my organization is not looking to enrich ourselves. We just want this cleaned up. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Rose. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ‘‘HOWIE’’ ROSE, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICES, ROANE COUNTY, TENNESSEE 

Mr. ROSE. Yes, ma’am. First of all, I would like to thank you, 

Madam Chairman, for the—— 

Senator BOXER. Is your mic on there, sir? 

Mr. ROSE. It is now. 

Senator BOXER. That is great. OK. 

Mr. ROSE. First of all, I would like to thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing me the opportunity to come and to speak. 

I appreciate the opportunity from each of the Senators that are 

here for this chance to be able to discuss the emergency response 

phase of this disaster that took place on December 22d. I would 

first like to say that all disasters are local in their inception to the 

end of recovery, all emergencies are local. 

The local government stands as the first line of defense and as 

oftentimes the last witness to the recovery of a disaster. I intend 

to speak today about what the county has done immediately following the event of December 22d and to raise the concerns that 

the county has today and will continue to have for the foreseeable 

future. 

At 40 minutes past midnight on December 22d, 2008, the Roane 

County Emergency Communications Center received the first 911 

call reporting a large mudslide that had collapsed houses and 

trapped occupants. Various emergency agencies, including the 

Roane County Office of Emergency Services, were dispatched to the 

location. 

Roane County sheriff’s units, while enroute, encountered a large 

wall of earth obstructing Swan Pond Road adjacent to the north entrance of the Kingston Fossil Plant. The sheriff’s office units then 

advised all responding units that there had appeared to have been 

a failure of the ash pond obstructing Swan Pond Road. The first 

arriving responders arrived in the 100 block of Swan Pond Circle 

Road. There the road became impassable due to debris from the 

ash slide. 

Emergency responders arrived near the first affected residential 

structure at 1:06 a.m. An incident command post was established 

near 175 Swan Pond Circle Road. Initial rescue crews were sent to 

the Schean residence where one adult male was found extricating 

himself from a partially collapsed home. Mr. Schean was not injured and did not request EMS treatment. 

The initial scene assessment revealed Swan Pond Road, Swan 

Pond Circle Road, and the railway into the TVA Kingston Fossil 

Plant were impassable due to debris. Notification to Norfolk 

Southern’s dispatch advising them of the situation was made at 

2:17 a.m. Emergency response crews began a door to door search 

of all residential structures in the area. Homes along the lake 

shore were evacuated due to fears of secondary slide and the potential of ruptured gas lines to create fires in the area. 

One additional home that had sustained damage was found to be 

occupied. One adult female, Mrs. James, was taken to a nearby 
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neighbor’s home. At 3:49, the Roane County Emergency Operations 

Center was activated as well as a shelter at the Roane State Community College was opened for evacuees. Roane County utilized its 

emergency notification system to contact all residents in the affected area to inform them of the event at 3:52. The Roane County 

Basic Emergency Operations Plan was activated to bring on line all 

emergency assets of Roane County. 

Myself and County Executive Mike Farmer established contact 

with TVA at the Kingston Fossil Plant at approximately 4:45 a.m. 

TVA personnel advised us that they were in the process of assessing the ash pond and mobilizing the emergency resources at that 

time. A final search of the area was completed at 4:56 a.m. and all 

emergency personnel were ordered out of the area to a staging area 

at Swan Pond Road and Swan Pond Circle. 

At 6:36 a.m. the Roane County Emergency Communication Center received a 911 call from the Norfolk Southern Railroad stating 

that their train heading to the Kingston Fossil Plant had derailed. 

Upon our arrival with TVA Police at Swan Pond Road and Swan 

Pond Circle, communications was established with a Norfolk 

Southern representative that advised us there were no injuries and 

the train had impacted the slide area resulting in an emergency 

stop from the train crew. The train had not indeed derailed and 

was stuck in the debris. 

Unified command was established between Roane County and 

TVA Fossil Plant at 7:42 a.m. Local utility crews were sent into the 

area to conduct damage assessment of critical infrastructure at 

7:50. Harriman Utility Board reported ruptured gas, water, and 

sewer lines as well as numerous electrical lines down at 8:04. 

Roane County Office of Emergency Services terminated the emergency response phase at 9:30 and initiated recovery operations at 

that time, determining that all residents had been accounted for. 

The recovery operations began with the Roane County building 

official and damage assessment teams beginning their assessment 

of residential properties at 10 a.m. The building official reported 

three homes with significant structural damage that would require 

the residential structures need be condemned due to structural instability. These were the only three residential structures found to 

have significant damage. 

Further damage assessment revealed 42 pieces of personal property that had some sort of damage to docks or other ancillary structures. Utility crews reported that immediately following the event, 

there were approximately 60 homes with interrupted electrical 

power, 55 homes with interrupted gas service, and 37 homes with 

interrupted water service. TVA entered in various contracts with 

local service providers to rapidly restore these critical utility services immediately following the event. All utility repairs were completed on December 31st. 

The highway department of Roane County, after performing a 

damage assessment of Swan Pond Road and Swan Pond Circle 

Road identified that there was enough debris covering those roads 

that the highway department lacked sufficient equipment and personnel to accomplish debris removal operations alone. The TVA 

was requested to assist by providing heavy equipment and per-
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sonnel to begin debris removal. Debris removal began on the 23d 

and is still ongoing. 

Roane County’s Office of Emergency Services continues recovery 

operations within a Unified Command System co-located with TVA, 

the State of Tennessee, and EPA organizations at the TVA Fossil 

Plant. 

Environmental concerns at Roane County recognized that this 

event presented several complex environmental issues for the residents of Roane County. We recognize the need for both long and 

short-term environmental monitoring to be performed. Roane 

County does not have an environmental monitoring capability at 

the level needed for this recovery operation. Therefore, Roane 

County has requested of the State of Tennessee that air, surface 

water, groundwater, and soil sampling be determine to help us determine the environmental effects from the ash spill that exist now 

or in the future. 

Many unanswered questions about the environmental impact of 

this event still exist. It will take many months before we are able 

to fully characterize this event as it pertains to the impact on the 

environment and health of the area. Therefore, Roane County has 

requested from the State of Tennessee that an interagency oversight group consisting of State and local organizations be created 

for monitoring the recovery efforts. 

On January 5th, 2009, an after-action review of events following 

the response to the dike failure at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant 

was held with the local emergency response organizations. Several 

issues were identified that need addressed as corrective actions for 

future emergency preparedness activities. 

The first challenge that was identified was immediately following 

the event, it was difficult to form a cohesive unified command system with the TVA due to the fact TVA at that time was not using 

the Incident Command System as defined by the National Incident 

Management System. A corrective action would be for TVA, like all 

Federal, State and local agencies to adopt, train, exercise, and conduct emergency response operations utilizing the Incident Command System as defined by the National Incident Management 

System. 

The second challenge that was identified was to our knowledge 

there does not exist for the TVA Fossil Power Division the same 

stringent emergency preparedness and planning program as does 

for TVA’s nuclear and hydroelectric facilities. The corrective action 

that was identified for TVA to implement a system-wide rigorous 

and comprehensive emergency preparedness program that incorporates all aspects of emergency management. 

The third challenge that was identified was, to our knowledge, 

a comprehensive hazard analysis and risk assessment had not been 

performed at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant that would have identified the potential of the dike failure. The corrective action that 

emergency response organizations requested is that TVA should 

conduct and make available to the emergency response local community a comprehensive hazard analysis and risk assessment for 

all TVA-owned and operated facilities. 

In closing, I would like to say that the events of December 22d 

have changed the face of Roane County. I count it a blessing that 
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lives were not lost and that physical injuries were not sustained. 

On behalf of Roane County, I want to thank all the local, State and 

Federal organizations that have helped and will continue to help 

us deal with this event. I want to thank TVA for their response in 

repairing critical county infrastructure. I am pleased to say that as 

of today I feel that TVA has brought its entire cadre of resources 

to bear on this event. 

Many challenges, both environmental and economic, exist now 

and many more will arise in the coming days and months. In closing, I want to say as a lifelong resident of Roane County that I 

have faith in the people of Roane County and I know them to be 

relentless when faced with a challenge. I know that given the opportunity they will rise to the occasion and create many solutions 

to the challenges that lie ahead. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rose follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you, Mr. Rose. 

Let me just say, because my question is going to be for Mr. 

Smith, that what I intend to do is ask TVA to respond in writing 

to your recommendation, that they answer the question as to why 

their emergency plans are very different. You said the nuclear 

plants have a much more stringent plan than this plant. 

Mr. ROSE. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator BOXER. And given the magnitude of what has happened 

here, and as you point out, what could have happened here had 

this happened in the daylight, summer day. And all you have to 

do is look back at what happened in, it was West Virginia in the 

1970s, how many lives were lost because of the timing of that 

event. I am going to share that information with you, sir. 

Mr. Smith, scientists tell us that global warming will cause more 

extreme weather events, including heavier rains. Given what you 

know about this disaster so far, could more extreme weather events 

increase the likelihood of other impoundment failures? 

Mr. SMITH. I think that is certainly a possibility. Again, the fundamental problem is that EPA has not fully characterized the extent of this problem. So until we have a comprehensive review and 

understanding of the extent of the problem and fully characterize 

it, I think that is a very real possibility. 

Senator BOXER. Are you concerned about the potential for other 

impoundment wall failures at other coal-fired power plants? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, we are concerned. I think this problem has not 

been fully addressed, and therefore we are eager to see the comprehensive review. The unfortunate silver lining in this is that it 

has seemed to stimulate interest in review. I have seen a number 

of utilities now that have said that they are going back and beginning to look at this. 

But again, we need a regulatory approach to this, so that we 

don’t leave it up to the power industry to self-regulate themselves. 

Senator BOXER. And I think you were very clear in your testimony and I feel you have made an important point. We have wet 

storage and we have dry storage. Now, when we asked that question of Mr. Kilgore, he said, well, the wet storage is the older way 

to dispose, and the dry storage is the newer. But yet, there are 

still, as I understood it, some very live proposals for more wet storage out there. 

So I think your point that we should consider asking, and I will 

ask Lisa Jackson this when she comes before us, there ought to be 

a way to say that that wet storage, we have enough proof to know 

that it is very dangerous. 

So I guess I would ask you, for the record, to say to me now, I 

mean, I have seen what happened in the 1970s, I have read about 

it, I haven’t actually gone and seen it. And I have certainly been 

briefed extensively on what happened in this case. Isn’t that 

enough of a wake-up call for us to say that wet storage is simply 

not safe, unless there is a way to do it that you treat it as a hazardous waste? 

So I would ask you what your thoughts are. I am not expecting 

you to give me the definitive answer today. But we have some options here. We could treat the wet storage as hazardous waste and 

require the kind of fill that they have for hazardous waste. We 
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could outlaw future wet storage methods of disposal and go to dry 

storage, phase out the wet storage. 

What is your sense, having seen this terrible result of wet storage? 

Mr. SMITH. My sense of reviewing the information that is available in the EPA records, we have included in our testimony the 

March 2000, where EPA came right up to the edge of regulating 

this as a hazardous waste and then shirked away from that, for I 

think economic reasons and lobbying pressure. 

My sense is that we absolutely need to keep this ash out of the 

water. Keeping it wet is not the proper solution. Every instinct I 

have, I am a veterinarian by training, my science and biology and 

chemistry tells me, don’t make this wet, as much as you can. If you 

slurry it out, get into a point where you dry it out. And I think 

storing it wet is unacceptable. 

And in my comments, I think we need to phase that out. I think 

that needs to be a very clear directive. That is an unacceptable solution. 

I don’t know, in the full gamut, of what the regulatory options 

are. But I can very confidently tell you today that if we regulate 

it as a hazardous waste, that may be the direction to go. Some may 

argue that is too far. But I can promise you, the lack of regulation 

we have right now is unacceptable. And that is one of the reasons 

why this accident has happened. 

Senator BOXER. And it seems to me, one of your biggest concerns 

and the concerns of the residents, in addition to the immediate 

problem of getting rid of this stuff, so I would ask you two final 

questions. The answer I got from Mr. Kilgore I found totally unacceptable, that they are going to clean up the river, of course they 

have to do that, but they are not going to go to the coves, and they 

are just going to cover it over and plant seeds in it. 

Now, from your experience and your organization’s study, because I know there were different studies done that showed more 

serious pollution problems, and in the surface water. I am not saying into the drinking water, I am saying surface water. So do you 

feel that the community should demand a restoration of these coves 

as opposed to agreeing to live there with some plants grown over 

this stuff, this hazardous stuff? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, not to create a panic, but we issued a statement 

very early in this process that reminded people that there are multiple pathways by which people can be exposed to this. Largely 

TVA originally out of the blocks focused only on the drinking water 

pathway. And that is important. But there is the drinking water, 

there is the air, because as this dries out, the particulate matter, 

there is, when you can come into physical contact with it. And we 

strongly encourage people to avoid touching it right out of the 

blocks. TVA did not do that, they did about a week later. But out 

of the blocks, we need to be aware of that. 

And then, this will buildup in the environment through biological 

accumulation in the aquatic life and others. So there are multiple 

pathways. 

As my understanding of today, with all the information that I 

have seen is, this site has not been fully characterized. We do not 

know yet what is the proper way. I in my heart of hearts believe 
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that it is going to be a much more aggressive action than what I 

am hearing from the Tennessee Valley Authority. And we need to 

get that. 

But we need to fully characterize that ash pile. That is 50 years’ 

worth of different types of coal that have been stacked at that site. 

TVA has taken some samples, I was just talking to Howie earlier, 

it looks like they finally have done a core sample. There are going 

to be different concentrations at different levels, because there has 

been different types of coal burned. And until we fully characterize 

that and understand what the hot spots are, we should err on the 

side of caution. 

Senator BOXER. I think that is very key. So one of your key demands, then, in speaking for the community, is to fully characterize what is in this muck. 

Mr. SMITH. Exactly. 

Senator BOXER. And you know, I wanted to point out, we saw a 

picture of kids walking through it. 

Mr. SMITH. And that is totally unacceptable. 

Senator BOXER. That is, Senator, really unfortunate, that TVA 

took a week before they said, stay out of it. I mean, yes. So let me 

thank you very much, both of you. I am going to turn the gavel 

over to Tom Carper and step out for just a moment. He will speak 

and then he will call on Senator Alexander and then he will close. 

I may come back, I think I will come back. 

But I want to thank both of you. I think, Mr. Rose, if I might 

say, I hear in your voice this take-charge point of view. You don’t 

want other people to come in and help, but you are admitting to 

the fact that you didn’t have the equipment. This was a huge situation for you. 

I so admire your work. I was a county supervisor when I got 

started in life, so everything happens right there on the ground. 

Mr. Smith, I think you have been articulate in representing the 

concerns of the people. And I think you have said it in ways that 

are very calm but very concerning. We cannot forget all of the stuff 

that is in this muck is stuff that is so dangerous that we pass laws 

to get it out of the air. And there it is, concentrated. Now, if it gets 

back into the air or gets into the drinking water or even remains 

on the ground, it is a concern. We need that analysis deep into this 

muck, because of the different types of coal and the different types 

of problems they each present. 

Thank you very much, and I will call on Senator Alexander, and 

Senator Carper, you have the gavel for now. 

Senator CARPER [presiding]. I want to call on Senator Alexander 

as well. Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Senator Carper. Mr. Rose, Mr. 

Smith, thank you both for coming. 

Mayor Farmer is here from Roane County, the other residents of 

Roane County have been introduced, he hasn’t. We thank you for 

your leadership. 

Mr. Rose, first I want to, from all I can gather, you and the local 

officials did a really good job in emergency preparedness and reaction, given your resources. You moved quickly and you have been 

complimented by other people. I want to compliment you as well. 

Mr. ROSE. Thank you. 
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Senator ALEXANDER. The situation we have is that this is a 

State-regulated class 2 landfill. And the Federal Government 

hasn’t, for whatever reason, decided to regulate it. You have made 

some good suggestions. But based on this experience, what I hope 

you would let us see is apart from the cleanup, but what else 

should we be doing about emergency preparedness. You have suggested that TVA ought to move at least closer to the level of emergency preparedness that it has for nuclear power plants. 

Mr. ROSE. That is correct. 

Senator ALEXANDER. There may be something else that the State 

should be doing. I know Governor Bredeson would welcome that 

advice as well, and in fact, has said so. And if there is a Federal 

role on the emergency preparedness part, well, then Senator Carper and I and others of us ought to know that as well. 

So as you have this on the ground experience, if you would let 

us know that, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. ROSE. I will, sir. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Smith, I am sorry Senator Boxer left, 

because TVA made a, this is a real environmental tragedy, period, 

and it needs to clean it up. But I don’t want it to obscure some of 

the things that TVA has been doing lately that I applaud. You 

mentioned in your remarks that burning coal is a dirty business 

and we need alternatives. If I am not mistaken, TVA has recently 

asked or said it would ask for 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy, looking for a way to buy that. It has said that it wants to find 

a way to, within a few years, to install conservation and efficiency 

provisions that would equal the amount of the electricity produced 

by a nuclear power plant. 

And it is building two new nuclear power plants, and contemplating a third. Now, those are big numbers. The nuclear power 

plants are 1,000 megawatts each, I guess, more or less, and the 

conservation is 1,000, and renewable will be 2,000. As you look toward the future, and you are pretty active student of energy and 

the environment in the Tennessee Valley, as you look to the fact 

that Tennessee already is 16th, Senator Carper, I would like for 

you to know this as well, among the States, Tennessee ranks 16th 

in production of carbon-free energy, about 7 or 8 percent from hydropower, the rest from nuclear power. Obviously, we would like 

for that to go up. 

As you look toward the future, what do you think the realistic 

alternatives are, and how rapidly do you think we can move toward 

them? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Senator. I do want to acknowledge that 

TVA has taken some important steps in the recent past to begin 

to look seriously at energy efficiency. And we are heartened by 

that. There are some real investments that they are looking at. We 

also are aware of the RFP that has gone out for the 2,000 

megawatts, and we look forward to getting those results back and 

seeing if TVA acts on them. 

In my written testimony, one of the things that I asked for, and 

I have repeatedly asked for is, I think we need a system of integrated resource planning that is a requirement. Every investorowned utility around the TVA service territory has to go through 

what is called integrated resource planning, where they look at the 
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demand side and the looked at the supply side options and they 

find the lowest cost. 

I was part of the TVA IRP review group when they did their last 

RFP in 1995. They have not undertaken a new IRP since then. It 

is unacceptable that we are 14 years now past that and TVA has 

not updated that plan. I think that out in the Northwest, BPA, 

under the Northwest Power Planning Council, I think the Senator 

may be aware of this, they have a requirement for the Bonneville 

Power Administration to do regular check-ins. Investor-owned utilities have done it. 

In order for us to know what is the right mix going forward, the 

right way to look at all the options necessary, we need to do that 

planning, and it needs to be done on a regular basis in a transparent fashion that involves stakeholders. So I would encourage 

this Committee to look at requiring that of TVA. It is not too hard 

of a lift, it is comparable to what other investor-owned utilities do. 

And it puts everything on a level playing field. 

I personally think we are awash in energy in this Country. We 

just use it horribly inefficiently. We can be much more aggressive 

in meeting energy efficiency and using that. I am excited about 

your vision of electric cars, because they are not only the ability to 

clean up the transportation sector, but in smart grid technology, 

they become a way of actually having storage for cleaner, renewable technologies like solar and others that can be done. And we 

can have those cars talking to the grid and communicating on a 

regular basis. 

These are the types of things that TVA, if they were a living laboratory of innovation, and we need them desperately going into the 

21st century, that they could lead with if we empower them to do 

that and require them to have a bold vision and make sure we populate the board with people that have that vision. That is something that you can help us provide leadership on. 

I am eager to see that vision go forward. You are exactly right, 

important steps are being taken, but we have to hold the agency 

accountable. There is not enough oversight to make sure that they 

follow through on the things they do. Just putting out an RFP does 

not mean we are getting 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy. 

That is the first important step. But there are other steps that 

must be followed. Just spending money on energy efficiency doesn’t 

cause energy efficiency to happen. We need to work with the power 

distributors in the Valley to make sure that happens. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Chair, 

she is back. 

Senator CARPER. Both of us would be pleased to say you are welcome, and obviously pleased to welcome Senator Merkley. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

There were some specific facts in some of the articles about this 

disaster that I don’t think have been mentioned. I just wonder if 

either of you have insight or would like to comment on them. One 

is that the containment walls were made of ash. They have been 

referred to elsewhere as earthen, but elsewhere it is noted that 

they were made from ash. 

Another factor that is noted in the articles is that there was a 

decision to remove trees from the walls and that the removal of 
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those trees may have weakened the wall, if that had not been done 

properly, because the water could follow the pathways of the roots. 

And once the water starts moving, it erodes its way through the 

wall and creates a disaster. 

A third factor embedded in the articles was that while the TVA 

said they had no evidence of any fish kill, there were videos of significant fish kills downstream. I just wonder if you could comment 

on any of those factors. 

Mr. ROSE. Senator, I can comment on the first and the third. Indeed, there were earthen walls that we encountered that were both 

left after the failure and before the failure. As to the specific composition and thickness of those walls, we could refer to the engineering diagram that would show you specific information as to 

what that is. 

As far as the trees, I cannot speak to that. But as far as the fish 

kill incident, the county did receive several calls about fish kills 

and responded by sending folks into the field and requesting assistance from the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, particularly 

their biological division. The information that we received back 

from them was that the fish that were killed were indeed killed by 

being either washed up onto dry land and left there or they were 

killed by the impact of the wave as it moved through the water. 

That is what we have been told. 

Mr. SMITH. Senator, I would like to respond to that question. I 

am not an engineer, and I don’t want to represent myself to be one. 

But we have talked to engineers about this. What I understand is 

that ash is a reactive element, or reactive substance, and that it 

is not a good substance to use for structural integrity, because over 

time, it changes. Engineers have told me that relying on a wall of 

ash that is changing over time is a very difficult thing to know the 

structural integrity of it. I think it is one of those fundamental 

questions that needs to be explored about how EPA regulates this, 

as to whether they ought to be using ash walls to hold the ash 

itself. Because it does change over time. 

Now, as far as the fish kills, I think the story is still developing 

there. I don’t disagree with Mr. Rose in his assessment. I think 

there was literally a tidal wave, maybe as much as 20 feet in some 

places, that could have mechanically thrown fish out of the water. 

My fear is not the immediate fish kill, my fear is the long-term ecological health of the region and what ends up bioaccumulating into 

the wildlife over time. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. I have two questions. One is of a more personal 

nature, and the other is more on target with our hearing. On the 

personal side, sometimes when witnesses appear before us, they 

have a member of their family or members of their family that are 

with them. From time to time we ask them to recognize and identify and introduce members of their family. I am looking at this audience and I am wondering if there might be a member of either 

of your families that are here. Mr. Rose. 

Mr. ROSE. Yes, I brought my wife and my 10-year-old daughter 

with me. I felt it was very important, it is not every day that someone from Roane County, Tennessee gets to appear before a Senate 

committee. I felt it was important for my wife and my daughter to 
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be here to see this. I would like for them to stand up if they would, 

Melissa and Jade. My daughter is a 10-year-old fifth grader at Midway Elementary, and she is very interested in the way government 

works. She comes from a long line of local politicians. I thought it 

would be good for her. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. That is good. What is your daughter’s name? 

Mr. ROSE. Jade. 

Senator CARPER. Jade. Well, Jade, some day you may sit up here 

and chair this Committee. You never know. Thanks for coming, 

and thanks for bringing your mom, thanks for bringing your dad. 

Jade, I could just barely see your lips move when your dad spoke. 

You are pretty good at that. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Senator, I actually did not bring anyone. My wife is 

still in Knoxville and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old son who 

wasn’t really able to make the trip up. I also was watching the 

banter back and forth about all the grandparents. I actually am 

now a new grandfather, so I am talking to my 2-year-old son, who 

is an uncle. It is kind of an interesting dynamic. 

But I only have one grandson at this point in time, so I have to 

try to catch up with Senator Inhofe, I guess, at some point in time. 

Senator CARPER. Good luck. He has a head start on you. 

You are good to come today, and I might add, you are very well 

represented on this Committee by our colleague from Tennessee. 

The question that I would like to ask is, there has been a fair 

amount of talk about mercury level in fly ash or in water. Could 

you comment on why that is? My understanding is as we do a better job of actually cleaning up the emissions stream, we end up 

with fly ash that is more toxic, including substances like mercury. 

But if you could, just give us some idea where there is so much talk 

about the level of mercury in fly ash on water. 

Mr. SMITH. I think obviously mercury as a neurotoxin is a chemical of great concern. There is a lot of debate, as you all know, 

about the mercury maximum achievable control technology need to 

be implemented with coal-fired power plants. I disagree with Tom 

Kilgore that only relying on co-benefits is, when you have a selective catalytic reduction unit on the hot side of a scrubber, that is 

really all that utilities need to do to control mercury. I don’t agree 

with that. I think we need to do more. Mercury is too dangerous 

a material not to be looking at other technologies to control it. 

I think it is not an accurate statement to say that all of these 

co-benefits equal 90 percent. I think it depends on the types of 

coals that are being burned and the particular boilers and other 

things. 

Senator CARPER. I thought 90 percent sounded pretty good. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, it may be overly optimistic, I guess is what I 

am saying. But here is the fundamental issue that I think gets 

back to the very reason we are here, is you can’t have it both ways, 

where you are saying that you are getting the co-benefits of pulling 

the mercury out of the air in the smokestacks and then say there 

is nothing in the ash. Because the mercury does not disappear. If 

it is pulled out into the fly ash or the scrubber ash, it is going to 

be captured and it is going to need to be dealt with. 
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So I think there is concern about what happens as we put more 

scrubbers on. I know both you and Senator Alexander have been 

strong leaders on clean air regulation. I think as we clean those up, 

we need to pay attention to where they ultimately go. Because if 

they don’t go out of the stack, they are going somewhere, and they 

are ending up in the ash, and we need to be careful. As we deal 

with new technologies, we need to understand how those chemicals 

migrate in that ash, and make sure, that is why EPA must be on 

the beat. They cannot be asleep at the switch here. We have got 

to get them to regulate this material. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we will have a new cop on the beat in 

about 2 weeks. 

Again, let me just express my thanks to each of you for joining 

us today, and for the work that you do, the good that you do with 

your lives. We appreciate your families being with us, too, family 

members. 

I just want to say one last time, as Senator Boxer and I have indicated, she is the Chairman of the full Committee, I as the chairman of the subcommittee that has jurisdiction over TVA, that intend to do our job with respect to oversight, both at the Committee 

level and the subcommittee level. We are going to continue to not 

only be present as we watch the work, the cleanup that is done in 

conjunction with this particular disaster. 

But also I am reminded of the words of an old Roberta Flack 

song, Killing Me Softly. There are different ways to hurt or to kill 

people. One can be like right away. The other could be over a 

longer period of time. We have about 25,000 people this year that 

are going to die from the stuff that we breathe, not the stuff that 

we eat or ingest, but the stuff that we breathe, some of which is 

actually emitted by not only TVA but all the utilities that use particularly coal. So we want to be diligent there, too. And we fully 

intend to be. 

My hope as we leave here is that TVA will leave with a renewed 

commitment to be the kind of steward that they are expected to be, 

and provide the kind of leadership that they are expected to provide, not just with respect to providing cost-effective electricity and 

energy, but also with respect to being a good environmental steward. 

Again, with that having been said, we thank you all for joining 

us today and wish you well. Thanks so much. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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